Standards: DRM: W3C Officially Publishes Encrypted Media Extensions (EME) as Recommendation
UPDATE: EFF Has Resigned Membership in W3C
See: “An open letter to the W3C Director, CEO, team and membership”
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Note: Background about today’s W3C announcement available via this post from July 7, 2017: “Standards: W3C Gives Go Ahead to DRM for the Web”
From a W3C News Release (September 18, 2017):
Furthering its goal to make the Web a first-class platform for media and entertainment, the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) published Encrypted Media Extensions (EME) as a W3C Recommendation or Web standard. EME is an Application Programming Interface (API) that allows plugin-free playback of protected (encrypted) content in Web browsers, which works seamlessly on all major platforms. W3C’s Media Source Extensions (MSE) provides the API for streaming video while its companion Encrypted Media Extensions (EME) provides the API for handling encrypted content. The combination of MSE and EME is the most common practice today that allows Web developers to stop using plugins to deliver commercial quality video over the Web.
The viewing experience of watching movies and TV shows on the Web has now moved from a cumbersome and possibly insecure arrangement to the security of the Open Web Platform. The integration of the EME API into the Open Web enables Web browsers to communicate with the software that allows playback of protected content.
Read the Complete Launch Announcement
Direct to Primary Document: Encrypted Media Extensions (W3C Recommendation 18 September 2017)
Direct to Reflections On The EME Debate
by W3C CEO, Jeff Jaffe
Filed under: News

About Gary Price
Gary Price (gprice@gmail.com) is a librarian, writer, consultant, and frequent conference speaker based in the Washington D.C. metro area. He earned his MLIS degree from Wayne State University in Detroit. Price has won several awards including the SLA Innovations in Technology Award and Alumnus of the Year from the Wayne St. University Library and Information Science Program. From 2006-2009 he was Director of Online Information Services at Ask.com. Gary is also the co-founder of infoDJ an innovation research consultancy supporting corporate product and business model teams with just-in-time fact and insight finding.