Stefan Mileschin

The head of the web standards body, W3C, said that developers need to embrace DRM as a way of preventing different parts of the web being walled off.

There are fears that the W3C will include DRM as part of the new HTML standards.

But Jeff Jaffe, CEO of the World Wide Web Consortium said that this was the lesser of two evils.

He told ZDNet that proposals to provide a hook for DRM-protected media within HTML are necessary to help prevent scenarios such as movie studios removing films from the web to protect them from piracy.

He said that if this does not happen there is a danger that such media will only be available through native apps, rather than the browser.

Jaffe believes it is in the interest of everybody that protected content remains available on the web, and that DRM is a compromise.

If the owners of premium content who want DRM do not get their way, they will end up providing their content behind walls.

He wanted the web to be a universal platform and it is not good when content finds its way into walled gardens or into closed apps.

Jaffe added that the latest plan does not involve standardising proprietary DRM systems, but on the other hand it will not be excluded from the web platform.

He said that the compromise is a set of open APIs that give a standard framework to bring in this content via plug-in, but where the plug-in is not standardised.

http://news.techeye.net/security/dev...rn-to-love-drm