Billions of current and future web users have been assaulted and robbed in what Jeff Jaffe (W3C CEO) calls a “respectful debate.” Reflections on the EME Debate.
Odd sense of “respectful debate.”
A robber demands all of your money and clothes, promises to rent you clothes to get home, but won’t tell you how to make your own clothes. You are now and forever a captive of the robber. (That’s a lay persons summary but accurate account of what the EME crowd wanted and got.)
Representatives for potential victims, the EFF and others, pointed out the problems with EME at length, over years of debate. The response of the robbers: “We want what we want.”
Consistently, for years, the simple minded response of EME advocates continued to be: “We want what we want.”
If you think I’m being unkind to the EME advocates, consider the language of the Disposition of Comments for Encrypted Media Extensions and Director’s decision itself:
…
Given that there was strong support to initially charter this work (without any mention of a covenant) and continued support to successfully provide a specification that meets the technical requirements that were presented, the Director did not feel it appropriate that the request for a covenant from a minority of Members should block the work the Working Group did to develop the specification that they were chartered to develop. Accordingly the Director overruled these objections.
…
The EME lacks a covenant protecting researchers and others from anti-circumvention laws, enabling continued research on security and other aspects of EME implementations.
That covenant was not in the original charter, the director’s “(without any mention of a covenant),” aka, “We want what we want.”
There wasn’t ever any “respectful debate,” but rather EME supporters repeating over and over again, “We want what we want.”
A position which prevailed, which bring me to the subject of this post. A vote, a secret vote was conducted by the W3C seeking support for the Director’s cowardly and self-interested support for EME, the result of which as been reported as:
…
Though some have disagreed with W3C’s decision to take EME to recommendation, the W3C determined that the hundreds of millions of users who want to watch videos on the Web, some of which have copyright protection requirements from their creators, should be able to do so safely and in a Web-friendly way. In a vote by Members of the W3C ending mid September, 108 supported the Director’s decision to advance EME to W3C Recommendation that was appealed mid-July through the appeal process, while 57 opposed it and 20 abstained. Read about reflections on the EME debate, in a Blog post by W3C CEO Jeff Jaffe.
…
(W3C Publishes Encrypted Media Extensions (EME) as a W3C Recommendation)
One hundred and eight members took up the cry of “We want what we want.” rob billions of current and future web users. The only open question being who?
To answer that question, the identity of these robbers, I posted this note to Jeff Jaffe:
Jeff,
I read:
***
In a vote by Members of the W3C ending mid September, 108 supported the Director’s decision to advance EME to W3C Recommendation that was appealed mid-July through the appeal process, while 57 opposed it and 20 abstained.
***
at: https://www.w3.org/2017/09/pressrelease-eme-recommendation.html.en
But I can’t seem to find a link to the vote details, that is a list of members and their vote/abstention.
Can you point me to that link?
Thanks!
Hope you are having a great week!
Patrick
It didn’t take long for Jeff to respond:
On 9/19/2017 9:38 AM, Patrick Durusau wrote:
> Jeff,
>
> I read:
>
> ***
>
> In a vote by Members of the W3C ending mid September, 108 supported the
> Director’s decision to advance EME to W3C Recommendation that was
> appealed mid-July through the appeal process, while 57 opposed it and 20
> abstained.
>
> ***
>
> at: https://www.w3.org/2017/09/pressrelease-eme-recommendation.html.en
>
> But I can’t seem to find a link to the vote details, that is a list of
> members and their vote/abstention.
>
> Can you point me to that link?
It is long-standing process not to release individual vote details publicly.
I wonder about a “long-standing process” for the only vote on an appeal in W3C history but there you have it, the list of robbers isn’t public. No need to search the W3C website for it.
If there is an honest person at the W3C, a person who stands with the billions of victims of this blatant robbery, then we will see a leak of the EME vote.
If there is no leak of the EME vote, that is a self-comment on the staff of the W3C.
Yes?
PS: Kudos to the EFF and others for delaying EME this long but the outcome was never seriously in question. Especially in organizations where continued membership and funding are more important than the rights of individuals.
EME can only be defeated by action in the trenches as it were, depriving its advocates of any perceived benefit and imposing ever higher costs upon them.
You do have your marker pens and sticky tape ready. Yes?
