2013: The discussion of the good and bad of Digital Rights Management software is wide and furious and has been for many years. It connects to the whole issue of how broken copyright law is and how musicians and film producers should be recompensed for their hard work. In the fervent discussion, very extreme positions have been taken, which has led to the debate becoming acrimonious, to the extent that much more heat than light tends to be available. Here we tease out some separate issues which have become entangled.
DRM video in HTML5 is a tricky issue. Around 2013 the W3C community was split as to whether it should be allowed. The Electronic Freedom Foundation, and Cory Doctorow the author and blogger were very adamant that HTML should not allow DRM, it represented a step toward big company control of computing platforms. It is impossible to build a DRM machine which has the open source condition that user can change it.
One argument was at the level of tactics, basically, there are companies who will never put their movies on the net without DRM, so basically if we don't put DRM hooks in HTML they will just stick with flash and force you install an app, or a completely closed platform like a set-top box - in other words use a completely locked down platform. So it isn't as though making DRM more difficult in HTML5 will make DRM go away: it will just force users off the web.
So should W3C just say "DRM is evil we should not collaborate with it in any way" and end up driving people to native apps where the whole app is locked down on a locked down platform, or should we open up a slot in an open system to allow a locked-down system to be accessed?
Looking at the philosophical objections to DRM, there is no perfect solution. Everything violates one or more of the rights we want to preserve.
Some people just feel copyright is wrong and so there is a right to make a copy of anything you see or hear. And the business model for musicians if live gigs and donations.
Some people feel that they are the best judge of when they will copy something, as while they do often pay for music etc they feel (a) copyright law has been twisted and applies e.g. to 30 year old movies when it should not, and (b) DRM is too extreme as it prevents normal things like fair use, backups, and typically fails in the future when the DRM support system has changes and all your archive files become unusable.
Some people may feel that DRM is worth the value of having a thriving music industry and film industry. They are not too fussed about the archive issue as they don't really watch movies they have bought a long time ago, or they are too young to have experienced the problem. They haven't answered the problem of getting money to for example bands and singer-songwriters who do not have the blessing of a DRM distribution channel.
Some people may feel that while they don't specifically want to steal movies, they do object to having any bit of computational hardware which they don't have root on.
A related question is, what sort of systems can we build to help people give money to those who e.g. write or perform music, with or without DRM, in an open market, with no 3rd party gatekeeper?
So W3C did allow encripted media to played in the browser, by standardiing Encrypted Media Extensions (EME). This allows the web site to get access to one of a small set of DRM gadget on the device -- gadgets which the user has no control of.
Looking back in 2023, there has been a huge amount of streaming on the web and off. EME in HTML has been used massively. A certain notable part of it is user-generated content like YouTube, Vimeo, and TikTok. A huge amount is commercial movies, typically nowadays 4k resolution, and TV series, some short limited set of episodes as a genre competing with full length movies; some going on many series.
There is [still] a constant compettion between web sites an apps. You can follow a link to a video clip on the web, and watch it on the web but Netfllix, Youtube, Apple, etc will alwys try to get you to switch to the app so they have more control of your environment, and can store lots more data on your device.
When you share a video clip in the app, it typically generates a link which will take the recipient back to the web version. You can configure your Operating System so that it will recognize links direct to the app.
As a developer, I can still develop code on my Apple laptop and still install open source code and random apps written by other people on it.
As an artist, there is no way for me to make my own DRM platform if a person wants to protect their material. So they have to find a route to the big platforms. Currenly the big streaming platforms are infamous for returning very little funds to the original artists. I can make my music or video available on my website, and give it away for free, or charge for it without protecting it. Patronage and live gigs and merchendise sales may provide revenue.