That's a bit disheartening. Instead of having a basic standard to start with, we will now have none.
The issue that FSF and others appears to have is with the Content Decryption Module which is a binary blob at the moment.
Standardising/opening up the CDM spec could have been done afterwards.
If the W3C were a bit sneakier they could have played a bait-and-switch game on the content providers and push for a standard/opensource CDM at some point.
Why couldn't there be an open-source CDM?
You could have an "open source" implementation. But you couldn't have an effective free software implementation, because it wouldn't be possible for it to be an effective DRM measure. If you have free software DRM, what stops a user from removing the DRM components (hint: nothing)?
Nothing will EVER stop it. DRM is a scam, nothing more, nothing less. As long as human beings have access to the data that they are (legally) allowed to have access to, unencrypted data will exist and will be pirated.
Steam solved the DRM issue eons ago: become the best place to get something, and people will flock to you to get it.
Arguably GOG solved it by not having it at all. Seems to be doing fine; outside of AAA studios, game devs don't seem to be going for it any more, giving GOG a healthy libary. And the AAA's have kinda lost enthusiasm for it outside of Ubisoft.
> Nothing will EVER stop it. DRM is a scam, nothing more, nothing less.
I'm very anti-DRM. My point to GP was that there's no point wishing for a free software DRM implementation -- because there's no way the people orchestrating the DRM conspiracy would allow for someone to remove their precious cashcow^Wdigital restrictions.
> As long as human beings have access to the data that they are (legally) allowed to have access to, unencrypted data will exist and will be pirated.
Yes, this is true. But I really wish we would solve the actual problem: corporations thinking that DRM is actually a benefit to anyone.
> Steam solved the DRM issue eons ago: become the best place to get something, and people will flock to you to get it.
Steam has DRM (the games are tied to Steam IIRC so if your account ever gets deleted you're fucked), so I don't know what you mean by "solved the DRM issue".
Steam has DRM (the games are tied to Steam IIRC so if your account ever gets deleted you're fucked), so I don't know what you mean by "solved the DRM issue".
I pointed out the same thing elsewhere in this thread. Steam didn't solve the DRM issue (it still has it) and it didn't solve the "piracy" issue (you can still pirate Steam games by ripping their DRM).
It solved the "lost sales" issue, by making it so extremely convenient to buy games legally that anyone who can afford to just isn't going to bother pirating stuff.
Do you have any stats on how many publishers use the DRM? I get the feeling that the numbers are quite high for AAA games. Also, the DRM being "trivially breakable" doesn't actually help anyone -- if you buy a game then break the DRM you're implicitly signalling that DRM is good to publishers.
.. of course, Steam is a closed source product serving a closed app store on two and a half platforms. It's not really the same thing as a video player implemented in multiple open source browsers.
(Steam also gains a lot of goodwill from discounts, which media companies are strangely unwilling to do)
Desura, I seem to remember, was buggy as hell and didn't support half the games that steam did. However, even with those problems, I think the problem of coming in late to a space that's already dominated did most of the damage to them though.
You could add to the first claim "offer a good product and pirating will stop", with "lower economic inequality", so despite Steam being nice and all - pirating exist where its still too expensive to access their games.
It would be nice if the pricing of Steam was adapted to the economic conditions of the country - but that then has problems of rich country users would probably find proxies in poor countries.
Its just not fair for someone making/having enough cash to buy Steam games with pocket change, while another large group of people have to plan and save for months to get same access, of course they will find other methods.
>It would be nice if the pricing of Steam was adapted to the economic conditions of the country - but that then has problems of rich country users would probably find proxies in poor countries.
This is a thing. Steam games have different prices in different countries, and there is some amount of region locking going on. On websites selling steam keys you will often find Russian keys that can only be used through a proxy.
I think the bigger thing causing piracy is inequality in the same country. Steam sales are a good measure by giving patient people significant discounts, but apparently that's not enough to completely eradicate piracy.
Oh, not arguing Steam is an awesome tool in generating more revenue for the publishers. But it didn't "solve" the DRM problem. It mostly showed that it's a red herring.
(Steam itself is also DRM, but AFAIK easily broken so more perfunctory).
I guess it depends on what the DRM problem really is. If the problem is that companies don't make enough money because of pirating, then Steam did solve the problem, because they make enough money despite pirating.
> what stops a user from removing the DRM components
I think inertia and convenience. Casual users won't hack around trying to rip Netflix when they have already paid for it.
Also since services like Netflix are in the cloud they allow for viewing from multiple devices and other benefits (remembering where you left off, etc).
Sure, there might be some savvy developers out there that might put out a custom build of Chromium with a stream ripper plugin. But that still means that some users have to pay for content.
I'm talking about a free software DRM implementation -- where users have been explicitly given the freedom to remove the DRM. Sure, not everyone will modify their copy of Chromium but once a single developer does and creates a fork of it, that's all you need (and that's why freedoms #2 and #3 are so important).
The reason I pointed that out is because wishing for a "free software DRM implementation" is a bit silly, because having a free software implementation contradicts the whole purpose of DRM (which is why we should reject DRM as a concept, not barter with DRM proponents about what the licensing of the DRM binary blobs should be).
DRM as a concept is incompatible with free software. Having "a majority of the code path free" is not a meaningful or useful statement -- a piece of software that has proprietary components in it makes the entire piece of software proprietary, especially if removing the proprietary component removes critical features of the software.
What they should do is to create a standard open source license that all DRM must use. Instead, we now have none. Current DRM just pick their own license and that means many are incompatible. Some is binary blobs, some aren't. Wouldn't it be better for everyone involved if there were a standard?
There is a limit to what standards can and should do. At some point it will do more harm than good, and that point is basically reached when there is no common ground. DRM is as warmly welcomed in a free software ecosystem as forced open sourcing would be for drm producers.
> What they should do is to create a standard open source license that all DRM must use. Instead, we now have none.
There is a very simple reason for that: DRM and Free Software are fundamentally incompatible. So you cannot have a free software license that would allow for DRM software released under that license to restrict users (by definition: DRM violates freedom #0).
> Current DRM just pick their own license and that means many are incompatible. Some is binary blobs, some aren't. Wouldn't it be better for everyone involved if there were a standard?
No, it would be better if we stopped trying to play nice to the DRM conspiracy.
> DRM is as warmly welcomed in a free software ecosystem as forced open sourcing would be for DRM producers.
... I don't know what definition of free software you're using. But according to mine, DRM violates freedom #0 by definition. And the DMCA means that DRM also effectively violates freedom #1 (namely removing the DRM) too.
Some publishers just use flash to manage digital media, and there is free FLOSS version of flash. It is not very effective as copy protection, but drm is not the same as copy protection as Denuvo often points out.
If one look outside of the webrowser, there is also tools like tmp-tools, as linux have tpm support for quite a time now.
As copy protection they are either ineffective or, to use a security term, broken. Some companies care about that and will not use it, while others will (know several examples, like the Swedish national TV, which has broken copy protection but don't care/mind). This is why such standard would be a poor choice, and having no standard is better when there a well established understanding that a significant portion of implementation will be standard incompatible.
EME is bad because a significant portion of website will not work universally on all machines. The current system is better, and all EME is doing is causing is placing the DRM battlegrounds on W3C rather than making innovation for the web.
tmp-tools is libraries/tools to talk to TPM's on a linux system. Using them, one can implement concepts like trusted boot, and there were/is a patch to grub for that.
The issue that FSF and others appears to have is with the Content Decryption Module which is a binary blob at the moment. Standardising/opening up the CDM spec could have been done afterwards.
If the W3C were a bit sneakier they could have played a bait-and-switch game on the content providers and push for a standard/opensource CDM at some point. Why couldn't there be an open-source CDM?