Mozilla Says Firefox Will Now Support DRM Video

[engine]

I'm not entirely surprised by this, but it shows that resisting it does not mean it won't happen.

Mozilla has agreed, reluctantly, to build a Web standard called Encrypted Media Extensions (EME) into its Firefox browser, a step that enables use of copy-protected video from Netflix and other sources on the Web.

The nonprofit organization has opposed EME, a technology that lets a browser perform digital rights management (DRM) tasks such as restricting copying or ensuring that rights to watch a video expire after a certain period of time. But on Wednesday, Mozilla said it's enabling EME because it's becoming widely enough used that its absence from Firefox would push people toward other browsers.Mozilla Says Firefox Will Now Support DRM Video [cnet.com]

[graeme_p]

The really clever bit is that the DRM is locked to particular hardware AND each browser uses a different DRM mechanism so you can only watch video on the same device you bought the license on AND using the same browser. I have two comments:

1) Pirated content is superior to DRMed legal content: you can watch it on all your devices.
2) I would rather rip a DVD that buy this stuff - which I suspect is what the video distribution industry wants.

[Kendo]

But there is nothing to fear from the other browsers, because their policy is same... make it as easy as possible copy everything online. That way their browser is popular because it is catering for what their users really want.

There already are browsers specially designed to protect web media and they will never be "popular" because to properly protect that content they cannot be used for ordinary surfing without exposing holes that can be exploited.

Take for example the most secure of these (ASPS) where nothing can be copied in any way, not from cache and not from page source, and you will see that no browser that wants to be popular will ever be threatened because it doesn't suport DRM.

[tangor]

I suspect that many (myself included) will avoid DRM media, so whether it is included in FF or not won't make much difference.

However, I'm not against DRM as a concept. Just other play parks and sandboxes I'd rather be.