World Wide Web Consortium abandons consensus, standardizes DRM with 58.4% support, EFF resigns - Sensationalist Headlines

[QUOTE] In July, the Director of the World Wide Web Consortium overruled dozens of members' objections to publishing a DRM standard without a compromise to protect accessibility, security research, archiving, and competition. EFF appealed the decision, the first-ever appeal in W3C history, which concluded last week with a deeply divided membership. 58.4% of the group voted to go on with publication, and the W3C did so today, an unprecedented move in a body that has always operated on consensus and compromise. In their public statements about the standard, the W3C executive repeatedly said that they didn't think the DRM advocates would be willing to compromise, and in the absence of such willingness, the exec have given them everything they demanded. This is a bad day for the W3C: it's the day it publishes a standard designed to control, rather than empower, web users. That standard that was explicitly published without any protections -- even the most minimal compromise was rejected without discussion, an intransigence that the W3C leadership tacitly approved. It's the day that the W3C changed its process to reward stonewalling over compromise, provided those doing the stonewalling are the biggest corporations in the consortium. EFF no longer believes that the W3C process is suited to defending the open web. We have resigned from the Consortium, effective today. [/QUOTE] Source: [URL="https://boingboing.net/2017/09/18/antifeatures-for-all.html"]Boing Boing[/URL]

It was depressing hearing of this morning. There is not good paths from here with this precedent. [url]https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2017/09/open-letter-w3c-director-ceo-team-and-membership[/url]

fuck

What a bunch of dickheads. [editline]19th September 2017[/editline] It's incorrect to say they standarized DRM, that would make it seem like the standard is a form of DRM, it's not, it's a standard on how to communicate with said DRM, which is even worse.

nice one you bellends

[QUOTE]the W3C executive repeatedly said that they didn't think the DRM advocates would be willing to compromise, and in the absence of such willingness, the exec have given them everything they demanded.[/QUOTE] what the shit "oh you're not willing to compromise? it's okay then we'll just give you everything you want" seriously what the shit the W3C executive needs to get purged good on EFF for resigning, the W3C is now a lost cause

[QUOTE]the W3C executive repeatedly said that they didn't think the DRM advocates would be willing to compromise, and in the absence of such willingness, the exec have given them everything they demanded.[/QUOTE] Yes I'm sure that was the reason and not a big fat check.

[QUOTE=Electrocuter;52696211]what the shit "oh you're not willing to compromise? it's okay then we'll just give you everything you want" seriously what the shit the W3C executive needs to get purged good on EFF for resigning, the W3C is now a lost cause[/QUOTE] Makes sense, since they only joined because of this issue

What's the feasibility of breaking with w3c and forking the html5 standard?

[QUOTE=winsanity;52696748]What's the feasibility of breaking with w3c and forking the html5 standard?[/QUOTE] With EME being already implemented in major browsers? Not quite possible.

[url=chrome://settings/content/protectedContent]chrome://settings/content/protectedContent[/url] You can disable EME here for now in Chrome. It took me way too long to find this link...

[QUOTE=winsanity;52696748]What's the feasibility of breaking with w3c and forking the html5 standard?[/QUOTE] possible but you'd have to get major browsers on board. firefox and chrome shouldn't be too tough but internet explorer, opera, and safari might be a challenge. the bigger issue would be getting sites on board with the forked standard, since you would have to support both to avoid breaking sites with features available in one standard but not the other.

The way w3c gives out votes pretty horribly stacks things, along with how their leadership has behaved here. Companies should have just done their own DRM if they really wanted it. This is a joke of a "standard" with potential to lock out so many people.

It's for reasons like this that 100% of every humble bundle order I make goes to the EFF, and I suggest you do the same as well. You can choose which charity your purchase goes to on all bundles, purchases, and other transactions on the [URL="https://www.humblebundle.com/store/select-charity"]humble bundle website here.[/URL]

I can't be the only one who realizes that all it takes for DRM'd video/audio content to be pirate-able is 1 person to record their screen+sound and upload that content somewhere else, right? Why is so much effort being spent on this if at the end of the day, you could dump the video output of the browser window to a file?

Another big firm shilled out by another big firm, not even surprising anymore. Still fucking pisses me off though.

[QUOTE=Sombrero;52699485]Another big firm shilled out by another big firm, not even surprising anymore. Still fucking pisses me off though.[/QUOTE] The EFF is a non-profit. Nice casual slide of nihilism there, though.

[QUOTE=Sombrero;52699485]Another big firm shilled out by another big firm, not even surprising anymore. Still fucking pisses me off though.[/QUOTE] could you elaborate on this

Pieces of shit, I hope this backfires crazy for them.

"they wouldn't compromise so we just gave them everything they wanted" Either the executive was always in the pro-DRM pocket or he's just that limp when it comes to negotiating. This isn't even trying, this is like a police negotiator giving terrorists a billion dollars in cash, an air-lifted APC, a weapons stockpile, diplomatic immunity and letting them keep the hostages.

I'm not hugely savvy on what all the w3c does, what does this mean for the end user? What do they use this DRM for exactly?

I thought the people in charge of the World Wide Web were intelligent.

At this point, W3C sounds more and more like that Villainous group From Megaman Battle Network who happens to have the similar name of World 3.

[QUOTE=Selek;52699955]I'm not hugely savvy on what all the w3c does, what does this mean for the end user? What do they use this DRM for exactly?[/QUOTE] From what I understand, the W3C (World Wide Web Consortium i believe), is a standards organization that kind of defines standards of the web, sort of like how you get IEEE for engineering aspects, etc. etc. I don't fully understand why the DRM is bad, but from what I've gathered, it can be bad for making content accessible to users with disabilities, as well as just be a giant pain in the ass.

[QUOTE=ForgottenKane;52699536]The EFF is a non-profit. Nice casual slide of nihilism there, though.[/QUOTE] Woah, not talking about the EFF here. I'm talking about the W3C.

[QUOTE=Scot;52696257]Yes I'm sure that was the reason and not a big fat check.[/QUOTE] Who paid off W3C to implement DRM standards?

[QUOTE=thelurker1234;52698800]The way w3c gives out votes pretty horribly stacks things, along with how their leadership has behaved here. Companies should have just done their own DRM if they really wanted it. This is a joke of a "standard" with potential to lock out so many people.[/QUOTE] They do via flash and silverlight

[QUOTE=thrawn2787;52702043]They do via flash and silverlight[/QUOTE] which are both dead as they should be

:snip:

[QUOTE=Selek;52699955]I'm not hugely savvy on what all the w3c does, what does this mean for the end user? What do they use this DRM for exactly?[/QUOTE] To fuck you over as a regular customer, the only purpose DRM ever had and will ever have really. It will mostly be used to "secure" video files you view online. Prevent simple ripping via right click - download as for example. In the end it does nothing against simply screen recording the content. So basically it will do nothing in terms of protection and just be a hassle for paying customers. With this it will already mean the possible degradation of any browser that doesn't stick 100% to their standards. Granted it is made a standard so it can be implemented easier but still, sometimes browsers deviate from those for better reasons. Ultimately just look on how the latest DRM on 4K BluRay works right now. Want to watch 4K on a PC? There are only a handful of actual 4K BluRay players for PC out, on top of that you will need Win10, a Intel Processor of the 7th Generation (KabyLake), a Display with HDMI 2.0a (HDCP 2.2 compatible) and paying for a license of a BluRay software player as those need special encryption keys (sometimes that software comes with the drive though). All because of the DRM they use. Don't have one of those listed (4-6th Gen Intel CPU or AMD CPU , 4K screen but no HDCP 2.2), well fuck you and paying for a 4K BluRay. (In the meanwhile pirates just download a 4K Rip and watch it. 4K Rips are still rare but they already happened.) Will this end up as bad the 4K BluRay example? Probably not but it is another unnecessary thing that literally does nothing. It just adds limitations and potential for abuse and harm via third parties.