OSNews

I realize you are just taking a pragmatic view on this, and there is no doubt there is truth to your statement. But while you may consider this a barrier to adoption, I see it as a feature and a _benefit_ - it is just a matter of time before the majority of users see it that way as well. And users are what matter, not content producers...

The video tag is useful for many different reasons, one _specific_ reason is that it does _not_ support any method of DRM or other such nonsense. It doesn't hide things. In fact any implementation that included any form of DRM or source masking would be by definition non-conforming.

It has been said thousands of times by many different people, but I will again state the boringly obvious: Any programmatic endeavor to keep people from using data that you have given them in any way they see fit is futile. If you give someone something there is simply no credible way to keep them from doing what they want with it - no matter how much you obfusticate things in the end they still have it, and as long as they have it it is just a matter of time. This has been demonstrated over and over and over and over again. You simply cannot give people access to a video on the internet without in reality giving them the video.

The point is as soon as all these low-brow users you speak of realize how utterly simple it is to just download the video by right clicking and hitting save-as, they will actually want to take the videos with them and will _demand_ things to work that way. If you are a content distributer, and you want use the internet to do so, you need to accept the fact that this will happen. If you don't like it don't distribute your content. My hope is that there is enough content available this way that one day in the not too distant future when some Everyday Joe right-clicks on his video and sees "About Adobe Flash Player x.0" instead of "Save As..." he will just go somewhere else.