Re:Mozilla bug 923590: Pledge never to implement HTML5 DRM
by shmerl on Sunday October 06, 2013 @11:39AM
(#6504376)
> You make points about how DRM implies contempt for the consumer, but I don't see why that is the case at all.
Simple. Do you think placing surveillance cameras in everyone's home is an acceptable crime prevention practice? Or may be attaching a camera to each person right away? That's what DRM is. DRM is invasion of people's private digital space. And if you don't see it, it makes it even worse, since secret and massive surveillance is even more unethical, since people get "comfortable" with it. So all this "unobtrusive" DRM is actually even worse.
> DRM by nature is little different to public key encryption - it's a method of proving you are who you say you are.
No. DRM by nature is a way to restrict what user can do with the data, or if it goes further - reporting tool for those paranoid groups who deploy DRM. By its own nature, DRM implies surveillance and contempt to the user.
DRM (and abusive surveillance) does not enable any choices. All it does is taking away people's privacy and ability to exercise fair use to the data they bought.
Simple. Do you think placing surveillance cameras in everyone's home is an acceptable crime prevention practice? Or may be attaching a camera to each person right away? That's what DRM is. DRM is invasion of people's private digital space. And if you don't see it, it makes it even worse, since secret and massive surveillance is even more unethical, since people get "comfortable" with it. So all this "unobtrusive" DRM is actually even worse.
> DRM by nature is little different to public key encryption - it's a method of proving you are who you say you are.
No. DRM by nature is a way to restrict what user can do with the data, or if it goes further - reporting tool for those paranoid groups who deploy DRM. By its own nature, DRM implies surveillance and contempt to the user.
DRM (and abusive surveillance) does not enable any choices. All it does is taking away people's privacy and ability to exercise fair use to the data they bought.