DRM sinks its fangs into HTML5, with help from Netflix, Google, and Microsoft

Remember the battle over DRM? It’s back with a vengeance. And this time the battleground isn’t Napster or iTunes or the courts — it’s the emerging HTML5 standard.

Earlier this year, the Worldwide Web Consortium (W3C) standards body published a working draft of HTML5 that would allow Encrypted Media Extensions (EMEs) — codecs deploying some form of rights management — to become a part of the new standard. It was a move heavily supported by major content providers like Netflix over the anguished cries of Web purists and DRM opponents across the InterTubes.

[ For a humorous take on the tech industry’s shenanigans, subscribe to Robert X. Cringely’s Notes from the Underground newsletter. | Get the latest insight on the tech news that matters from InfoWorld’s Tech Watch blog. ]

A group calling itself DefectiveByDesign, an offshoot of the Free Software Foundation, has launched a war of words against “Hollyweb,” declaring International Day Against DRM on May 3 (yeah, I missed it too). Yesterday it delivered a petition with 22,500 signatures protesting against EME to the W3C. I’ll let Free Software Foundation executive director John Sullivan take it from here:

In adopting the doublespeak of the Hollyweb, the W3C is betraying the interests Web users have in experiencing the amazing universe of human culture enabled by the Internet. Instead, they are backing the desire of Netflix, Google, and Microsoft to capture those users in media silos with walls enforced by proprietary software and criminal law like the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (and similar laws around the world).

The Electronic Frontier Foundation also has its knickers in a knot over EME, which doesn’t actually add DRM to the HTML5 standard but allows content providers to plug in their own. Per the EFF:

Because it’s clear that the open standards community is extremely suspicious of DRM and its interoperability consequences, the proposal from Google, Microsoft and Netflix claims that “[n]o ‘DRM’ is added to the HTML5 specification” by EME. This is like saying, “we’re not vampires, but we are going to invite them into your house.”

Especially those annoying vampire teens from the “Twilight” series. You definitely don’t want them anywhere near your house.

The W3C’s fangless reply

W3C CEO Jim Jaffe responded to these charges in typical W3C fashion — cautiously, rich with acronyms, and with no references to George Orwell or mythical beings:

Principled arguments for content protection begin by pointing out that the Web should be capable of hosting all kinds of content and that it must be possible to compensate creative work. Without content protection, owners of premium video content — driven by both their economic goals and their responsibilities to others — will simply deprive the Open Web of key content. Therefore, while the actual DRM schemes are clearly not open, the Open Web must accommodate them as best possible, as long as we don’t cross the boundary of standards with patent encumbrances; or standards that cannot be implemented in open source.

OK, let’s all step back, remove the garlands of garlic from around our necks, and take a deep breath.

To me, this battle seems more symbolic than anything — a “we know DRM is going to happen regardless, but we shouldn’t encourage it” kind of thing.

I think any reasonable person will agree that people who spend vast amounts of time and money creating original content should be able to make a decent living from it. They should be allowed to take steps to secure it from thieves. You own a candy store, you should be able to put a lock on the front and back doors to keep people from stealing your Jujubes.

The problem is that DRM has been thoroughly abused by the content cartel. They’ve made all the rules, and law-abiding consumers who’ve purchased legal copies can go screw themselves. It has gone well beyond putting locks on the doors of the candy store; they’ve treated every customer like a shoplifter, forcing them to empty their pockets on the way out to prove they aren’t trying to smuggle out the Good-n-Plentys.

DRM done wrong

Take DVDs, for example. Jon Johansen wasn’t trying to bring Hollywood to its knees when he wrote the code that broke copy protection on DVDs in 1999. He wasn’t planning to rip his entire movie collection and post it on KaZaa for the world to download. All he wanted was to work around the regional encoding that kept him from watching DVDs he legally purchased in the United States and elsewhere in his native Norway. He was trying to make DRM manageable for humans. For that he had to fight a five-year court battle (which he won).

Likewise, Real Networks wasn’t trying to bust up the movie monopolies when it introduced its short-lived RealDVD software in 2008. It was trying to provide consumers an easy way to make legal backups of their DVDs in case the brittle plastic disc they paid $20 for gets a crack in it. But Hollywood’s legal vultures descended upon the company from a great height. Within weeks RealDVD could no longer be sold; within two years it was dead.

The problem isn’t DRM per se. The problem is that these guys are jerks.

What we need is digital rights management with a human face, like an open source, royalty-free codec that offers a balance between the rights of the consumer and the rights of the content owner. Codecs like this already exist, but none that meet the standards of the W3C, according to Cnet — so let’s build a better one.

Or maybe we urge content creators to adopt the Louis CK model. Charge a reasonable price for original content, make it DRM free, assume a certain percentage of people will “steal” it or otherwise try to butter it across the InterWebs, but trust that most people will do the right thing and pay for it, because a) it’s easier, and b) it’s the right thing.

DRM sucks. It may be a necessary evil. But it doesn’t have to drain the lifeblood from the Web.

Is DRM evil? And if so, how can we thrust a stake through its heart? Post your vampire-killing techniques below or email me: cringe@infoworld.com.

This article, “DRM sinks its fangs into HTML5, with help from Netflix, Google, and Microsoft,” was originally published at InfoWorld.com. Follow the crazy twists and turns of the tech industry with Robert X. Cringely’s Notes from the Field blog, and subscribe to Cringely’s Notes from the Underground newsletter.