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<th align="RIGHT" nowrap="nowrap" valign="BASELINE">Subject:
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<td>FSF condemns partnership between Mozilla and Adobe to
support Digital Restrictions Management</td>
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<th align="RIGHT" nowrap="nowrap" valign="BASELINE">Date: </th>
<td>Thu, 15 May 2014 02:22:33 -0400</td>
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<th align="RIGHT" nowrap="nowrap" valign="BASELINE">From: </th>
<td>Free Software Foundation <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:info@fsf.org"><info@fsf.org></a></td>
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<th align="RIGHT" nowrap="nowrap" valign="BASELINE">Reply-To:
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<td>Free Software Foundation <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:info@fsf.org"><info@fsf.org></a></td>
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<th align="RIGHT" nowrap="nowrap" valign="BASELINE">To: </th>
<td>Massimiliano CARNEMOLLA <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:massimiliano@null.net"><massimiliano@null.net></a></td>
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<p><em>You can read this post online at <a
moz-do-not-send="true" href="https://u.fsf.org/xk">https://u.fsf.org/xk</a>.</em></p>
<h1>FSF condemns partnership between Mozilla and Adobe to
support Digital Restrictions Management</h1>
<p>BOSTON, Massachusetts, USA — Wednesday, May 14th, 2014
— In response
to Mozilla's announcement that it is reluctantly
adopting DRM in its Firefox Web
browser, Free Software Foundation executive director
John Sullivan
made the following statement:</p>
<p>"Only a week after the <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://defectivebydesign.org/dayagainstdrm/">International
Day Against DRM</a>, Mozilla has
announced that it will partner with proprietary software
company Adobe
to implement support for Web-based <a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://defectivebydesign.org/what_is_drm_digital_restrictions_management">Digital
Restrictions
Management</a> (DRM) in its Firefox browser, using
Encrypted Media
Extensions (EME).</p>
<p>The Free Software Foundation is deeply disappointed in
Mozilla's
announcement. The decision compromises important
principles in order
to alleviate misguided fears about loss of browser
marketshare. It
allies Mozilla with a company hostile to the free
software movement
and to Mozilla's own fundamental ideals.</p>
<p>Although Mozilla will not directly ship Adobe's
proprietary DRM
plugin, it will, as an official feature, encourage
Firefox users to
install the plugin from Adobe when presented with media
that requests
DRM. We agree with Cory Doctorow that there is no
meaningful
distinction between 'installing DRM' and 'installing
code that
installs DRM.'</p>
<p>We recognize that Mozilla is doing this reluctantly,
and we trust
these words coming from Mozilla much more than we do
when they come
from Microsoft or Amazon. At the same time, nearly
everyone who
implements DRM says they are forced to do it, and this
lack of
accountability is how the practice sustains itself.
Mozilla's
announcement today unfortunately puts it -- in this
regard -- in the
same category as its proprietary competitors.</p>
<p>Unlike those proprietary competitors, Mozilla is going
to great
lengths to reduce some of the specific harms of DRM by
attempting to
'sandbox' the plugin. But this approach cannot solve the
fundamental
ethical problems with proprietary software, or <a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/proprietary.html">the
issues that
inevitably arise when proprietary software is
installed</a> on a
user's computer.</p>
<p>In <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2014/05/14/drm-and-the-challenge-of-serving-users/">the
announcement</a>, Mitchell Baker asserts that
Mozilla's hands
were tied. But she then goes on to actively praise
Adobe's "value" and
suggests that there is some kind of necessary balance
between DRM and
user freedom.</p>
<p>There is nothing necessary about DRM, and to hear
Mozilla praising
Adobe -- the company who has been and continues to be a
vicious
opponent of the free software movement and the free Web
-- is
shocking. With this partnership in place, we worry about
Mozilla's
ability and willingness to criticize Adobe's practices
going forward.</p>
<p>We understand that Mozilla is afraid of losing users.
Cory Doctorow
<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/may/14/firefox-closed-source-drm-video-browser-cory-doctorow">points
out</a> that they have produced no evidence to
substantiate
this fear or made any effort to study the situation.
More importantly,
popularity is not an end in itself. This is especially
true for the
Mozilla Foundation, a nonprofit with an ethical mission.
In the past,
Mozilla has distinguished itself and achieved success by
protecting
the freedom of its users and explaining the importance
of that
freedom: including publishing Firefox's source code,
allowing others
to make modifications to it, and sticking to Web
standards in the face
of attempts to impose proprietary extensions.</p>
<p>Today's decision turns that calculus on its head,
devoting Mozilla
resources to delivering users to Adobe and hostile media
distributors. In the process, Firefox is losing the
identity which set
it apart from its proprietary competitors -- Internet
Explorer and
Chrome -- both of which are implementing EME in an even
worse fashion.</p>
<p>Undoubtedly, some number of users just want restricted
media like
Netflix to work in Firefox, and they will be upset if it
doesn't. This
is unsurprising, since the majority of the world is not
yet familiar
with the ethical issues surrounding proprietary
software. This debate
was, and is, a high-profile opportunity to introduce
these concepts to
users and ask them to stand together in some tough
decisions.</p>
<p>To see Mozilla compromise without making any public
effort to rally
users against this supposed "forced choice" is doubly
disappointing. They should reverse this decision. But
whether they do
or do not, we call on them to join us by devoting as
many of their
extensive resources to permanently eliminating DRM as
they are now
devoting to supporting it. The FSF will have more to say
and do on
this in the coming days. For now, users who are
concerned about this
issue should:</p>
<ul>
<li>
<p><strong><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:agal@mozilla.com">Write to Mozilla
CTO Andreas Gal and let him know that you
oppose DRM</a></strong>. Mozilla made this
decision in a
misguided appeal to its userbase; it needs to hear
in clear and
reasoned terms from the users who feel this as a
betrayal. Ask
Mozilla what it is going to do to actually solve the
DRM problem that
has created this false forced choice.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><strong><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://defectivebydesign.org/no-drm-in-html5">Join
our effort to stop EME approval</a> at the W3C</strong>.
While today's
announcement makes it even more obvious that W3C
rejection of EME
will not stop its implementation, it also makes it
clear that W3C can
fearlessly reject EME to send a message that DRM is
<em>not</em> a part of
the vision of a free Web.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><strong>Use a version of Firefox without the EME
code</strong>: Since its source
code is available under a license allowing anyone to
modify and
redistribute it under a different name, we expect
versions without
EME to be made available, and you should use those
instead. We will
list them in the <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://directory.fsf.org">Free Software
Directory</a>.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><strong>Donate to support the work of the <a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://u.fsf.org/xi">Free Software
Foundation</a>
and our <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://u.fsf.org/xh">Defective by Design</a>
campaign to actually end DRM.</strong>
Until it's completely gone, Mozilla and others will
be constantly
tempted to capitulate, and users will be pressured
to continue using
some proprietary software. If not us, give to
another group fighting
against digital restrictions."</p>
</li>
</ul>
<h2>References</h2>
<ul>
<li><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://defectivebydesign.org/what_is_drm_digital_restrictions_management">What
is DRM?</a></li>
<li><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2014/05/14/drm-and-the-challenge-of-serving-users/">https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2014/05/14/drm-and-the-challenge-of-serving-users/</a></li>
<li><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://hacks.mozilla.org/2014/05/reconciling-mozillas-mission-and-w3c-eme/">https://hacks.mozilla.org/2014/05/reconciling-mozillas-mission-and-w3c-eme/</a></li>
<li><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://defectivebydesign.org/dbd-condemns-drm-in-html">https://defectivebydesign.org/dbd-condemns-drm-in-html</a></li>
<li><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://fsf.org/news/coalition-against-drm-in-html">https://fsf.org/news/coalition-against-drm-in-html</a></li>
<li><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://defectivebydesign.org/oscar-awarded-w3c-in-the-hollyweb">https://defectivebydesign.org/oscar-awarded-w3c-in-the-hollyweb</a></li>
</ul>
<h2>Media Contact</h2>
<p>John Sullivan <br>
Executive Director <br>
Free Software Foundation <br>
+1 (617) 542 5942 <br>
<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:campaigns@fsf.org">campaigns@fsf.org</a></p>
<h2>About the Free Software Foundation</h2>
<p>The Free Software Foundation, founded in 1985, is
dedicated to
promoting computer users' right to use, study, copy,
modify, and
redistribute computer programs. The FSF promotes the
development and
use of free (as in freedom) software -- particularly the
GNU operating
system and its GNU/Linux variants -- and free
documentation for free
software. The FSF also helps to spread awareness of the
ethical and
political issues of freedom in the use of software, and
its Web sites,
located at fsf.org and gnu.org, are an important source
of information
about GNU/Linux. Donations to support the FSF's work can
be made at
<a moz-do-not-send="true" href="https://donate.fsf.org">https://donate.fsf.org</a>.
Its headquarters are in Boston, MA, USA.</p>
--
<p><a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://status.fsf.org/fsf">Follow us on GNU
social</a> | <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://fsf.org/blogs/RSS">Subscribe to our
blogs via RSS</a> | <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://www.fsf.org/jf">Join us as an associate
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class="postal-code">02110-1335</span><br>
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