Many companies that exist today seemingly couldn't begin in 2016.<p>The major computing platforms now have gatekeepers (Google Play, iOS App Store).<p>Personal computers with attached storage are disappearing and giving way to thin clients attached to the mainframe - without computing power, individuals have less choice.<p>I think we need to focus far more on hardware - it's never looked darker - Secure Boot and the ME make me worried for the future of x86, even.<p>I'll be fine as long as my old machines survive - but how are businesses going to produce mass market software when all the popular hardware is locked down?<p>Just to pick an arbitrary example - how does a project like Bitcoin take off when all we have are tivoized devices that won't run un"trusted" code? The community of a few hundred hardware hackers isn't big enough.<p>Not only that, despite the fact that 256GB of flash can be had for ~40GBP, the latest smartphones come with piffling amounts of storage and seemingly no expandable slots. It's a deliberate design decision to force the use of the network.<p>The IBM compatible desktop computer produced the revolution we see today. What's the next step?
This was so light on technical information that I am more puzzled than before I read the article. Haven't the browsers standardized on a few DRM schemes already? Does that have anything to do with what the W3C is doing now, and if not, just what is the W3C up to that is offensive to the EFF? Are they talking about protecting data streams, such as movies? Why would you compare that to what Netflix was doing with physical DVDs?
I don't know the right solution to the HTML5 DRM thing. I hate DRM, I don't really support its use, but I also use Linux full-time.<p>Without the HTML5 DRM, I don't think I'd be able to watch Netflix on my laptop, without some Wine wrapper, and really, is that much better? I don't see the studios signing off on Netflix without the use of DRM, and since Silverlight doesn't work on Linux, I selfishly don't have a problem with HTML5 DRM...most of the time.<p>That said, ethical-me totes does have a problem with DRM being part of the otherwise-open web. Relying on stuff that I can can't break sort of makes my inner-Stallman sad.
I'd love to have something like Netflix but with every movie ever. I'd even be willing to pay a reasonable fee per movie to stream them. I have hope that companies with a business model like VidAngel could legally provide that.<p>VidAngel is a family-friendly video streaming company that filters movies as they stream. While filtering may not be something that you're interested in personally, what I'd like to draw your attention to is their business model. They sell the movie to the viewer for $20, and then the viewer has the option to sell it back for $19 (SD) or $18 (HD) within 24 hours.<p>I have no idea if this is legal or if they are just under the radar, but so far VidAngel has a wide selection of new releases with a price point that feels reasonable to me personally.
I don't understand this argument. Netflix depends on DRM and always has.<p>Also, this pledge won't protect anyone. Because there's no guarantee that the people/companies suing the developer who breaks future DRM will have signed the pledge. The best protection a developer can have against the DMCA is to not live in the USA.<p>I generally support everything the EFF does, but I don't get this. If the W3C doesn't standardize DRM we'll still get DRM. It will just be more buggy and with more security holes. Just like MS Silverlight and Adobe Flash.<p>The idea that you can prevent something from being developed by not standardizing it is absurd.
Film industry is one of the most corrupted and backwards thinking (MPAA is the prime example). So this can be rephrased as "Help fixing film industry which keeps pushing for retarded idea of DRM at every occasion!". And really it's not the whole film industry. Actual creators most often don't care about this garbage. It's publishers and lawyers who feel the need to satisfy their unquenchable urge for control. DRM and DMCA give them that. Ego feeding control feeling (which is really fake, since in essence they don't control it anyway). I'd call them control freaks.<p>And how can one exactly fix it? GOG attempted it a while back[1], trying to replicate their success with DRM-free gaming. But they failed.<p>[1]: <a href="https://www.gog.com/forum/general/introducing_gogcom_drmfree_movies/post499" rel="nofollow">https://www.gog.com/forum/general/introducing_gogcom_drmfree...</a>
Minor correction:<p>> It's Netflix, from its founding in 1997, the company mailed DVDs around America and then the world, right up to 2007, when it switched to streaming.<p>Netflix's DVD service never went beyond the US, and still exists to this day.
I believe that in a few years every content owner will have developed their own streaming platform. Or the opposite in Netflix's case. Customers will be forced to pay for N different providers to get access to all content.<p>What we need is legislation similar to radio broadcasting, which has fixed per-play rates, but for video.
The information density of this article is very low.<p>> For the first time in its history, the W3C is adding encumbrances to the Web, rather than removing them.<p>How, specifically, so?
So this is about the DRM stuff in the new specs? Didn't Netflix use DRM since the outset?<p>I know there's some moral positioning about standardising DRM, but would it really affect the 'next Netflix'? Standardised DRM responds to business needs, and companies have already discovered that DRM-Free is a feature, so standardising DRM won't make DRM-free stuff disappear...<p>From the petition page:<p>>Imagine a new, disruptive company figured out a way to let hundreds of people watch a single purchased copy of a movie, even though the rightsholders who made that movie objected.<p>> Of course, it's also the business model of Netflix, circa 1997<p>This is only true in a pedantic sense. Netflix was shipping around physical copies. Sending digital copies goes by another name: broadcasting! The Supreme court already ruled on that one.<p>I can't see people being like "oh, yeah, people should be able to broadcast other people's content to hundreds of thousands without the content owner's positions" (Think: this is the main objection to Facebook's Video strategy)<p>I guess EFF has a position and this is them trying to defend it but their narrative is pretty unconvincing from where I stand.
TFA makes it sound like Netflix bootstrapped itself by buying DVDs from WalMart, which is false -- Rental DVDs, of course, are purchased from distributors and are substantially more expensive than consumer DVDs.
Glad to see this. I've criticized EFF before. Not because I disagree with them but because they haven't done a good enough job clearly communicating why they're relevant.<p>This article shows that they're improving in that direction. Netflix is something that average people really get and the idea that future Netflixes could be stillborn is a good way to communicate the importance of these issues.<p>Good job, EFF.
5 years old but still very relevant:
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUEvRyemKSg" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUEvRyemKSg</a>
I am confused. Save netflix from DRM? Despite Netflix's commitment to open source I can't stream movies because the DRM solution Netflix chose is not supported under linux.
Wow. the whole thread here one have a single top-level comment, with a completely wrong understanding of the issue.
(and yes, the title of the linked article is awful)