EFF Delays for 1 Week Appeal Over W3C Decision to Advance EME as Recommendation

The Electronic Frontier Foundation temporarily withdrew its appeal of World Wide Web Consortium Director Tim Berners-Lee's decision to advance the encrypted media extensions (EME) specification as a W3C recommendation for playing copyrighted video on a browser but plans to refile its objection at the end of next week, blogged EFF Special Adviser Cory Doctorow in an updated Thursday post. He said the appeal was withdrawn for "purely logistical reasons" after consulting with W3C CEO Jeff Jaffe on timing. The previous day, Doctorow wrote that EFF formally appealed the July 6 decision, saying it was "improper" for Berners-Lee "to overrule the widespread members' objections and declare EME fit to be published as a W3C Recommendation." Work on the specification began four years ago and was aimed at enabling video playback with digital rights management (DRM) protection in a browser without the need for a plug-in (see 1703070054). "EME offers a better user experience, bringing greater interoperability, privacy, security and accessibility to viewing encrypted video on the Web," W3C said last week. Doctorow, EFF's W3C Advisory Committee representative, said last week a covenant is needed to require W3C members to promise to use laws like Digital Millennium Copyright Act Section 1201 to go after people who infringe copyrighted media and not against those who bypassed DRM for legal reasons such as security researchers or those who make videos more accessible to disabled people. On Wednesday, he said: "Through this appeal, we ask that the membership be formally polled on this question: 'Should a covenant protecting EME's users and investigators against anti-circumvention regulation be negotiated before EME is made a Recommendation?'"