[epistasis]

That's a big shift from historical standards. Where has the pushback been for plugins that permitted DRM? Or from allowing them in, say Firefox?

I'm wondering why this proposal gets so much more attention than all the past DRM that's been on the web. Did people just not realize that it was there?

[khedoros1]

Flash and Silverlight DRM (as an example of 2) weren't previously web standards, and even the 3rd party plugins that included them had significant non-DRM-related uses.

This is a different animal: Adding standardized interfaces to browsers specifically designed to talk to dedicated DRM modules.

[epistasis]

That's what I'm asking about; where was the pushback on those two bits of DRM? The position advocated by the poster I was responding too would take a very harsh view on Flash and Silverlight, even with their other uses.

[khedoros1]

Right, and from what they posted, I'm sure they took a harsh view of DRM-supporting plugins at the time too. I was trying to answer your questions about why there wasn't historically pushback that matches what we're seeing over EME now.

There were people that complained about Netflix using Silverlight, and such (in my case, it meant I couldn't watch it on my PC, for example). People complained about Flash back in its heyday too.

EME isn't causing a general outcry though, outside of certain corners of the tech world.

[wolfgke]

> Where has the pushback been for plugins that permitted DRM?

I have never installed any plugin for DRM and don't know anybody who has.* I also warned people about the dangers of DRM all the time. In this sense the pushback was always there - but since browser plugins were hated anyway this was a rather easy fight.

* OK, to be 100% honest: I am aware that Flash allowed some kind of DRM - but I never seen or used any application which used it and I don't know anybody who used any application where Flash DRM was used. So the statement still holds.

[thephyber]

Flash and Silverlight plugins have been used by Netflix/Hulu on desktop browsers.

I highly doubt nobody you know has installed them. It's much more likely they simply don't tell you they did or it never came up in conversation.

[WorldMaker]

Plus most of the users using Flash and Silverlight for things like watching movies aren't likely to recognize that they are plugins. The answer to "How do you watch movies online?" is probably "Hulu" or "Netflix". Flash and Silverlight were never brands that non-technical users paid much attention to, they were means to an end. If they install something to "watch movies on Netflix", they may not remember because it was a one-time ask by the site they visit, and whatever it asked them to install didn't matter to the user so long as they could "watch movies on Netflix".

[wolfgke]

> Flash and Silverlight plugins have been used by Netflix/Hulu on desktop browsers.

> I highly doubt nobody you know has installed them

Netflix (let alone Hulu) is not as popular in Germany as it is in the USA.

[emodendroket]

It took the iPhone to kill Flash and even then not having it was one of the biggest complaints about the phone. And they killed it for reasons having nothing to do with DRM.