Another pointless analogy. Food with poison in it is illegal to sell. Supporting DRM sends a message that you do no agree with (and that I do not agree with), we can agree that it's not a good message but we are not without power in this: you and I can simply decide never to use that feature and not to support companies that use that feature.
Copyright law is here to stay, rights holders will try to use technology to be able to squeeze every last $ out of their legally backed position and consumers have the collective powers to give those rights holders the finger.
The fact that consumers as a group don't care enough is the main problem, see also: privacy and many other items like this.
Is is not. Only poisoned food that kills you quickly. You have plenty of legal food that harms your body or gives you diseases that are legal. We just call them junk food, alcohol, and other names because they are morally accepted.
You accept DRM as fact of life. We don't. Because it isn't. It's just the next move pulled out by the majors to try to lock in the consumer. It brings zero benefits to society. No culture sharing restriction ever did, and all the stats in the world show that what they claim to protect against is a scam: majors are making more money that ever.
> The fact that consumers as a group don't care enough is the main problem
It can be said about any problem in society. Health, education, whatever. Regulations are not the solution, having people caring is.
Idealism is not going to get you very far in the marketplace. Accepting reality as it is and your place and power within that reality is key to both not feeling continuously frustrated and actually achieving some measurable change.
You are essentially trying to ignore the fact that the Berne convention exists and that it (and not ideals) govern the position of rights holders. TBL is a pragmatist, first and foremost, that is why we have the WWW, not because he is an idealist who has forsaken his idealism.
As such, his benefits to society are such that few people can claim to have changed the course of history to such an extent, if you wish to argue that DRM is not a 'fact of life' then you are out of touch with life.
Major rights holders 'making more money that [sic] ever' is not automatic, they require our cooperation and consent.
And that consent and cooperation are ours to withdraw.
Any other changes are political and likely an uphill battle.
While I agree with your conclusions, I nevertheless don't think we should endorse a bad status quo.
When Firefox came around (as Phoenix), it didn't endorse ActiveX, making a lot of sites unusable. It chose fair standards.
What would have happened if they decided that they were too small and that Microsoft was so big that ActiveX would be inevitable anyway ?
Note that eventually the DRM won't affect me. I'm tech saavy enough, so I will always find ways to get around them. I think they arm society as a whole, and that you should say no.
I had an interview proposal with google some years ago. I refused politely. Google is inevitable, I still do have a few gmail addresses and use the SE. And it pays well. And their projects are cool. But I said no because I believe I should not be part of it.
I'm doing my part.
You don't get a democracy if you are not doing your part. Even if it means you will loose. Strategic vote is just promoting immobility.
I'm all for pragmatism, but it has to be used in conjunction with bigger goals.
Now you don't have to be perfect, I'm certainly not, but I still think that M. Lee decision sent the wrong message.
You were not responding to me, but sorry, it didn't.
> Moreover, a case could be made that EME will make it easier for content distributors to experiment with—and perhaps eventually switch to—DRM-free distribution.
I can't see how the author made this leap.
> It doesn't matter if browsers implement "W3C EME" or "non-W3C EME" if the technology and its capabilities are identical.
It matters as a matter of principle. It would have sent a message. Maybe this would have made the W3C irrelevant, but if it did, so be it, at least they would have gone without compromising.
I see you already discussed with sametmax about this, so I won't go further.
The whole rational behind abandoning the web is a scarecrow. Like saying rich companies are going to abandon a market if we don't do them a favor.
As long as there is a market, they will come.
The web is too big of a pie to let it go.
But even if they decided to go, it wouldn't be a bad thing. Proprietary things on proprietary platforms, and less people trying to destroy the open platform. I'm all for that.
A figure like TBL openly supporting something like DRM sends a message, and it's not a good one.