You're simply not going to be able to get away from it, not in a commercial world anyway. You'd better at least standardize the way that it's supposed to work ... less someone's hairball that doesn't work becomes a "standard" :hattip: and sinks the whole of HTML5.

Sensormatic reports the greatest number of "alarm events" at high-fashion boutique stores frequented by people who can easily afford the merchandise. They seem to do it just to see if they can...

I think I was just proven right:

LXer: Netflix Adds HTML5 Playback, Support Coming For Linux?

What do you want? Silverlight or Adobe Flash instead?

As this thread has been resurrected...

I disagree. DRM is unnecessary, and can have the opposite effect (at least, if badly implemented). A very law-abiding gamer friend of mine has been driven to downloading cracked versions of games, just because the DRM on the legitimate versions is so intrusive.

In the beginning, virtually all downloadable music was DRM-mangled. It failed to prevent the same music being made available illegally, without DRM, and the restrictions on what it allowed customers to do with content they'd purchased were unpopular. Now, almost all downloadable music is available without DRM, and I haven't noticed the collapse of Warner and Sony's music divisions.

Currently, almost all eBooks are also DRM-mangled. However, some brave publishers are bucking the trend. All O'Reilly's and Tor Books' titles are available without DRM - and again, it doesn't seem to hurt their business. In fact, Tim O'Reilly's position is that obscurity is a greater threat to authors than illegal copying. Recently, evidence that this applies also to creators of movies was provided with the closure of Megaupload, which appears to have only benefitted blockbusters, but harmed the box-office returns of the majority of movies.

If you make it easy for people to pay you for goods and services, they will tend to do so. If you make it hard, they will find ways around any copy protection you choose to apply. And the W3C should not be legitimising such restrictive technologies.

Who else is wondering whether SteamOS will a) have system-level DRM support like Android has (http://source.android.com/devices/drm.html), and b) be closed enough to make that possible?

I've been proven right. It's been officially announced that HTML5 Netflix is coming to Linux.

Firefox’s adoption of closed-source DRM breaks my heart

DRM and the Challenge of Serving Users

For those who don't want this: I am certain that Firefox will include a checkbox right in its UI to disable this. If there isn't, there will be a configure flag. And if there isn't even that, then there will be a fork.

Thanks for the update, it's very much appreciated.
Do I now need to review whether I predicted right or not?

I can't say that I would have made the decision that Mozilla has, but I can certainly understand their reasons. I also understand that it's not their fault for having to make it in the first place.

Mozilla blames the users. "But the users want this so we have no choice!" Reading the comments, 5/10 say they will stop using Firefox, 4/10 say "I'm disappointed" / "this is just wrong", and 1/10 are DRM shills. Most people don't know what's going on so they say nothing.

I like EFF's statement, as uncompromising as always:

We need extremists like the EFF, because they aren't really extreme. They actually make sense. The DRM is an extreme measure taken by anti-social corporations.

Anyway, all those things can be boycotted:

• HTML5 - use HTML4.01 instead when you have the choice.
• Firefox - use another browser. Will all browsers implement this?
• DRM corporations - stop paying for their trashy entertainment.

Will Debian accept the brave new Firefox?

I agree the EFF are a much needed voice (much like RMS).
However, I can't really see Firefox being anything other than a tiny niche browser without allowing some form of DRM. Anyone wanting to view any non-free video in the future would have to use a browser other than Firefox if they didn't incorporate it and with Chrome already converting many people I am sure a lot of people would simply not bother installing Firefox.
Don't get me wrong, in theory and idealistically speaking I am very saddened by this but practically speaking it means I won't bother buying a Windows 7 license to run in a VM simply so that I can watch Amazon Prime or Netflix without having to mess around with PPAs and the inevitable problems they cause (Pipelight et al).
Unlike the music industry the film industry have pretty much declared that they will never provide content DRM-free to anyone, ever, even if it means they have to go out of business. Their insisting that Netflix (who already used the proprietary Flash) use Silverlight or lose all content being a good example of them formally stating that they will not compromise.
Actually, thinking about it, the solution I see to this is a DRM plug-in that Mozilla ought to provide rather than building it into the browser. But, since I haven't seen the implementation yet that may even be what they do.

Greetz
I can only speak to how Intellectual Property laws work in the US, but basically I don't have a problem with DRM provided it is handled by the government in the original way in which it was designed to work and for those stated original reasons - to provide incentive for creative production of new things.

Whether Patent, Copyright, or whatever all Intellectual Property laws began with the idea that new things tend to be expensive to research and produce until a sufficiently large demand threshold is achieved. So the laws have 2 stages.

1)
To provide incentive for innovation, the government provides a time limited exclusivity sufficient to compensate for R&D and the initial marketing required to make the innovation a mainstream desirable product.

2)
After that sufficient time has passed the item, service, idea, software, etc. passes into Public Domain in order to stimulate competition and further innovation build by increasing availability so that new can be built upon the old like a ladder or stairstep process.

The problem is not with the law. The problem is with enforcement due to pandering to corporations who focus on #1 and prefer to not give up exclusivity EVER and squeeze every last penny out of their innovation. Unfortunately this is how short sighted most corporations are. They tend to think like farmers prior to the Dust Bowl dilemna, caused by insatiable greed and/or a refusal to understand the concept of defecating in the kitchen. They are strong believers in "A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush" and treat resources and their environments as if they are inexhaustible, until there are no birds left in the bush.

OTOH, consumers want everything for nothing, or at least exceedingly cheap. Since this is the "nature of the beast" where seemingly the two sides are diametrically opposed, it seems obvious why such laws must exist BUT be enforced equally and not falling prey to pandering for the payback.

As consumers we have already lost if we think we can stop Intellectual Property schemes. Our only real avenue of recourse is to appeal to government officials to "clean up the kitchen" for the benefit of society as a whole as the laws were originally designed to do. Perhaps also outting companies that abuse the laws helps some, but the bottom line seems to be in equality in enforcement.... but then, that's true in criminal law too. Maybe my grandfather was right that the implementation of Income Tax effectively stripped us all of the Power of the Purse.