Now, when the Motion Picture Association of America has joined the W3C, we can expect the pro-DRM W3C coalition of Netflix, Microsoft, Google, and Apple will get strengthened by another ally. Apparently there is the only real opposition there, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and it alone can hardly stop them from making DRM (Digital Restrictions Management) an official W3C standard. EFF’s formal objection was rejected by the W3C director after all.
What does it mean? The only official way to get access to significant portion of Web content will be to install and run proprietary untrusted software on your devices. Will you like it?
I’m not going to repeat all the arguments, you can read them in the W3C restricted media mailing list archive. Probably the only way to stop the nightmare from becoming a reality is to make wide and vocal public opposition, similar to what happened when W3C attempted to permit patent holders to prevent implementations of W3C standards a decade ago.
So the question is: What can you do to stop DRM on the Web? If you do nothing, the Web will no longer be open to all and more control will be put on its users.
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