FSF: Stop DRM in HTML

Dear LWN,

For years, our Defective by Design campaign and the anti-[DRM][1]
movement have been fighting media and proprietary software companies
who want to weave Digital Restrictions Management into the HTML
standard that undergirds the Web. Winning this is a top priority for
us -- the DRM proposal, known as EME (Encrypted Media Extensions),
would make it cheaper and more politically acceptable to impose
restrictions on Web users, opening the floodgates to a new wave of DRM
throughout the Internet.

[1]: https://www.defectivebydesign.org/what_is_drm_digital_res...

The battle is coming to a head as EME approaches a final vote by the
Web's standardization organization, the World Wide Web Consortium
(W3C). We need to make our voices heard now -- the W3C is convening
March 20-22 and is scheduled to discuss the proposal. Two things you
can do:

**[1: Sign our petition to demand that the W3C reject the Encrypted
  Media Extensions proposal, and keep DRM out of Web standards.][2]**

[2]: https://my.fsf.org/civicrm/profile/create?gid=183&res...

**2: Pay a visit to a W3C office in your country, and take a protest
  selfie.**

The W3C has twenty global offices on every continent. If you live near
one of them, **you have a unique opportunity to make a difference in
this struggle**. Use your bike, feet, train or car to get to one and
take a photo of yourself with a sign protesting DRM in HTML (try our
[printable sign][3]). We have reliable advice that this will be very
influential to the W3C's leadership -- if they know the whole world is
watching them, it will be much harder for them to take this huge step
backward for the Web. Here's the full list of offices:

[3]: https://static.fsf.org/nosvn/dbd/no-drm-in-html/no-drm-in...

* Acton, Australia
* Amsterdam, The Netherlands
* São Paulo, Brazil
* Tampere, Finland
* Paris, France
* Berlin, Germany
* Heraklion, Greece
* Budapest, Hungary
* Pune, India
* Pisa, Italy
* Daejeon, Korea
* Rabat, Morocco
* Moscow, Russia
* Dakar-Fann, Senegal
* Pretoria, South Africa
* Asturias, Spain
* Kista, Sweden
* Oxford, United Kingdom
* Cambridge, United States
* Kanagawa, Japan

You can find the precise addresses of the offices (except the
[USA's][4] and [Japan's][5]) on [this W3C page][6].

[4]: https://www.w3.org/Consortium/contact-mit
[5]: https://www.w3.org/Consortium/contact-keio
[6]: https://www.w3.org/Consortium/Offices/staff

Please send your pictures to <campaigns@fsf.org> and, if you're on
[social media][7], post them with the hashtag #hollyweb. **To put
pressure on the W3C leading up to its big meeting, make sure to send
us your photos by Thursday, March 17th.**

[7]: https://www.fsf.org/share

We'll share your photos in an online gallery and on March 20th, we'll 
incorporate them into a demonstration outside the central W3C office 
at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. (Yes, this is the 
second day of our [LibrePlanet][8] conference -- and serendipitously, 
the conference and W3C office are in the same building!) If you'd 
like to preserve anonymity, we're happy to blur your face.

[8]: https://www.libreplanet.org/conference

We're also seeking leaders to take it one step further and organize a
demonstration at any global W3C office this month. We'll provide
support with logistics, resources and promotion. Let us know at
<campaigns@fsf.org> if you'd like to work with us!

We have a real chance to win this fight. Many of the W3C's hundreds of
member organizations and staff members stand with us in opposition to
DRM in HTML. A few giant companies, like Microsoft, Netflix, and
Google, are driving the push to add DRM to the HTML standard --
because they're beholden to Hollywood and big media to lock down their
video streams. This comes down to a simple question, which has
repercussions beyond just DRM: **will we have a Web designed for big
media companies and Hollywood -- the Hollyweb -- or a Web that works
for the billions of people around the world that rely on it to
communicate, connect and organize?**

For more information about DRM in HTML, see the [coalition letter][9]
we co-signed with 26 other organizations arguing against the proposal,
the Electronic Frontier Foundation's [blog post on the subject][10],
and the [full text of the proposal itself][11].

[9]: https://www.defectivebydesign.org/sign-on-against-drm-in-...
[10]: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/03/defend-open-web-kee...
[11]: https://w3c.github.io/encrypted-media/

Together, we **will** stop the Hollyweb!

Zak Rogoff  
Campaigns Manager

*Read online:
<https://www.defectivebydesign.org/show-them-the-world-is-...>.*
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Sent from the Free Software Foundation,

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