[governance] Why HTML5 #DRM is dangerous for Free Software (was Draft Statement...)

Fri Jun 14 00:14:10 EDT 2013

> I think that it's very important that when cultural goods are sold
> rather than shared freely, it must be possible to buy without the
> “who bought what” information getting recorded in some kind of database.

I say this is already being done. Moot point as DRM is not the culprit
here. Again I reiterate that I'm against DRM

> The specification which is under discussion foresees that an additional
> component will be needed in addition to OS + Browser + Movie Player:
> A “content decryption module” (CDM).

> In my opinion, it is not plausible to expect the CDMs to be made
> available for Free Software operating system platforms. (Doing so would
> make it trivially easy to defeat what that whole architecture with the
> CDMs is seeking to achieve.)

Doing so will not prevent the FS community from utilizing the
resources/material that have been rightfully purchased; so there's no
question of this obstructing use on an open OS or otherwise. It will not
prevent the open source community from utilizing what they've bought. My
point is that this is *not a sufficient basis* for rejecting DRM. Again,
for clarity's sake noting here that I'm against DRM

The key reason I'm against DRM is here:
In one instance of DRM that caused a rift with consumers,
Amazon.com<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon.com>remotely deleted
purchased copies of George
Orwell <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Orwell>'s *Nineteen
Eighty-Four<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nineteen_Eighty-Four>
* and *Animal Farm <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_Farm>* from
customers' Amazon Kindles
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_Kindle>after providing them a
refund for the purchased products.
[44] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_rights_management#cite_note-44>Commentators
have widely described these actions as
Orwellian <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orwellian>, and have alluded to Big
Brother <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Brother_(Nineteen_Eighty-Four)>from
Orwell's
*Nineteen Eighty-Four*.[45]<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_rights_management#cite_note-45>
[46] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_rights_management#cite_note-46>[
47] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_rights_management#cite_note-47>[48
] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_rights_management#cite_note-48>After
an Amazon CEO Jeff
Bezos <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Bezos> issued a public apology,
the Free Software
Foundation<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Software_Foundation>wrote
that this was just one more example of the excessive power Amazon has
to remotely censor what people read through its software, and called upon
Amazon to free its e-book reader and drop
DRM.[49]<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_rights_management#cite_note-49>Amazon
then revealed that the reason behind its deletion was the ebooks in
question were unauthorized reproductions of Orwell's works, which were not
within the public domain and to which the company that published and sold
them on Amazon's service had no
rights.[50]<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_rights_management#cite_note-50>

ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_rights_management

I would personally hate it if I bought a software/book/movie/ whatever, and
then the seller comes back to me and says "yes we're recalling it and
you'll get your money back" with some fragile excuse of 'unauthorized
replication' - which THEY should have checked FIRST. That's their problem,
not mine - and is also a different argument which we shouldn't get into at
this point.

That apart, various Digital Restrictions Management mechanisms have existed
in the past - many of which have been bypassed, cracked & patched out of
the software. Some of which were so trivial to bypass it's like it didn't
exist in the first place. Sooner or later they were bound to want greater
control over what they make/sell - but that's neither here nor there. IMHO
if "goods once sold are sold for good" the rights to store that as we want
to store it belong to us (with the understanding of course that we would
not pirate/resell/etc it).

-C

On Thu, Jun 13, 2013 at 11:02 PM, Norbert Bollow <nb at bollow.ch> wrote:

> Chaitanya Dhareshwar <chaitanyabd at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > In the context of Disney movies - assuming "purchased" and not
> > "pirated" - wouldnt the purchaser already be exposing their identity
> > for the purchase validation process?
>
> I think that it's very important that when cultural goods are sold
> rather than shared freely, it must be possible to buy without the
> “who bought what” information getting recorded in some kind of database.
>
> For example, I have literature which is of a kind that (in some
> totalitarian states) people have been literally persecuted and killed
> for having.
>
> This kind of potential risk is not only in regard to human rights
> violations by states. What if some kind of terrorist organization
> delares a “jihad” against all who read a certain book or watch a
> certain video?
>
>
> I think that this is a relevant concern in regard to DRM, even if it
> not one that I have been addressing in my recent posting. There I was
> talking about protecting one's privacy in regard to communications etc
> by means of using a Free Software operating system platform, and about
> the potential dilemma that could easily arise if DRM'd content becomes
> increasingly important (from the user's perspective) but because of the
> DRM it is not accessible using a Free Software operating system
> platform.
>
> > Further DRM as a part of the standard would mean that browsers that
> > work on *nix platforms would also support the standard (for example
> > this list here:
> >
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_web_browsers_for_Unix_and_Unix-like_operating_systems).
> ..
> > In fact most browsers would sooner or later have built in support for
> > DRM just in the process of following the standard. Thus people using
> > an open source platform (using Linux as an example) would easily be
> > able to make the purchase, as well as watch the movie both using
> > freely available (OS + Browser + Movie Player).
>
> The specification which is under discussion foresees that an additional
> component will be needed in addition to OS + Browser + Movie Player:
> A “content decryption module” (CDM).
>
> In my opinion, it is not plausible to expect the CDMs to be made
> available for Free Software operating system platforms. (Doing so would
> make it trivially easy to defeat what that whole architecture with the
> CDMs is seeking to achieve.)
>
>
> Roland Perry <roland at internetpolicyagency.com> wrote:
> > It seems to me that there's a mistaken concept of "freedom to listen"
> > (by all and any available means) in addition to the well accepted
> > concept of "freedom of speech".
> >
> > Is it an infringement of my human rights if I have to buy an X-box to
> > run a particular X-box game, because my open source *nix PC won't
> > play the game?
>
> That's not the type of situation that I'm protesting against.
>
> Suppose someone has an X-box (with some games) and a PC with Microsoft
> Windows as OS. Two separate physical machines which connect to the
> Internet using the same IP address (via a NAT box). The person then
> replaces Microsoft Windows on the PC with a different OS which the
> user believe has better privacy protection properties. If that action
> has the consequence that the X-box gets remotely disabled, making all
> the games on the X-box unplayable on the X-box, then I'd say that that
> situation is analogous to DRM's cultural goods which are accessible
> only on some “mainstream” operating system platforms but not on user
> modifiable operating system platforms.
>
> Greetings,
> Norbert
>
> --
> Recommendations for effective and constructive participation in IGC:
> 1. Respond to the content of assertions and arguments, not to the person
> 2. Be conservative in what you send, be liberal in what you accept
>
>
>
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