What is the WHATWG's position on this? They represent the browser makers. If they support DRM then it's game over. Another break-away standards group won't be able to do anything to sway the browser makers. What could they do?
I dislike DRM as much as the next person, but if it's implemented reasonably (think Steam or Netflix), then many consumers are willing to deal with it. EME was what enabled Netflix on ARM-based Chromebooks, for example; and I prefer EME to not being able to legally access media at all.
In other words, you are willing to give up freedom to get--what, exactly? Movies? Music? Eye candy?
I confess I simply can't understand this point of view. People are willing to hand over the Internet to DRM and the media corporations because they can't live without the "entertainment" that Hollywood provides? People are willing to have their computers pwned just so they can watch Netflix? That appalls me.
EME is not new. There are already devices shipping with implementations, like mine. If EME is standardized, what it means for me is that there's a chance that my device will work with all DRMed content I want to access, and not on a per-service basis.
We're not talking about giving "big bad media companies" full control of the Ring 0 Hypervisor; I am still perfectly capable of flipping the virtual developer switch on my device and booting a pure version of Linux at any time. If I buy a device ships like that, I hope that future me will have the good sense to return it to the store.
Yes. Why? (I don't have a Chromebook, and don't use Chrome OS, for this very reason.)
It is certainly the case that several individuals editing specs under the WHATWG banner have set out their opposition to DRM. It seems unlikely that Hixie will include it the HTML spec he edits unless, of course, we end up with something implemented in browsers that is both interoperable and open. Since "open" rather defeats the point of DRM, it's difficult to imagine that happening, however.
It's a tragic comedy that everyone's yelling at the W3C for losing their way yet again... the WHATWG, weren't they great. Yet the WHATWG is basically a proxy for Google, Apple and Microsoft. And they have driven the W3C agenda for a long while.
When you repeatedly shit on the hippies, academics, and non-browser makers that had more sway in the past at the W3C, and replace them by corporate browser makers, you weaken the antibodies that were in place. The WHATWG's presence has marginalizing other voices within the W3C and forced it to listen to its primary members - i.e. corporate, pay-to-play ones.
https://dvcs.w3.org/hg/html-media/raw-file/tip/encrypted-med...
Chrome and IE are the ones pushing this - so yes, the opinion of browser makers matter, but sadly the 2 biggest ones, Google and Microsoft, do not just support EME but are the ones driving it.