[governance] Revised Draft IGC Statement #DRM in HTML5

Wed Jun 5 10:50:36 EDT 2013

Dear All,

Further to the discussions on the mailing list, I have revised the first
version to the one below. I have highlighted the sentence still in
contention and also note that there are mixed reactions to the balance of
the protection of intellectual property rights through mediums like the DRM
to protect innovation and challenges to threats of impeded "Access". This
is a very interesting debate and one I believe should be thoroughly
explored by the IGC where we can come to some common ground (if we are able
to). I have not had the time to read Frank La Rue's new report but it would
be interesting to see his report of what the world is saying in relation to
this conflict. I am of course interested in what the IGC has to say.

Roland and Avri raised some very interesting points that deserve
discussion. As we speak, the Statement will be hosted on the Statement
Workspace on the IGC website. I have tried to capture every comment in the
attached document. I find that Statement Workspaces are far more effective
in neatly allowing people to comment on each sentence etc, so my apologies
if the attached document is inherently messy.

What are your collective thoughts on what Roland suggested that whilst
there are many battles, this is not one we should spend time on? The key
issues for your deliberation would be:-

   - What is the IGC's position on Digital Rights Management?
   - What is the IGC's position on Digital Rights Management in HTML 5?

Thank you to all those for suggesting text and new wordings and phrases. I
have tried to capture your views below. All the mistakes are of course
mine. Let us have your thoughts. As soon as the Statement is on the
Workspace, Norbert will inform us and this will allow us to track comments
on the revised  statement.

*Revised Draft Statement on Support for EFF’s Objection*

The Civil Society Internet Governance Caucus (IGC) objects to the inclusion
of digital rights management (DRM) in HTML5. We endorse and support the
formal objection lodged by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and
that the draft proposal from the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) could
stifle Web innovation and block access to content for people across the
planet.

We believe that the proposed standard by W3C is a serious threat to an open
and free internet. The inherent danger of the proposal would be to shut out
open source developers and competition, destroy interoperability and lock
in legacy business models.

 Much of the developing world relies on open source developers to enable OR
CREATE mechanisms that allow for an open environment of sharing resources
related to agricultural practices, education, health and diverse content.
In such regions, access to information is a challenge and with serious
resource constraints, but it is an open and free internet (and the
resultant ease of collaboration/sharing information) that empowers
communities.

For the foregoing reasons we reiterate our strong objection to the support
for DRM technologies in HTML5, and our agreement with the EFF's arguments
in this regard.
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