A DRM standard for web video—with no safeguards whatsoever for accessibility, security research or competition, despite an unprecedented internal controversy among its staff and members over this issue.
EME is a standardized way for web video platforms to control users’ browsers, so that we can only watch the videos under rules they set. This kind of technology, commonly called Digital Rights Management (DRM), is backed up by laws like the United States DMCA Section 1201.
Under these laws, people who bypass DRM to do legal things (like investigate code defects that create dangerous security vulnerabilities) can face civil and criminal penalties. Practically speaking, bypassing DRM isn’t hard (Google’s version of DRM was broken for six years before anyone noticed), but that doesn’t matter. Even low-quality DRM gets the copyright owner the extremely profitable right to stop their customers and competitors from using their products except in the ways that the rightsholder specifies.
