Creative Commons Aotearoa New Zealand discussion

["Sutherland, Paul" <Paul.Sutherland AT ccc.govt.nz>]

Like it or not the global economy has and needs Digital Rights
Management standards to manage Digital Rights - so what would your
alternative standard be.

Is there an IEEE one that you would prefer - or something else

/paul 

-----Original Message-----
From: cc-nz-bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org
[mailto:cc-nz-bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of Danyl Strype
Sent: Wednesday, 8 May 2013 3:37 PM
To: Creative Commons Aotearoa New Zealand discussion
Subject: [Cc-nz] Keep crippleware (DRM) out of HTML5 standards

Kia ora koutou

A group of companies, including Microsoft, Google, NetFlix and the BCC,
are attempting to build what I call crippleware ("DRM" or "Digital
Rights Management") into HTML5 - the open standards which define the Web
- with a proposal called EME (Encrypted Media Extensions). It's very
important that the W3C (the World Wide Web Consortium, who govern the
HTML standards) hear strong opposition from everyone who cares about an
"open and upcapturable internet" (to quote InternetNZ).

Having standards defined by a non-commercial public body like the W3C is
what we mean by the phrase "open standards". In contrast, "proprietary
standards" exist when commercial products like Adobe Flash become de
facto standards by doing something first, giving one company power to
change the standard on a whim, in ways that privilege them and their
commercial partners. One of the main goals of defining
HTML5 was to replace de facto standards (like Flash and MS
Silverlight) with open standards for multimedia on the web.

Peter Eckersley and Seth Schoen of the Electronic Frontier Foundation:
"W3C is there to create comprehensible, publicly-implementable standards
that will guarantee interoperability, not to facilitate an explosion of
new mutually-incompatible software and of sites and services that can
only be accessed by particular devices or applications. But EME is a
proposal to bring exactly that dysfunctional dynamic into HTML5, even
risking a return to the "bad old days, before the Web" of deliberately
limited interoperability."

The HTML standards (currently at version 5, thus HTML5) are what allow
developers to be sure that web browsers and websites speak the same
language. This is important for web developers, because they can make a
website which supports the standards, confident that people will be able
to to use it no matter which web browser they like to use. Also,
programmers who work on web browsers can improve their software with
confidence, knowing that as long as their browser supports the
standards, it will work properly with any website. While it's true that
not all browsers or websites have full support for HTML5 yet, it's in
the best interests of everyone that the majority of developers continue
to work towards that goal.

Broad support for HTML5 will make it hard for any one browser to
monopolize the web, simply by being the only one whose proprietary
standards all websites work with (yes, I'm looking at you MS Internet
Explorer). It will make it hard for a handful of websites to dominate
the web, simply by being the only ones that works well with all browsers
(yes, I'm looking at you Google, and FaceBook too). Letting DRM
crippleware requirements in through the back door, under the cover of
EME, risks allowing a handful of giant companies to achieve monopoly
power and dominance over the web anyway.

Let's be clear, the EME proposal is not about privacy or security for
users. There are plenty of open standards for making sure your email is
private (eg OpenPGP), and your online banking is secure (eg SSL).
This is about "encrypted media", online music and video that audiences
can't enjoy unless they allow their computer to be compromised by
EME-enabled crippleware. As Cory Doctorow points out, people have
rejected such DRM crippleware at every opportunity, and its proponents
must not be allowed to hijack public standards to force it on them.

Doctorow says:
"The W3C has a duty to send the DRM-peddlers packing, just as the US
courts did in the case of digital TV. There is no market for DRM, no
public purpose served by granting a veto to unaccountable, shortsighted
media giants who dream of a world where your mouse rings a cash-register
with every click and disruption is something that happens to other
people, not them."

Please the support Defective By Design, and help build a broad public
campaign for a web infrastructure that serves the public good, and
creates a level playing field amongst companies who work on the web.
You can sign their petition here:
http://www.defectivebydesign.org/no-drm-in-html5

More info:
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/03/defend-open-web-keep-drm-out-w3c-s
tandards

Feel free to forward this email to anyone you think might be supportive.
Please help us spread the word.

He mihi nui

--
Danyl Strype
Community Developer
Disintermedia.net.nz/strype

"Geeks are those who partake in our culture."
- .ISOcrates

"Uncomfortable alliances are not just necessary; they reflect and speak
to the tremendous possibility of our political moment."
- Harmony Goldberg and Joshua Kahn Russell
http://www.nationofchange.org/new-radical-alliances-new-era-1337004193

"Both Marxists and Chicago-school libertarian economists can agree that
free software is the best model."
- Keith C Curtis
http://keithcu.com/wordpress/?page_id=407
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