
An open letter to the W3C Director, CEO, team and membership - glitcher
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2017/09/open-letter-w3c-director-ceo-team-and-membership
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jwildeboer
Please mods, change this to "EFF resigns from W3C over DRM"

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lost953
As far as I can tell this is mostly the EFF being sore losers over the DRM
issue. They only joined W3C so they could oppose it, now they are leaving
since they failed. While I'm neither here nor there on the DRM issue, the EFF
leaving isn't exactly the big deal they are making it out to be.

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gaius_baltar
I just question if this would bring us a better web than if the EFF remained
in W3C.

~~~
tannhaeuser
I think that W3C is what makes us believe we're sitting at the table when it
comes to decide where the web is heading, when in reality we're not. So while
I think W3C has good intentions and is acting in good faith (I'm somewhat
undecided on DRM, please convince me of your opinion), I hope for a push to
bring the lack of stewardship of the web to public attention, and another
standards body (ISO/IEC, IETF, whatever), or W3C under a new statue to emerge
and take the role of W3C-as-it-is.

~~~
thomastjeffery
> I'm somewhat undecided on DRM, please convince me of your opinion

OK.

You can send someone encrypted data over the internet, with the decryption
keys hidden in your software, and decide _exactly_ how _that person 's
computer_ reads that data. The only way for them to read the data that is now
on their system is by using the encryption keys you sent them, but _they can
't possibly find those keys_; only _your software_ can. There is no way for
the user to _cough debugger cough_ find the keys, or copy the now decrypted
data from _their own system_.

Of course, that was obviously a bald-faced lie. That lie is so popular, it has
a name: Digital Rights Management (DRM).

Of course, corporate executives _love_ this lie. They don't care how
impossible or absurd it is, they want DRM to be reality. Why? Piracy. They
think to themselves, "if all these people who copy _my_ media _have_ to pay
me, then I will make more money!". So, without a second thought, they jump to
coercion.

Of course, no matter how hard you try, DRM _cannot_ stop piracy. There are
billions of people out there, and all it takes is _one_ to share your content.
Some of them use debuggers to find that "secret" key, others just use raw
computing power to record the raw data. After all, that computing power is
relatively inexpensive compared to the cost of a handful of Blue-Rays at full
price.

Of course, the realistic decision would be to give up on DRM, but that ignores
just _how much_ these executives _hate_ piracy. They have not only created a
culture of hatred using propaganda, they have _legitimized_ their fears using
copyright law.

They have such tight control over our law that they even got a new law:
"Section 1201 of Title 17 under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA)".
This law explicitly makes it _illegal_ to find those "secret" keys we talked
about earlier, in other words, "break DRM".

So now DRM "works" from a legal standpoint. No actual logic supports the lie,
but now it's the law, and has the full force of US law enforcement that _make_
it the truth.

So, whatever, I just have to get the Netflix app, or use EME now. No big deal,
right? I'm an honest person! I want to support creators anyway! Screw piracy!
I don't have to care about this, right?

Wrong.

Remember Section 1201? Well that doesn't _only_ prevent people from copying
movies from HBO or Netflix. It makes it illegal to "break" _any_ DRM. It turns
out that "DRM" is a pretty abstract lie. Like other neat abstractions (Monads,
anyone?) it can be applied in some "neat", unexpected ways. Here are a few:

[printer cartridges]([https://www.wired.com/2016/09/hp-printer-
drm/](https://www.wired.com/2016/09/hp-printer-drm/)) [light
bulbs]([https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20151214/07452133070/light...](https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20151214/07452133070/lightbulb-
drm-philips-locks-purchasers-out-third-party-bulbs-with-firmware-
update.shtml)) [rectal thermometers]([https://boingboing.net/2016/01/14/the-
internet-of-things-in-...](https://boingboing.net/2016/01/14/the-internet-of-
things-in-your.html))

To quote Cory Doctorow, "We _literally_ have DRM up the ass".

So next time you want to refill a printer cartridge, turn on the lights, or
accurately check body temperature, understand that you might have to struggle
with that because of DRM, and that anyone who wants to _help_ you, or _publish
security vulnerabilities_ , will be _breaking the law_.

