DRM In HTML5 — Better Than the Alternative? 268
Underholdning writes "DRM is coming to HTML5. The W3C published a working draft yesterday of the framework that will support the use of DRM-protected media. Ars Technica's Peter Bright reports on it with an article claiming that DRM in HTML5 is a victory for the open web, not a defeat. Bright argues that if HTML5 does not support DRM, then content providers will move their content away from open standards and implement it with native apps — abandoning the web in the process. Quoting: 'Keeping it out of W3C might have been a moral victory, but its practical implications would sit between slim and none. It doesn't matter if browsers implement "W3C EME" or "non-W3C EME" if the technology and its capabilities are identical. ... Deprived of the ability to use browser plugins, protected content distributors are not, in general, switching to unprotected media. Instead, they're switching away from the Web entirely. Want to send DRM-protected video to an iPhone? "There's an app for that." Native applications on iOS, Android, Windows Phone, and Windows 8 can all implement DRM, with some platforms, such as Android and Windows 8, even offering various APIs and features to assist this.'"
Betteridge's law of headlines (Score:3, Interesting)
Oh the horror! (Score:5, Interesting)
There would be content on the internet that is not on the web? Oh the horror! </sarcasm>
Seriously, I want them to provide their own programs for DRM-protected stuff. That stuff just doesn't belong on the web. After all, even if it were made with HTML5+DRM and accessed through web browsers, it would still not really be part of the web, because I could not just fire up any web browser and watch it; I'd first have to install their proprietary DRM. So what is the big difference, if I have to install some proprietary code anyway? If it's a separate program, I'll at least know up front that it's not part of the web.
Also, in my experience, native programs tend to have the better interfaces anyway.
it should be standard (Score:2, Interesting)
There's an increasing amount of content that you can't view without DRM support, and people want to view this content. This should be enabled in the HTML standard, even if the plugins have to be platform specific.
It's only going more in this direction in the future. I have a cousin who works for a major news agency to remain unnamed here, and there is a movement afoot in the news world to investigate DRM for protecting online news content. There is a realization that they cannot keep giving it away forever. There have been a few initial experiments with paywalls on some news sites, but not DRM per se. DRM is a big thing now though in terms of what is wanted going forward. So either this can use the Web, or as TFA says, it will move off the web entirely.
Either the Web has to keep up, or it will become less and less relevant to modern computing. Not overnight of course, but times change. At one point, if you told people the Web would supplant Gopher, they just laughed.
Re:What's the difference? (Score:2, Interesting)
It's about choice. If the web does not have DRM then consumers can only use services like Netflix where Netflix deigns to create an app (plug-ins are on their way out). That will generally be the few dominant platforms.
If DRM is a standardized part of the web then anyone with a standards compliant browser can access those services. This isn't guaranteed - there are various ways that Netflix (etc.) could still stop that from happening, but their support of this standard suggests that they actually want me to be able to use their service on my Playbook.
I want the choice to be able to stray beyond the dominant platforms and still use Netflix.