On September 18th, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, EFF, announced that they were leaving the World Wide Web Consortium, W3C, due to its stance on DRM, effective immediately. This was published in the form of an open letter from Cory Doctorow, which is available on the EFF’s website.
There’s several facets to the whole DRM issue. In this case, Cory Doctorow seems focused mostly on the security side of things. Creating an architecture to attach code that manipulates untrusted data is sketchy, at a time that browser vendors are limiting that attack surface by killing as many plug-ins as possible, and, in this case, a legal minefield is layered atop it due to copyright concerns. Publishers are worried about end-users moving data in ways that they don’t intend… even though every single time that content is pirated before its release date is a testament that the problem is elsewhere.
We can also get into the issue of “more control isn’t the same as more revenue” again, some other time.
As for the consequences of this action? I’m not too sure. I don’t really know how much sway the EFF had internally at the W3C. While they will still do what they do best, fight the legal side of digital freedom, it sounds like they won’t be in a position to officially guide standards anymore. This is a concern, but I’m not in a position to quantify how big.
The EFF should have left the
The EFF should have left the World Wide Web Consortium(W3C) long before that DRM nonsense started, because of all that ad(Snooping) friendly stuff baked into the HTML5 standard and the Internet Browsers that allows ads to hijack the users browsing experience. You Know! Those ads that play with the navigation buttons/browsing history that turn webstes into black holes of ad spaffing and annoyance and such that have necessitated the need for no-script and ad blockers and such. Those damn auto-playing videos that can never quite be stopped or found sometimes belching out that constant at full volume noise and visual pollution.
What a total bunch of ad driven crap HTML5 standards have the WC3 folks used to turn the entire WWW into such a total securty and browsing nightmare with users losing control over their browsing experience because of all the UI/Brrowser control given over to those pushed out piles of crap ads/nefarious scripts that do much more evil and no good over the WWW. The pushing out across the WWW any embedded scripts inside of Graphics formats or by other means of scrpt injections and the Browser/HTML standards that enableed this madness in the first place in enough reason alone for the EFF to get away from that WC3 Cabal forever.
The Electronic Frontier has disappeared behind the walls and concertina wire of the W3C Iron Curtain of Ad intrests a long time before the EFF decided to make a stand around DRM.
Who should pay for the www to
Who should pay for the www to exist north korea, darpa, india? “What a total bunch of ad driven crap HTML5 standards” Is the browser to blame or the server. Hey I know let’s pay with money on a monthly subscription base to have the privilege to browse a static set of programming.. o wait thats cable. No let me try again, Lets have everything for free tax the rich and have truly uncompromising content of high quality and they can also pay the power bill too. And bernie sanders is the president of the EU.
Oh get over your apologist
Oh get over your apologist for Crony Capitalism self, those Ad Spaffers do not need to have all that Browser/UI minipulation/scripting ability in the first place and civilized ads could still earn revenues! You are one of those de-regulation is best yahoos and can NOT see where that’s got things in the world’s history that you are to busy spouting your nonsense to learn.
You are one of those Floyd R. Turbo hayseeds with no critical reasoning skills and you dictionary definition of a bog standard Git!
Standards are great and all
Standards are great and all but i think you were missing the point. The browser, ya know the thing you click and type into, that lets you google stuff on the internet? The browser is what implements the api for the “standards”. Why not just practice safe browsing and use gopher ya deprecated old dog you. Bernie lovin, shillary free fer all coot. If you don’t like the new flashy doo dads then go back to running down the road with your cane and hoop. I however will wait for Steve Gibson to make his statement about this crock of hootenanny and continue on using windows xp.
You’re not at all addressing
You’re not at all addressing what he said and are just essentially name calling and being disingenuous with that gopher nonsense at this point Dan.
Ultimately its about ownership and control when it comes to content.
Yeah its content creator’s work you’re using when you view a page or look at a video so some means of compensation should exist…but its also YOUR PC, internet connection, bandwidth, browser install, etc. that are being used to view it too that all got paid for in some manner out of the end user’s pocket.
You can’t seriously claim that the end user shouldn’t have final say over how they get to view web content on their own hardware and software services in their own house.
Yes but that ad flashing does
Yes but that ad flashing does not need to hijack the users browsers and all the Browsers’ functionality makes use of the Various Windows/Linux OS/other OS’s API call stack so that so called browser functionality is all implemented on top of the OS/API functionality built into the Windows/Linux/MacOS/iOS/Android/Linux OSs/APIs.
And The browser level UI control(scrolling, mouse movement, mouse clicking/other UI actions) of the browsing experience belongs to the user and the web pages out there need to only show single Image ads and have to get the user’s OK to even load any Video content or Scripts that hijack the Browser’s UI. Folks are so tired of their Browsing Eperience/Computer’s resources being so abused that that’s why the Ad Blocking/No-Script software has become so popular.
I’m tired of ads inserting links into my search history that I did not visit and have my attempts at back-navigating out of the web-page/web-page lower levels hijacked to load only a new ad and prevent me from back-navigating out of a website/website’s lower levels. That and all the other nefarious sripting that goes on to abruptly jog the scrolling functionality up to where the ad is displaying causing users to lose their place while trying to read! That behavior and other such popups and other annoying actions that are just plain and simply rude and have no place at all being legally allowed. That sorts of behavior should be construed as a denial of service attack, and an abuse of the users’ compute resources above and beyond what is necessary to honestly earn ad revenues and such.
Yes it is the case that a
Yes it is the case that a standards body such as the W3C should behave justly and have no bias, as well as act in the best interest of the people. But communism doesn’t work in practice and probly never will. Cory Doctorow did the “right” thing and left. But who is gonna fix the internet? No one. This is an age old issue that has an intractable solution. Why not use iceweasel or whatever the cool privacy people are using and adnauseam for “protection”. There is so much choice why bother crying about it, in the end the guy with the fist full of cash is going to get what he wants, and the guy that want free gibs is gonna get dat free loot. p.s. name calling on the internet is fun so eff off back to reddit fgt.
Crony Capitalism is what gave
Crony Capitalism is what gave birth to Communism/Fashism/Nazi-ism in the modern world in the first place and these systems do not work. Regulated Markets are necessary to keep Crony Capitalism from imploding under its own unregulated Crony Capitalist weight.
Also the US is a demorcracy so Crony Capitalism can be just as much a threat as Communism/Fashism/etc.
No one wants or needs ad pushers in charge of the browsers UI, and that regulation needs to be there or folks will just continue to use the ad blockers and script blockers and even the browsers that are designed to give the users even more control over reading whatever content they wish by blocking andy HTML/HTML5 behaviors that the W3C and the ad industry tries to push out there to interfere with users browser UI exparience under the user’s control.
It’s the simple minded peckerwoods and their urban simple minded equivalents the Joe Six-packs, around the world, that are the real threats to demorcracy and freedom, be they Crony Capitalists/Communists/Fashists/Religous/etc. Because there is no economic/religous system that has anything to do with democracy.
Well regulated markets to ensure fair play and corporations that are not given the rights of people will be what keeps democracy strong, unlike the current situation in the US with the Crony Capitalists trying to subvert demorcracy with their ill goten gains(legal/monitary). Keep up that ad nonsense and see what the next depression is going to be like if folks get turned off enough.
It’s bad enough that the unregulated Corporations are now creating the next backlash, that’s a little too far to the right this time around and just as bad as being a little too the far to left or hyper-religous(the world’s orginal Fashists/Nazis/Communists all rolled into one).
There is no economic/religous system that can be trusted, or ever trusted, by the proper democracy and the Crony Capitalists in the form of the Corporation/legal entity(with the same rights as people) is a real and present danger to demoncracy just as much as all the other tyrannies in the history of the world.
Also beware of the opressed because they will become the opressors, espically the uneducated folks that are so clueless that they will so easily fall under the influnce of any demagogue. Joe SixPack(sports obsesssed morons/peckerwoods too) had just as much to do with the distruction of the Unions as any Crony Capitalist Congress member in the Crony Capitalists’ pockets. Ditto for the peckerwoods and their religons, that tells them that it’s ok to be dumb and uneducated.
Corporations(Legal entity) have no business being givien the rights of people and that restriction needs to be added to the US Constution before it’s too late and Demorcracy Falls. The Technology Monolopies need to be reined in just like the Oil Trusts of the late 19th century. Religon and Economic Systems can never be trusted ever as they run antithetical to true democarcy and the constution. The uneducated can never be fully trusted or the demagogues will use the uneducated to become the Tyrant.
The US constution was written by the educated and the Yeoman Farmers(Not any NASCAR peckerwoods) but educated also and the constution was geared to decentralize and centrilze power with the proper amounts of checks and balances to temper the masses and the demagogues. And demorcracy as defined by the constution needs to be constantly guarded from the uneducated and the demagogues(economic/religous/whatever) that use the uneducated who often times are led astray at the cost of freedom. Fight the Stupids!