No, I get and disagree with his point entirely.
He was saying that an individual should be able to access any big media companies content DRM free and use their own CDMs to add DRM to it and distribute it, which doesn’t make any sense whatsoever. (everything else they can do, any streaming service could use their own CDMs to distribute any content they have rights to.)
They can’t. Any entity can make a CDM, any entity can interface with another entities CDM to consume their content. The industry has absolutely no control over who makes or makes use of CDMs. The only thing they can do is control which CDM they distribute their OWN CONTENT under. Previous to EME and CDMs the industry had complete control over who could use their proprietary distribution systems, and charged an arm and a leg for them knowing that they were they only choice widely installed and usable. The bar was such that no one else could compete or even get any sort of market traction. EME resolves this and opens the playing field to anyone, the “industry” has no control over anyone else, only which CDM they use themselves.
BUT they do.
The standard is what gives anyone a chance to participate. You could create a new browser and instead of having to wait for Microsoft or Adobe to write a plugin for your specific browser, you can implement the EME standard, and ONE of the the things EME allows you to do is connect with other peoples CDMs so that their content can be consumed on your device.
The standard is what allows new people to create CDMs so if you have a bunch of unique content you could create your own CDM, and anyone could use it automatically without having to install anything, which is what kept small players out of the market, and you wouldn’t have to license Adobe’s or Microsoft’s CDMs.
Those are the two most meaningful things anyone could do with such tech, and they are a HUGE improvement.
That is true, but not thanks to anything EME or CDM related. That is due only to not being able to afford the distribution licensing for the original copyrighted content. The same thing that stops them without EME. Anyone with original content, or with content they have the rights to distribute is free to start a service to do so. Nothing is stopping anyone anymore.
Saying that anyone couldn’t become Netflix is a big duh, who thought that could happen? Whether or not EME is a standard, that is a silly idea. It isn’t a technological limitation, rather a licensing and resource limitation.
Sure. I’d be happy to.
Anyone can do the two most meaningful things with encrypted content that they were previously blocked from:
- Make their own in their own control without needed to go through or have the permission of one of the big companies.
- Make a device or browser that interacts with other people’s content without them having to implement their own proprietary system on your browser or device.
(Neither of these are possible without a standardized way of interacting with this type of content and EME unblocks small and new players which previously could not participate, now they can, which is the OPPOSITE of cory’s claim.)
Additionally EME allows the CDMs to be sandboxed which:
- Prevents the CDM from doing anything to your system besides decryption media content. Previous plugins were some of the biggest vector points for malware because they had system level access.
- Increase user privacy, so that whomever created the CDMs cannot get information about a user that they are not supposed to. Mozilla has a great article about how EME enables this to happen. Previously plugins like flash and silverlight allow for things like supercookies that can track your activity across all sites, etc. and were a huge breech of user privacy.
- Consumer choice. Freedom to choose what device and system you use. You won’t be limited to the few that a major plugin has been ported to.
These are all huge positive leaps forward that vastly improve many of the pain points in DRM. This is why the EFF is so adamantly wanting to block it, they are hard line anti-drm which is fine, and they see improved DRM without the consumer issues that they’ve used as talking points against DRM as a major loss in their war against DRM. So they are trying to block all these huge improvements for consumers, content creators, small new companies, using blatant misinformation. Their view is that if it stays shitty for everyone they will have an easier time killing it, whereas if all the pain points are resolved then they’ll have to fight it on an intellectual argument, which is much more difficult to gain traction on. That is fine if they are honest about what they are doing. I think spreading misinformation and being dishonest about their stance hurts their cause tremendously and is the opposite of their charter to do what is best for users. This is also why the EFF did not engage with the standard to improve any issues, but rather proposed an impossible addition to the consortium member agreement, one that could never be legally binding because contracts cannot superseded laws and drm circumvention is covered under the law currently. The contract would NOT be legally enforceable so it wouldn’t add the protection they are falsely claiming it would.
It would also force an INTENTIONALLY NEUTRAL consortium, the one responsible for standards and the open web, to take a hard line side, and such contracts would not be signable by many of its members. Would the EFF be okay with EME and DRM if the W3C added such an unenforceable clause to its charter? Of course NOT!!! It is a dishonest attempt to block the standard from moving forward, period.
What they should be doing is focusing on the real problem, changing the LAWS, like the DMCA, which are what remove most of the rights we should have. None of these other actions will make any difference unless we can change the laws that are the underlying problem.
