Mozilla announced today that it will follow the lead of Microsoft, Google, and Apple and implement support for the contentious HTML5 digital rights management specification called Encrypted Media Extensions (EME).
The organization is partnering with Adobe to make the change. Mozilla will provide the hooks and APIs in Firefox to enable Web content to manipulate DRM-protected content, and Adobe will provide a closed source Content Decryption Module (CDM) to handle the decryption needs.
For a group that's committed to open standards and open source, this was a difficult decision. DRM, which tends to restrict fair use access to copyrighted content, and closed source modules both run counter to Mozilla's goals. Explaining the decision, Mozilla Foundation CEO Mitchell Baker argued that the decision was driven by necessity. With Internet Explorer, Chrome, and Safari all enabling EME, Mozilla faced a problem: if it refused to support EME, it risked driving users seeking to watch DRM-protected content to other browsers.
Read the rest at Ars:
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