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"Unethical" HTML video copy protection proposal draws criticism from W3C reps (ars technica)
A proposal to add a DRM layer for web audio and video has been rather controversial on the W3C HTML mailing list, as reported by ars technica. The Encrypted Media Extensions proposal authored by Google, Microsoft, and Netflix would add an optional layer for protected media content, but Mozilla and others, including Google's Ian Hickson who is the WHATWG HTML specification editor, have spoken up against the proposal. "'I believe this proposal is unethical and that we should not pursue it,' he [Hickson] wrote in response to a message that Microsoft's Adrian Bateman posted on the mailing list about the draft. 'The proposal above does not provide robust content protection, so it would not address this use case even if it wasn't unethical.'"
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"Unethical" HTML video copy protection proposal draws criticism from W3C reps (ars technica) Posted Feb 24, 2012 6:23 UTC (Fri) by AndreE (subscriber, #60148) [Link]
Well if HTML5 is really going to kill plugins like Flash and Silverlight etc. then surely this is an inevitable step. It's not like the conflicting issues of freely implementable standards and necessarily proprietary DRM schemes were going to be magically resolved just because lots of people Hate Flash.
"Unethical" HTML video copy protection proposal draws criticism from W3C reps (ars technica) Posted Feb 24, 2012 16:11 UTC (Fri) by aliguori (subscriber, #30636) [Link]
> Well if HTML5 is really going to kill plugins like Flash and Silverlight
> etc. then surely this is an inevitable step. It's not like the > conflicting issues of freely implementable standards and necessarily > proprietary DRM schemes were going to be magically resolved just because > lots of people Hate Flash.
This was my initial reaction too until I spent more time thinking about it. I think an important aspect of what has made the web so successful is that it's fundamental open. Anyone can write a client[1] that can read and handle HTML/Javascript. That's why things like Webkit were able to come into existence.
Once you start building rights management into the web, it fundamentally becomes less open. How long will it be before we do key negotiation for HTML itself?
The fundamental problem with DRM is that it requires proprietary clients. The web has "solved" rights management by adapting business models or by limiting access at the server side. But trying to add content restriction to the clients goes against the fundamental openness of the web.
I certainly understand the comments about this being unethical and full heartedly agree.
[1] I realize that Flash is the expection here.
"Unethical" HTML video copy protection proposal draws criticism from W3C reps (ars technica) Posted Feb 24, 2012 17:28 UTC (Fri) by josh (subscriber, #17465) [Link] This was my initial reaction too until I spent more time thinking about it. I think an important aspect of what has made the web so successful is that it's fundamental open. Anyone can write a client[1] that can read and handle HTML/Javascript. That's why things like Webkit were able to come into existence. Once you start building rights management into the web, it fundamentally becomes less open. How long will it be before we do key negotiation for HTML itself?Exactly. Reading the thread in question, several people ask the obvious question of how a FOSS browser could even implement this specification, and the answers dance around the problem by effectively saying "just connect to whatever [proprietary] OS service or hardware provides this [DRM]".
"Unethical" HTML video copy protection proposal draws criticism from W3C reps (ars technica) Posted Feb 25, 2012 21:31 UTC (Sat) by AndreE (subscriber, #60148) [Link]
Sorry but I disagree. The Web hasn't "solved" anything. There is a still a lot of proprietary content locked away by Silverlight and Flash DRM. These mechanism rely on a client-side plugin. They aren't irrelevantly small exceptions to the rule. These are rather large use cases that won't just magically disappear.
As much as I would like to believe otherwise, I think that either there will be some DRM compromise within HTML5 or Flash/Silverlight will still be required for certain services. Anyway W3C has shown with the h264/video element scenario that they are perfectly happy to entertain the idea of non-free technologies in their standards.
Physically impossible Posted Feb 24, 2012 6:37 UTC (Fri) by slashdot (guest, #22014) [Link]
DRM on video (and music) is provably physically impossible.
1. Without GPU hardware decryption and key management, the data can simply be read with a custom video driver, or by intercepting the rendering APIs
2. Without an encrypted monitor link, video can simply be read with a capture card (note that HDCP has been cracked, so there's no way to have an encrypted monitor link)
3. Any possible DRM system can be defeated by simply pointing one or more cameras at the screen, and calibrating them so that quality loss in negligible or even nonexistent
Note that most "pirate" video is already recompressed via x264, so users already accept even visible quality loss, and thus the minimal loss from the methods described above isn't an issue.
Hence, there's absolutely no point in even trying.
Physically impossible Posted Feb 24, 2012 6:54 UTC (Fri) by Kit (guest, #55925) [Link]
Or, the DRM itself can be cracked.
This really isn't to prevent piracy, but to make something /else/ a softer target (BluRays). If it's easy to rip movies from NetFlix, the studios will go crazy and yank their videos from it (even if they can't measure any losses).
I would like to be able to ditch silverlight, but on the opposite hand I hate the idea of having DRM integrated directly into the HTML spec. Silverlight can be ditched later down the road if the movie studios stop being so paranoid... but, anything added to HTML5 will likely stay there forever/decades, and be much harder to kill off (with a much lower bar).
Physically impossible Posted Mar 2, 2012 11:15 UTC (Fri) by job (guest, #670) [Link]
It does not matter if it can be cracked or not. It just matter that it is a protection mechanism which gives you all kinds of special legal rights to sue people for circumventing it.
Physically impossible Posted Feb 24, 2012 6:57 UTC (Fri) by AndreE (subscriber, #60148) [Link]
The realities of implemented DRM is that a scheme doesn't need to be provably ubreakable. It just has to be practically very difficult. When we speak of "broken" or "cracked" DRM schemes we talk about systems where the circumvention of the DRM becomes trivial.
Anyway, the pragmatics of the situation is that there are number of companies that earn their bread using Silverlight and Flash DRM capabilities. I think it is naive for anyone to believe that they are just going to switch over something like HTML5 without attempting to add in some form of content protection.
Physically impossible Posted Feb 24, 2012 7:13 UTC (Fri) by slashdot (guest, #22014) [Link]
Well, the problem is that things only need to be cracked once, and then get distributed via BitTorrent or one-click-hosting to everyone.
Hence, if protection is not unbreakable, someone will break it and then everyone will get the results without effort.
As an example, just try entering the title of any movie by a major studio on ThePirateBay.org or Torrentz.com and you'll notice it is almost surely available for download, despite the DRM on Blu-Ray discs, NetFlix and whatever.
Physically impossible Posted Feb 24, 2012 12:56 UTC (Fri) by AndreE (subscriber, #60148) [Link]
It doesn't matter. My point was that the DRM makes infringement through those services inconvenient enough. Netflix cannot control other mediums like HDTV and discs. They can only control how exploitable their own service is, and their licensing agreements probably mandate some form of copy protection that is not trivially circumventable. Without some form of DRM they probably wouldn't even be able to offer the service, but they beat out the pirate versions on officialness, accountability, simplicity.
I'm not sure if you've seen much HTML5 video, but in supported browsers you can basically right-click and download the whole container. The "protection" as it stands is non-existent from my experience. The existing mechanism in Silverlight and Flash are effective enough that many companies already rely on them. It's inevitable that someone proposed DRM extensions to HTML5 because those companies aren't just going to disappear.
Physically impossible Posted Feb 27, 2012 19:42 UTC (Mon) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link]
^ Basically this ^
It's all bullshit, but if they want to have access to content then they need to at least pretend they give a crap about effective DRM measures.
Personally I'd rather have weak DRM with lots of online services using it as a 'standard' rather then a small selection of closed systems using fairly invasive and strong DRM. (HTML5 internet versus PS3/Xbox360)
Physically impossible Posted Feb 24, 2012 7:22 UTC (Fri) by oever (subscriber, #987) [Link]
Preventing the copying of data is something that the movie and music industry, the software industry and the ebook and newspaper industry want. More than 99% of the population would like to use content provided via these industries. These industries want to be able to require DRM and a completely locked down system like currently the iPhone, iPad and Windows Phone, for access to this content. This means that the majority of consumers will prefer these products over open products with less content.
If a larger part of the population has locked down devices, more content will be provided in locked down form and in locked down form only. The software and hardware industry is more than willing to help lock down devices, since it gives them more control.
Users are mostly unaware of the loss of control or if they are aware, they prefer the benefits of access to a lot of content over the freedom to tinker with the guts of their hardware and software. Even if the devices would allow them to tinker, they wouldn't: they lack the knowledge themselves and custom changes are expensive.
The problems with locking down devices on the personal level are sad, but the effects on society as a whole are much worse. The iPhone is already not allowing certain software. The control over the devices that Apple has is used to limit who and what software can run on this devices. This restriction is not only limited to software and there will be limitations on all content.
Websites that are deemed damaging are also already blocked. Access to data on iPhone of Windows Phone is only possible via a number of tightly controlled gateways: proprietary connectors or protocols. The companies controlling these devices must make more profit; they must use their control over the devices to maximize their profits.
Various scenarios are possible to achieve this. One of them is to make content providers pay for allowing consumers access to the services of the content providers. This is already happening for all content except web pages: either the content provider must pay to get software that accesses the data into the control point (store, itunes) or he must share a percentage of the transaction price. This control is the reason why iPhone and Windows Phone have no regular file system on their devices.
The next step will be to make users pay for the regular internet. Big websites will make deals with the device manufacturers to allow zero cost access to their websites while the websites of the general public will be invisible to the crowd using these locked down devices. People will still be able to publish via portals like Facebook where the portal gains the right to distribute the content for a profit.
Physically impossible Posted Feb 24, 2012 15:11 UTC (Fri) by krake (subscriber, #55996) [Link]
> Without GPU hardware decryption and key management
The stuff should have been moved to the hardware a decade ago. Putting it into any level above will just be used as an excuse to shut out free software implementations of that layer.
Granted that still shuts out open hardware efforts but make a larger part of the free stack eligible than any current solution.
But "content protection" is just a facade to control who can play on the market, any solution that opens the market is undesirable, hence no hardware level handling of "protection" on the consuming end.
Physically impossible Posted Feb 24, 2012 23:08 UTC (Fri) by Lennie (subscriber, #49641) [Link]
Well, you forgot one angle.
The legal one. If it is easy and people can do it almost by accident it makes it harder to prove intent in court.
Isn't that why the DMCA and so on pretty much exist ?
Physically impossible Posted Feb 24, 2012 23:40 UTC (Fri) by dmarti (subscriber, #11625) [Link]
No, they exist to give the copyright holder a veto over new technologies. People can invent the pocket MP3 player to space-shift CDs, but you can't space-shift DVD or later formats.
"Unethical" HTML video copy protection proposal draws criticism from W3C reps (ars technica) Posted Feb 24, 2012 7:40 UTC (Fri) by krakensden (subscriber, #72039) [Link]
The section of the proposal that makes everything clear:
> Can I ensure the content key is protected without working with a content protection provider?
> No. Protecting the content key would require that the browser's media stack have some secret that cannot easily be obtained. This is the type of thing DRM solutions provide. Establishing a standard mechanism to support this is beyond the scope of HTML5 standards and should be deferred to specific user agent solutions. In addition, it is not something that fully open source browsers could natively support.
> Content protected using this proposal without a content protection provider is still more secure and a higher barrier than providing an unencrypted file over HTTP or HTTPS. We would also argue that it is no less secure than encrypted HLS. For long streams, key rotation can provide additional protection.
"Unethical" HTML video copy protection proposal draws criticism from W3C reps (ars technica) Posted Feb 24, 2012 8:02 UTC (Fri) by drago01 (subscriber, #50715) [Link]
> believe this proposal is unethical and that we should not pursue it
Well there are a lot of reasons why one would disagree with such a proposal but I fail to see how it is "unethical".
If anything it will give vendors less reasons to use proprietary technologies like flash, which is imo a good thing.
"Unethical" HTML video copy protection proposal draws criticism from W3C reps (ars technica) Posted Feb 24, 2012 9:02 UTC (Fri) by k3ninho (subscriber, #50375) [Link]
I hope I'm not feeding a troll, but here are the facts:
(*) DRM which relies on giving you something locked up and the key next to it - on general-purpose computing that's not a secure move; the next solution is to give up ownership of your general-purpose computer to protect that unlocking key, which cedes ownership of your hardware to the people who run the DRM (*) They're a technical specification working group and cannot advocate a broken technical method (*) They're a technical working group and cannot recommend that businesses adopt this deficient technical method or promise to stakeholders and shareholders that this is a good idea (*) They're a technical working group and cannot recommend end-users lose control of their general-purpose computing power to protect a broken security system (*) In the end, the method by which the unlocking mechanism and keys are controlled will not be freely specified or implemented with an free software or open source because that will make it clear how to steal the key and sidestep the locks; which defeats the purpose of having an open technical specification process and committee
That's why it's unethical.
K3n.
"Unethical" HTML video copy protection proposal draws criticism from W3C reps (ars technica) Posted Feb 24, 2012 9:44 UTC (Fri) by drago01 (subscriber, #50715) [Link]
> I hope I'm not feeding a troll
I am not trolling.
As for your facts I wrote:
I mostly agree with your reasons; but it is just a technology (even though a pretty useless one as it can bypassed) but it isn't really "unethical" from my POV.
"Unethical" HTML video copy protection proposal draws criticism from W3C reps (ars technica) Posted Feb 24, 2012 11:23 UTC (Fri) by dgm (subscriber, #49227) [Link]
It's not the technology but rather the proposal that's unethical, as explained.
"Unethical" HTML video copy protection proposal draws criticism from W3C reps (ars technica) Posted Feb 24, 2012 11:25 UTC (Fri) by angdraug (subscriber, #7487) [Link] "Just a technology" is not a valid excuse, technology isn't always ethically neutral. E.g. you might say that nuclear fission is "just a technology", but nuclear bomb, a derivative technology, is clearly unethical. In the similar vein, cryptography is ethically neutral, but DRM isn't.
"Unethical" HTML video copy protection proposal draws criticism from W3C reps (ars technica) Posted Feb 24, 2012 12:06 UTC (Fri) by drago01 (subscriber, #50715) [Link]
> but nuclear bomb, a derivative technology, is clearly unethical.
Even a nuclear bomb is "just a technology" the way you *use* it decides whether it is ethical or not.
Killing people is clearly not. But lets say you use it to blast away a big asteroid that could have killed thousands of people otherwise. This is not unethical.
I can use my car to drive from A to B or use it to purposely hurt or even kill someone. 1 is fine 2 is clearly unethical.
So what I am trying to say that a technology cannot per se be declared "unethical".
"Unethical" HTML video copy protection proposal draws criticism from W3C reps (ars technica) Posted Feb 24, 2012 12:50 UTC (Fri) by angdraug (subscriber, #7487) [Link] Has a nuclear bomb ever been used to blast a threatening asteroid? No. Has it been used to kill people? Twice. Has it been used as a threat to kill people? All the time. You can revert the original purpose of a technology and use it for something good, even if its primary use and purpose is unethical, but it doesn't negate its inherent bias towards unethical use. Development of any technology is a series of choices, and it's quite often that some of these choices are ethical. Do you want to data mine the hell out of every sneeze of every user, or do you want to respect their privacy? Do you want to spoon-feed them your own content, or let them create their own? Do you make your application secure, or spend more effort on UI polish? Take any moderately complex modern technology and you'll find dozens of choices like that built into its design and implementation.
"Unethical" HTML video copy protection proposal draws criticism from W3C reps (ars technica) Posted Feb 24, 2012 13:19 UTC (Fri) by drago01 (subscriber, #50715) [Link]
> You can revert the original purpose of a technology and use it for something good, even if its primary use and purpose is unethical, but it doesn't negate its inherent bias towards unethical use.
The creators of technology might have created it for intended unethical use; but in the end no technology is inherently unethical.
The *people* using the technology are the ones that *use* it for unethical or ethical purposes.
This is what I mean with "just a technology".
"Unethical" HTML video copy protection proposal draws criticism from W3C reps (ars technica) Posted Feb 24, 2012 13:45 UTC (Fri) by angdraug (subscriber, #7487) [Link] Please have another look at the specific words I used. I didn't say intended purpose, I said primary use and purpose, and inherent bias. If a technology is primarily used for unethical purposes, it is a good indicator that it has a built-in bias, that is, it is easier to use for ill than for good.
"Unethical" HTML video copy protection proposal draws criticism from W3C reps (ars technica) Posted Feb 26, 2012 1:29 UTC (Sun) by Trelane (subscriber, #56877) [Link]
That would be exactly the argument for why console modification should be illegal.
"Unethical" HTML video copy protection proposal draws criticism from W3C reps (ars technica) Posted Feb 26, 2012 2:12 UTC (Sun) by rqosa (subscriber, #24136) [Link] But console modification isn't only done for purposes of copyright violation — it's also done to make possible things like "homebrew" game development, or for running Linux on the console, etc.
"Unethical" HTML video copy protection proposal draws criticism from W3C reps (ars technica) Posted Feb 26, 2012 2:52 UTC (Sun) by Trelane (subscriber, #56877) [Link]
> If a technology is primarily used for unethical purposes, it is a good indicator that it has a built-in bias, that is, it is easier to use for ill than for good.
Take it up with the grandparent. Also, this yanks the thread back on topic. :)
"Unethical" HTML video copy protection proposal draws criticism from W3C reps (ars technica) Posted Feb 26, 2012 10:10 UTC (Sun) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] Take it up with the grandparent. Well, the question is not clear-cut as you think. Take Free60 guys. These people developed a way to install new bootloader on XBox360... and for years it was only used to run Linux and other homebrew. This dangerous hack had literally no infringing use... at all. Then, as expected, some people invented a way to run pirated games via this same hack. And after that point most people used it do just that. Question: does it mean that initial work of Free60 guys was unethical, too? They never intended to use it for pirated games (indeed for years it was impossible) but of course broken bootloader makes it much easier, right? Or was only work of freeboot guys unethical while free60 guys are not to blame?
"Unethical" HTML video copy protection proposal draws criticism from W3C reps (ars technica) Posted Feb 26, 2012 12:24 UTC (Sun) by angdraug (subscriber, #7487) [Link] There are good reasons why "legal" and "ethical" are not synonyms. A law with a stated purpose of preventing unethical activity often ends up harmful to society and supporting a whole other lot of unethical activities. The "intellectual property" situation is a good and far from the only example of that: SOPA and friends, Dajaz1.com, mass-filing shakedowns, endless Mickey Mouse protection acts, not to mention the whole software patents mess. So no, even if console modding were unethical (which I also don't agree with as I find "intellectual property" more unethical than its infringement), it still wouldn't follow that it should be made illegal.
"Just" a technology Posted Feb 26, 2012 12:58 UTC (Sun) by man_ls (subscriber, #15091) [Link] This is what I mean with "just a technology".Please don't be naïve, we know you can do better. Even a hunting knife is different from a kitchen knife; you can use both to cut things up, but each has its intended purpose. Technologies have their primary use written all over it. It can sometimes be subverted, but that does not make the technology neutral. Science on the other hand prides itself in having many intended uses, and even that is debatable: the line is sometimes hard to draw. For instance: the Manhattan Project was not necessary to have working nuclear plants -- but it did a lot to advance the understanding of nuclear fission. The intention of this copy protection proposal is not good.
"Unethical" HTML video copy protection proposal draws criticism from W3C reps (ars technica) Posted Feb 24, 2012 13:33 UTC (Fri) by ean5533 (subscriber, #69480) [Link] Has it been used to kill people? Twice. Those bombs ended world war II. How much longer would the war have been prolonged if we continued with convential warfare? How many more lives do you think would have been lost? How many other countries might have been pulled into the fray? The death of innocents from those bombs was a tragedy, but sometimes there are no good options. Has it been used as a threat to kill people? All the time. Do you realize that the threat of force is the only thing preventing many nations from deciding to start their own world war III? Do you think that maybe, just maybe, using nuclear weapons as a threat has saved millions of lives from that kind of disaster? The point is that a nuclear weapon is just as inherently "unethical" as a gun. A gun can be used to hurt people, and it can be used to protect people -- directly, or indirectly as a threat. The same can be said of any weapon. The technology itself does not have an inherent ethical standing. If you are going to argue that nuclear weapons serve no ethical purpose, then you must also argue that guns, swords, spears, and every weapon ever created also serve no ethical purpose.
"Unethical" HTML video copy protection proposal draws criticism from W3C reps (ars technica) Posted Feb 24, 2012 14:37 UTC (Fri) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] How much longer would the war have been prolonged if we continued with convential warfare? Not long. Talks about surrender (including "unconditional surrender") were well underway when these two bombs were deployed. Hiroshima and Nagasaki have nothing to do with world war II: it was basically finished at this stage anyway. They were first acts of the Cold War. I agree with the rest, BTW.
"Unethical" HTML video copy protection proposal draws criticism from W3C reps (ars technica) Posted Feb 24, 2012 14:47 UTC (Fri) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link]
>Hiroshima and Nagasaki have nothing to do with world war II:
I seriously recommend you to read "The Making of the Atomic Bomb". It discusses these questions.
About surrender, by that time it still was not clear that Japan was going to surrender. And conventional attack on Japan would have been disastrous.
"Unethical" HTML video copy protection proposal draws criticism from W3C reps (ars technica) Posted Feb 24, 2012 15:14 UTC (Fri) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] About surrender, by that time it still was not clear that Japan was going to surrender. True. Especially if you'll recall that USSR wanted to prolong the war. And conventional attack on Japan would have been disastrous. Sure. For US. Recall that Battle of Berlin was finished in few short weeks. Berlin was heavily fortified (no less the Stalingrad), yet it was not enough. To make sure USSR will not control Japan and to have good position in the Cold War US needed Japan capitulation - and pronto. Thus Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I'm not saying US did bad in this operation: they had the weapon and they got the most out of it. But it was part of the next war, not part of the world war II.
"Unethical" HTML video copy protection proposal draws criticism from W3C reps (ars technica) Posted Feb 24, 2012 17:18 UTC (Fri) by dpquigl (subscriber, #52852) [Link]
If you're ever in Hiroshima I would recommend visiting the museum there dedicated to the atomic bomb and its consequences. It is a very self-deprecating account of the lead up to the war and the usage of the bomb. One thing they make clear in the exhibits is that these two cities were military targets that unfortunate were surrounded by civilian populations. I believe one was a military production facility and the other either housed Japan's 5th battalion or was support for it. Unfortunately wherever you have military facilities you usually have civilian populations spring up around them to support those facilities. You can see this in the US with the number of towns that only exist because they were built to support a military base and the decline of these towns when a base is closed.
"Unethical" HTML video copy protection proposal draws criticism from W3C reps (ars technica) Posted Feb 24, 2012 20:22 UTC (Fri) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] Yes, this is good museum. One thing they make clear in the exhibits is that these two cities were military targets that unfortunate were surrounded by civilian populations. s/unfortunate/fortunate/ They were selected precisely because they were military targets surrounded by civilian populations. The first basic fact you should always recall when nukes are discussed is the following: while nukes are superefficient against civilians they are not all that efficient against military targets. Sure, everything directly in the hypocenter will be totally destroyed, but trenches, tanks and pillboxes are surpsisingly effective against nukes. Sure, they can not effectively protect you against the radiation (especially wwII ones), but these effects will disable soldiers after weeks and months, not immediately. It's just to expensive to use nukes against land army in military time (it's quite effective when it's concentrated in barracks on well-known position). That's why Hiroshima and Nagasaki were choosen: target needed large civilian population, but it needed to be a military center, too (otherwise it'll create dangerous precedent).
"Unethical" HTML video copy protection proposal draws criticism from W3C reps (ars technica) Posted Feb 24, 2012 21:21 UTC (Fri) by dlang (✭ supporter ✭, #313) [Link]
Remember that the Industry in Japan was highly decentralised by that time in the war (in response to the long conventional bombing campaign against any recognisable factories). A lot of the 'manufacturing' work was being done in houses, garages and similar buildings around the cities.
And as a Military Center, these were Military support positions, warehouses, housing, etc. All conventional buildings, not pillboxes and trenches.
Pillboxes, Bunkers, and Trenches are not the place to find most of the troops unless there is an army, or invasion fleet in the area.
So I disagree that they were selected because of their large civilian population, they were selected because they were good targets from a military point of view in terms of the manufacturing and military infrastructure that would be destroyed.
"Unethical" HTML video copy protection proposal draws criticism from W3C reps (ars technica) Posted Feb 24, 2012 23:45 UTC (Fri) by csamuel (✭ supporter ✭, #2624) [Link]
Civilian settlements around military forts goes way back, many Roman forts have a vicus (civilian settlement) associated with them. The presence of the soldiers was a business opportunity for locals and colonisers alike. There are probably earlier examples too which I have not come across.
"Unethical" HTML video copy protection proposal draws criticism from W3C reps (ars technica) Posted Feb 24, 2012 14:56 UTC (Fri) by angdraug (subscriber, #7487) [Link] The question of whether those bombs were necessary to end the war remains debated by historians to this day. Even back then, the argument to use the bombs was to spare hundrends of thousands of lives of allied military personnel at the expense of a comparable number of lives of japanese civilians, an ethically questionable bargain as it is, without considering the invasion of Manchuria by Soviets, which may have played as big a role in Japan's surrender as the bombs. Furthermore, all that is only relevant if you subscribe to the utilitarian branch of ethics. It can't be a coincidence that both the D&D alignment system and the Jedi code qualify the maxima "the end justifies the means" as evil.
"Unethical" HTML video copy protection proposal draws criticism from W3C reps (ars technica) Posted Feb 25, 2012 12:35 UTC (Sat) by dvdeug (subscriber, #10998) [Link]
It amazes me how drafting someone into the military instantly makes their life worthless. Or is just that males, 18-40, have no right to live?
"Unethical" HTML video copy protection proposal draws criticism from W3C reps (ars technica) Posted Feb 25, 2012 21:24 UTC (Sat) by angdraug (subscriber, #7487) [Link] It shocks me how you declare the lives of japanese civilians worthless and ponder if they had the right to live. It may not be exactly what you just said, but it does follow from your implication that the only way I could question that bargain is if the military lives that those civilian lives were weighted against were worthless. Can we agree not to jump to conclusions any more? As I have already mentioned, I do not believe in utilitarian ethics to begin with. Because of that, I consider the whole business of killing people indubitably unethical. Since some participants of this discussion argued that it is ethical to kill people to save other people, I was trying to demonstrate that even their utilitarian ethic fails to justify the textbook example of unethical technology that is the nuclear bomb. Did I explain my point to your satisfaction, or do you still have objections to what I said that are relevant to the question of whether a technology may be unethical?
"Unethical" HTML video copy protection proposal draws criticism from W3C reps (ars technica) Posted Feb 26, 2012 11:51 UTC (Sun) by drago01 (subscriber, #50715) [Link] I got your point but I still disagree with you. A technology (no matter which one) is and cannot be unethical. No matter for what purpose or by whom said technology was developed. People that use said technologies are the ones that act ethically or not. And regarding your WWII discussion it is not the question whether the nuclear bomb itself is unethical. But whether it's use in the war was ethical or not (for the record in my option it wasn't); but the bomb itself is just a technology it does not do anything ... people ultimately decide what to use it for.
"Unethical" HTML video copy protection proposal draws criticism from W3C reps (ars technica) Posted Feb 26, 2012 12:32 UTC (Sun) by dark (subscriber, #8483) [Link] Hmm but technology doesn't just show up. People have to develop it, and I think the question at hand here is whether development of specific technology can be unethical. Calling the technology itself unethical is just a shorthand for that. And developing new technology puts tools in the hands of specific kinds of people that we can expect to act in certain ways, so it is certainly an ethical question. Do we want to give them the option of using these tools?
"Unethical" HTML video copy protection proposal draws criticism from W3C reps (ars technica) Posted Feb 26, 2012 12:46 UTC (Sun) by drago01 (subscriber, #50715) [Link]
> Hmm but technology doesn't just show up. People have to develop it, and I think the question at hand here is whether development of specific technology can be unethical.
I'd say no as long as you don't use said technology in an unethical way. Development of new technologies should not be restricted by ethical questions as long as you do not harm anyone by doing so. But once the technology is there it is ethically neutral.
The Germans developed rockets in WWII for the sole reason of killing people and killed / harmed a lot of people while doing so. So was the development process unethical? Sure it was. Is the resulting technology unethical? No. Because people decide what to use it for. You can use it for good and for evil. It is up to the people to decide that.
So you cannot simply call a technology unethical or even ethical. Lets say you develop a medicine with the primary purpose of curing people. Someone else might use the it to poison people.
What I am trying to say is that you cannot apply ethics to technologies. Ethics just apply to people's actions.
"Unethical" HTML video copy protection proposal draws criticism from W3C reps (ars technica) Posted Feb 26, 2012 12:43 UTC (Sun) by angdraug (subscriber, #7487) [Link] You can't choose freely between utilitarian and deontological ethics depending on whichever branch supports your point of view better, these branches are mutually exclusive. Which one do you use to guide your own actions? If you choose to judge a technology using utilitarian ethics, my point about primary use and ethical bias holds, and technology can be unethical. If you choose to judge it using deontological ethics (the kind where you judge intentions, not consequences), my point about decisions made during its development holds: you don't even have to consider the uses of a technology, it's enough for the intentions of its creators to be unethical to condemn it.
"Unethical" HTML video copy protection proposal draws criticism from W3C reps (ars technica) Posted Feb 26, 2012 15:01 UTC (Sun) by drago01 (subscriber, #50715) [Link] If you choose to judge a technology using utilitarian ethics [..]Again my point is to not apply any ethics to technologies. So I choose to not judge a technology by ethics at all. You can judge whether human actions are ethically or not, a technology does not have any ethics so calling one "unethical" does not make sense.
"Unethical" HTML video copy protection proposal draws criticism from W3C reps (ars technica) Posted Feb 27, 2012 5:06 UTC (Mon) by jmalcolm (guest, #8876) [Link]
On the "ethics" question, it might be worth pointing out that this is not just a technology proposal but also a suggestion on how to use the technology. So we do not have to be so abstract when discussing the pros and cons of putting it in the standard.
"Unethical" HTML video copy protection proposal draws criticism from W3C reps (ars technica) Posted Feb 27, 2012 2:10 UTC (Mon) by dvdeug (subscriber, #10998) [Link]
<i>Can we agree not to jump to conclusions any more?</i>
Can we agree to respond to the point made? The only way you could question the bargain is if you considered the lives of military draftees less than civilians.
Of course, the Japanese were killing Chinese civilians at the rate of 100,000-200,000 a month; they were planning to draft 28 million Japanese in to the military (at which point I guess it wouldn't matter as much that we killed them?); they were planning on killing 100,000 POWs if Japan was invaded, and the Americans were estimating 380,000 dead if Japan was invaded. The dropping of the bombs (200,000 dead) saved hundreds of thousands of lives.
"Unethical" HTML video copy protection proposal draws criticism from W3C reps (ars technica) Posted Feb 27, 2012 14:09 UTC (Mon) by angdraug (subscriber, #7487) [Link] Can we agree to respond to the point made? But I did. Problem is, the point you make here is not the same one you made before: The only way you could question the bargain is if you considered the lives of military draftees less than civilians. Not necessarily, a bargain with a comparable number of equally valuable lives on each side is questionable already. And you didn't accuse me of considering military lives less, you accused me of declaring them worthless. Do you still stand behind that exagerrated conclusion, or do you agree that you shouldn't have jumped that far? The reason why it's relevant whether it's military or civilian lives at stake is that protecting lives of civilians is the only purpose which can justify the very existence of the military. When you decide to trade lives in the opposite direction, you take away the only justification of your acts of war. they were planning to draft 28 million Japanese in to the military Read the links elsewhere in this thread. By August 1945, they were planning to give up, the only reason they didn't is because they were trying to get a better deal from USSR (which USA were aware of as they were intercepting the comms). They also knew that USA couldn't have more than a handful of nukes, so they knew that they won't be defeated with nukes alone (which USA also were aware of, that's why they bombed two cities instead of just one). As I've already said, this matter is still debated by historians, which means that it's highly unlikely that anyone in this thread can present an incontrovertible argument one way or the other. Why are you even trying? at which point I guess it wouldn't matter as much that we killed them? Guess again. I don't believe you're really trying to say that it would've been ok to kill 28 million Japanese civilians to prevent them from getting drafted. See how I'm once again giving you the benefit of doubt? The dropping of the bombs (200,000 dead) saved hundreds of thousands of lives. You do realize that 200,000 also is "hundreds of thousands", right? It is, in fact, the same order of magnitude as 500,000, which exactly why I call these numbers comparable.
"Unethical" HTML video copy protection proposal draws criticism from W3C reps (ars technica) Posted Feb 24, 2012 14:08 UTC (Fri) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link]
Technically, nuclear bombs were used in the USSR several times to quench burning gas wells. There were also experiments in digging artificial lakes using hydrogen bombs, but they were not really successful.
"Unethical" HTML video copy protection proposal draws criticism from W3C reps (ars technica) Posted Feb 25, 2012 20:42 UTC (Sat) by bjartur (guest, #67801) [Link] From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, on the subject of Peaceful Nuclear Explosions:
Your point stands. In retrospect, the PNE projects mostly seem like a bad excuse for nuclear explosive research. In a world free of war and abuse of technology, nuclear explosives might have been useful tools. But we live in no such world.
"Unethical" HTML video copy protection proposal draws criticism from W3C reps (ars technica) Posted Feb 27, 2012 4:53 UTC (Mon) by jmalcolm (guest, #8876) [Link]
A German Jew pioneered the use of chemical weapons in World War I. One of compounds he discovered was used to exterminate many, many thousands of Jews in the gas chambers of World War II.
It might not be such a bad idea to be cautious about the ethical implications of the technology we support or even choose not to oppose. But this is just the "guns don't kill people; people kill people" argument.
"Unethical" HTML video copy protection proposal draws criticism from W3C reps (ars technica) Posted Feb 24, 2012 12:06 UTC (Fri) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] I mostly agree with your reasons; but it is just a technology (even though a pretty useless one as it can bypassed) but it isn't really "unethical" from my POV. Why do you think it's useless? You can make it work and it's quite useful (PS3 proved that), but of course to do that you'll need to outlaw a lot of things - and this is where ethics comes into play.
"Unethical" HTML video copy protection proposal draws criticism from W3C reps (ars technica) Posted Feb 24, 2012 13:11 UTC (Fri) by slashdot (guest, #22014) [Link]
You can make copy protection work perfectly on software running on dedicated hardware, but only if you assume that chips are black boxes whose behavior cannot be determined and from which keys cannot be extracted (which is probably false due to the existence of electron microscopes).
However, all video and audio DRM is trivially defeated by pointing a camera or microphone at the thing that is showing you the content, hence the technology is useless.
"Unethical" HTML video copy protection proposal draws criticism from W3C reps (ars technica) Posted Feb 24, 2012 14:51 UTC (Fri) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] You can make copy protection work perfectly on software running on dedicated hardware, but only if you assume that chips are black boxes whose behavior cannot be determined and from which keys cannot be extracted (which is probably false due to the existence of electron microscopes). Sorry, but it's not that hard to make a chip which fries itself when you try to open it to study using electron microscopes. These are developed for military used (the probability that hostile country has access to such equipment is much higher then the probability that Joe Random Hacker has access to such equipment), but can be used for other things, too. However, all video and audio DRM is trivially defeated by pointing a camera or microphone at the thing that is showing you the content, hence the technology is useless. You assume that such cameras and microphones are not outlawed. Currently you are forbidden to use them in cinema (but people use them anyway), but they can be outlawed everywhere. Or, even better, you can make DRM mandatory on the player side: if counterfeit is played once player is locked forever. In this case you don't need to catch every piece of stolen video: one out of 100 will be enough. IOW you are partially correct: pure technical solutions will not work. But we are not talking about pure technical solutions here. We are talking about government mandates with far-reaching consequences. These can make technology work, but is it Ok to even consider the technology with requires such a drastic meddling with people's life?
"Unethical" HTML video copy protection proposal draws criticism from W3C reps (ars technica) Posted Feb 24, 2012 23:05 UTC (Fri) by Lennie (subscriber, #49641) [Link]
Don't a lot of printers/scanners have copy protection for bills ?:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EURion_constellation
Why not camera's ?
"Unethical" HTML video copy protection proposal draws criticism from W3C reps (ars technica) Posted Feb 25, 2012 21:42 UTC (Sat) by AndreE (subscriber, #60148) [Link]
You throw around the term "defeated" rather easily. Lossy capture methods lead to degradation of quality. This hardly marks DRM useless, if the goal of a DRM scheme is to protect the content in it's originally delivered form. Lossy capture often also rises above the convenience threshold for most people, making the DRM-protected content better value.
DRM is hardly the all or nothing proposition for implementers that you make it out to be
"Unethical" HTML video copy protection proposal draws criticism from W3C reps (ars technica) Posted Feb 26, 2012 1:36 UTC (Sun) by Trelane (subscriber, #56877) [Link]
Sure, but there are two problems:
0) SD is good enough for large swaths of the population, depending on usage 1) A DRMed movie need only be cracked once to be playable everhwere in its original quality. Unless playback of *any* medium requires permission of some entity somewhere.
"Unethical" HTML video copy protection proposal draws criticism from W3C reps (ars technica) Posted Feb 24, 2012 17:18 UTC (Fri) by branden (subscriber, #7029) [Link]
> I am not a troll.
Are you *sure*?
"Unethical" HTML video copy protection proposal draws criticism from W3C reps (ars technica) Posted Feb 27, 2012 4:45 UTC (Mon) by jmalcolm (guest, #8876) [Link]
Nuclear warheads are just a technology. I agree we could argue if it is their existsnce (or manufacture or possession) or their use that is unethical but that is largely semantic to the broader issue. Technology should not be an ethics free zone.
Now, despite the fact that I disagree with DRM in HTML, I think calling it unethical is a stretch. This is not just because it is a technology proposal though.
I think it violates the spirit and purpose of an open standard. But I believe more in Open Source than Free Software. If you find closed software "unethical" then I can see how that label would apply here as well.
"Unethical" HTML video copy protection proposal draws criticism from W3C reps (ars technica) Posted Feb 24, 2012 9:21 UTC (Fri) by shmerl (guest, #65921) [Link]
DRM stuffed unto users is unethical by definition.
"Unethical" HTML video copy protection proposal draws criticism from W3C reps (ars technica) Posted Feb 24, 2012 9:33 UTC (Fri) by job (guest, #670) [Link]
.. by replacing it with another proprietary technology. Not good.
"Unethical" HTML video copy protection proposal draws criticism from W3C reps (ars technica) Posted Feb 24, 2012 9:47 UTC (Fri) by drago01 (subscriber, #50715) [Link]
Well it is either an open standard or it isn't. If it isn't it should be rejected on that basis not because it is "unethical".
"Unethical" HTML video copy protection proposal draws criticism from W3C reps (ars technica) Posted Feb 24, 2012 11:23 UTC (Fri) by Company (guest, #57006) [Link]
Yes, because if something is ethical is not a valid question.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DX46Qv_b7F4#t=3952s for someone explaining the issue way better than I could.
"Unethical" HTML video copy protection proposal draws criticism from W3C reps (ars technica) Posted Feb 24, 2012 11:58 UTC (Fri) by pboddie (subscriber, #50784) [Link]
You seem to be using the "pragmatism" argument: if some open standard makes concessions to various parties, then at least those parties will use that standard and not try and get other people to use completely proprietary technologies. Unfortunately, as others have pointed out, such concessions will probably involve loopholes or "extensions" which allow those parties to merely leverage the standard while continuing to impose restrictions on others.
In other words, society in general doesn't necessarily benefit from these kinds of concessions being offered. It's like saying that making an open source software project popular is the principal concern and that the licensing should be as permissive as possible to make this happen: you then have to ask what the project has gained if the only thing that changes is that lots of people use the software but none of them help to improve the upstream project.
With standards there's an additional danger: if a standard legitimises proprietary or undesirable extensions then it has been subverted and it is then constantly at risk of being undermined. For example, if some video format becomes standard but allows proprietary codecs to be used with it, it becomes inevitable that people will publish content made by proprietary tools that favour such codecs while insisting that the content is "standard" and that there is something wrong with any end-user who cannot view the content, instead of acknowledging that the fault actually lies with themselves. The standard becomes a way of continuing business as usual (publishing proprietary content) while blaming others for supposedly not supporting the standard.
In short, we have to be wary of creating standards that are standards only in name and not in substance.
"Unethical" HTML video copy protection proposal draws criticism from W3C reps (ars technica) Posted Feb 24, 2012 12:10 UTC (Fri) by drago01 (subscriber, #50715) [Link]
> In short, we have to be wary of creating standards that are standards only in name and not in substance.
Sure I don't disagree with you. Rejecting the proposal based on such concerns is fine. But just saying "it is unethical" is imo nonsense.
"Unethical" HTML video copy protection proposal draws criticism from W3C reps (ars technica) Posted Feb 24, 2012 15:01 UTC (Fri) by pboddie (subscriber, #50784) [Link]
You can't always separate ethics from standards, at least if society is to depend on them. And what I was trying to explain was that if you open the door to unethical exploitation of standards, people don't always have the required motivation to undo the wrong.
So if people were, for example, to agree that HTTP can be extended to have some kind of privacy-undermining extra back-channel, you'd quite probably get some sites using it even in the government services realm, mostly because some vendor (with a vested interest, of course) insists that it's necessary for whatever solution they've deployed. Short of widespread public outrage, you'd probably never get those sites to do the right thing: they would claim that "the standard allows it" and make up reasons why you supposedly shouldn't be worried about it, eventually accusing you of wanting to waste taxpayers' money if you pressed them too much (ignoring that they probably wasted most of the money in the first place).
Having a few motivated people worrying about ethics at the standardisation level is a lot better than lots of unmotivated people waving the problem away when it ends up with them.
"Unethical" HTML video copy protection proposal draws criticism from W3C reps (ars technica) Posted Feb 24, 2012 16:52 UTC (Fri) by shmerl (guest, #65921) [Link]
Why is it nonsense and why can't a proposal be rejected on basis that it's unethical?
"Unethical" HTML video copy protection proposal draws criticism from W3C reps (ars technica) Posted Feb 24, 2012 19:57 UTC (Fri) by drago01 (subscriber, #50715) [Link]
Because it isn't and cannot be unethical. Read the other comments please. You are of course free to disagree with me but for me a technology has no ethics. It is the people that use it who decides what they want to do with it.
"Unethical" HTML video copy protection proposal draws criticism from W3C reps (ars technica) Posted Feb 24, 2012 23:03 UTC (Fri) by pboddie (subscriber, #50784) [Link]
The words on the screen may not be inherently unethical in that they may only describe a mechanism that can be used for many purposes, but the incorporation of those words into a standard may be motivated by a particular unethical purpose, and the effort that accompanies the effect of those words being in a standard may not only serve that unethical purpose, but also direct efforts away from other, more worthy endeavours. That would potentially be unethical, too.
Your argument is a bit like saying that the letters in the alphabet don't do any harm.
"Unethical" HTML video copy protection proposal draws criticism from W3C reps (ars technica) Posted Feb 25, 2012 14:26 UTC (Sat) by drago01 (subscriber, #50715) [Link]
> Your argument is a bit like saying that the letters in the alphabet don't do any harm.
They indeed don't because they can't act. They are just a "tool" used for some kind of communication.
My argument is the letters themselves are neutral it is the one that *uses* them which acts ethically or not.
Peoples actions can be ethical or not; not the tools used to do this actions.
"Unethical" HTML video copy protection proposal draws criticism from W3C reps (ars technica) Posted Feb 25, 2012 21:52 UTC (Sat) by AndreE (subscriber, #60148) [Link]
Tools don't exist in a vacuum, they exist in some context in which they are used. You are right, tools themselves are neutral, but the article isn't just discussing DRM in some abstract, unapplied sense. It is discussing an attempt to implement DRM. It is this implementation that is said to be unethical
Man the toolmaker Posted Feb 26, 2012 22:07 UTC (Sun) by man_ls (subscriber, #15091) [Link] I used to believe that too, but now I think that tools are most definitely not neutral. Paleontologists that unearth ancient tools (anything more sophisticated than sharpened pebbles) are able to read their purpose: hunting, sewing, making war on other peole. More specialized -- and therefore more advanced -- tools are even easier. Fingerprint-resistant automatic assault weapons are not neutral; they might be used to hunt buffalo, but most often you would use a different rifle for that and keep your assault weapons to kill people.Anecdotal use of a kitchen knife to kill someone, or of a powerful poison as botulin to make aging people look porcine, is a mere excuse for evil toolmaking. Once you learn this simple truth, many things are simpler to understand.
"Unethical" HTML video copy protection proposal draws criticism from W3C reps (ars technica) Posted Feb 26, 2012 1:12 UTC (Sun) by shmerl (guest, #65921) [Link]
Letters don't do harm, but formed into insulting words, they do. Letter's aren't unethical, but insulting words - are. DRM is not like letters. DRM is like insulting words already.
"Unethical" HTML video copy protection proposal draws criticism from W3C reps (ars technica) Posted Feb 26, 2012 1:09 UTC (Sun) by shmerl (guest, #65921) [Link]
> You are of course free to disagree with me but
> for me a technology has no ethics.
So I disagree. DRM is unethical.
"Unethical" HTML video copy protection proposal draws criticism from W3C reps (ars technica) Posted Feb 26, 2012 11:54 UTC (Sun) by drago01 (subscriber, #50715) [Link]
> So I disagree. DRM is unethical.
As I said that's fine but for me technologies have no ethics.
So we should just agree to disagree then ;)
"Unethical" HTML video copy protection proposal draws criticism from W3C reps (ars technica) Posted Mar 2, 2012 11:22 UTC (Fri) by job (guest, #670) [Link]
If you don't understand what people argue about (programming ethics in this case), and you don't want to understand, you should probably just stay quiet instead of loudly proclaiming your own definition of things to be universally better. That just makes if difficult for other people to discuss and learn from each other.
"Unethical" HTML video copy protection proposal draws criticism from W3C reps (ars technica) Posted Feb 26, 2012 1:51 UTC (Sun) by shmerl (guest, #65921) [Link]
Just to clarify, I don't view the DRM as an abstract technology, but as a whole package of how it's applied and what purpose it serves. This whole subject started from the proposal for the very practical and concrete application. DRM restricts innocent users freedom for the sake of "preventing potential illegal activity". It's preemptive policing technology, like putting all users in handcuffs, just in case some of them decide to do something illegal. It's unethical and not acceptable.
"Unethical" HTML video copy protection proposal draws criticism from W3C reps (ars technica) Posted Feb 26, 2012 6:04 UTC (Sun) by david.a.wheeler (guest, #72896) [Link] The parent post by shmerl has a nice summary of the argument against this proposal: 'I don't view the DRM as an abstract technology, but as a whole package of how it's applied and what purpose it serves... DRM restricts innocent users freedom for the sake of "preventing potential illegal activity". It's preemptive policing technology, like putting all users in handcuffs, just in case some of them decide to do something illegal. It's unethical and not acceptable.'
"Unethical" HTML video copy protection proposal draws criticism from W3C reps (ars technica) Posted Feb 25, 2012 9:34 UTC (Sat) by oldtomas (guest, #72579) [Link]
Dear drago01:
by limiting your view of "a standard" to just the technical aspects you are IMHO overly naïve (no intention to offend). Let me restate things which already have been said, in another words:
(1) If, as a technically knowledgeable person, I recommend some "standard" as a solution to a problem *perfectly knowing that in won't do* then I'm selling snake oil. That's unethical.
(2) If, as a technically knowledgeable person I'm proposing a "standard" which entails limiting the freedom of users beyond what's reasonable, that's unethical too (now: "reasonable" is of course a bit mushy, as is unethical. Sorry for that).
We all know: DRM is either snake oil, or you'd have to limit hardware to an extent that general-purpose computers will have to be banned, as are explosives or meth these days. Reasonable? Your call.
Again: not the technical details of the standard are unethical, but the fact of standing behind it and recommending it.
"Unethical" HTML video copy protection proposal draws criticism from W3C reps (ars technica) Posted Feb 27, 2012 4:33 UTC (Mon) by jmalcolm (guest, #8876) [Link] It is not a good thing. HTML with DRM is no better than Flash or Silverlight. It is however harder to get rid of and impossible to implement in Free Software. Do you really want an HTML standard that REQUIRES proprietary software?
"Unethical" HTML video copy protection proposal draws criticism from W3C reps (ars technica) Posted Feb 27, 2012 11:53 UTC (Mon) by krake (subscriber, #55996) [Link]
I don't think the proposed extension itself requires proprietary software.
However, a decade or so of broken designs for "protecting" content which usually require the decryption key and sometimes even the signing key to be available to host system software suggests that a lot of implementations for this extension will continue to employ broken designs.
The proposal is just a rehash of the current plugin problem. Having a free/open plugin API does not in any way guarantee that all plugins are available on all platforms a browser vendor might want to support.
Though this is even worse since plugins are by definition something optional, this is not.
"Unethical" HTML video copy protection proposal draws criticism from W3C reps (ars technica) Posted Feb 27, 2012 16:17 UTC (Mon) by Seegras (subscriber, #20463) [Link]
> Well there are a lot of reasons why one would disagree with such a
> proposal but I fail to see how it is "unethical".
It's not about "copying". DRM is about controlling the player- and the content-market.
So yes, it's clearly geared towards the production and well-being of monopolists, and thus unethical.
It's not illegal because those monopolists wrote the respectiva laws themselves...
"Unethical" HTML video copy protection proposal draws criticism from W3C reps (ars technica) Posted Feb 28, 2012 7:50 UTC (Tue) by krake (subscriber, #55996) [Link]
> It's not about "copying". DRM is about controlling the player- and the content-market.
Exactly!
The codes of ethics likely to be relevant to this issue Posted Feb 24, 2012 16:54 UTC (Fri) by hmh (subscriber, #3838) [Link]
The following documents are likely relevant, as members of the IEEE and the ISOC are quite prevalent on the W3C WGs (and the IETF):
IEEE code of ethics:
ISOC code of ethics:
I am unaware of the W3C regulations that might also be relevant, I am sure someone will point them out.
The codes of ethics likely to be relevant to this issue Posted Feb 25, 2012 21:47 UTC (Sat) by angdraug (subscriber, #7487) [Link] It seems to me that this DRM proposal violates both codes. Relevant part of the IEEE Code of Ethics: 1. to accept responsibility in making decisions consistent with the safety, health, and welfare of the public, and to disclose promptly factors that might endanger the public or the environment; (emphasis mine) ISOC Code of Conduct is even more specific: 2. Take all reasonable steps to minimise waste of natural resources, damage to the environment, and damage to products of human skill and industry. 6. Take all reasonable steps, including education and the wide spreading of knowledge, to ensure the Internet can be available, accessible, and useful to everyone.
"Unethical" HTML video copy protection proposal draws criticism from W3C reps (ars technica) Posted Feb 24, 2012 22:39 UTC (Fri) by luto (subscriber, #39314) [Link]
I always assumed that the existing video tag was enough. After all, current DRM schemes just obfuscate the video data, and there are plenty of ways to obfuscate in JavaScript. Splice pieces of video in strange orders, use transparent overlays to fix intentional errors in the stream, split different corners of the frame, etc. If it's done in JavaScript, it can be upgraded server-side at any time.
"Unethical" HTML video copy protection proposal draws criticism from W3C reps (ars technica) Posted Feb 25, 2012 16:50 UTC (Sat) by exadon (guest, #5324) [Link]
Won't work. You can always catch the final video frames using a modified video driver.
"Unethical" HTML video copy protection proposal draws criticism from W3C reps (ars technica) Posted Feb 25, 2012 18:44 UTC (Sat) by foom (subscriber, #14868) [Link]
It doesn't have to *work*, it has to work just as well, or poorly, as the current solutions do.
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