Question on legalities

[Christophe Sauthier]

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Ubuntu developpers.

      Christophe

On Wed, Jan 6, 2010 at 8:33 PM, Martin Owens <doctormo at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hey Neil,
>
> It really does depend on what codecs and extras.
>
> For all of the totem plugins, you should be fine. Those plugins aren't
> illegal in any way, anywhere in the world. There is just a legal grey
> area about weather or not that Free Software, maybe, possibly, could be
> covered by patents which maybe, possibly be attractive to the owners to
> sue over. Even then it's a civil case matter, not a criminal one.
>
> For w32codecs and ms-corefonts, that's illegal. It's copyright
> infringement if you start dishing them out.
>
> For playing encrypted dvds, libdvdcss2, check to see if your country has
> enacted a law similar to the EUCD and DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright
> Act) and also check for clauses that allow for the breaking of
> encryption for compatibility. For instance in this case it's probably
> more ok to use libdvdcss in the USA than it is in the EU since the
> American got a weak compatibility clause that could offer protection.
>
> I think you can ship the flash player deb, but you'll also need to get
> the flash player binary that the deb downloads. Check the licensing
> agreement to see if you can redistribute.
>
> IANAL, this is just what I've picked up.
>
> Martin,
>
> On Wed, 2010-01-06 at 18:39 +0200, Neil Coetzer wrote:
>> Hi all,
>>
>> I would like to get some input on whether or not our LoCo should be
>> involved in the following sort of project:
>>
>> The most common query/complaint we receive from new Ubuntu users in
>> Zimbabwe concerns the lack of proprietary codecs, particularly in
>> light of the fact that a lot of people here have no Internet access at
>> all and are therefore unable to install them later in the usual
>> manner.
>>
>> To solve this problem, a script has been written with a graphical
>> front-end, to install these codecs offline (packaged with a cache of
>> the required packages).
>>
>> Our concerns are that since these codecs are not shipped with Ubuntu
>> for reasons of the legalities involved, would it be acceptable for us
>> to make the script and package cache available on our LoCo site or
>> not? We would like to have this available on our LoCo Web site (mostly
>> for team members to be able to download and then use later offline
>> where necessary), but if the general feeling on this is that it
>> wouldn't be "right", then I'll possibly place it on my company site
>> instead.
>>
>> Any feedback would be appreciated.
>>
>> --
>> Regards,
>>
>> Neil Coetzer
>> Team Contact
>> Ubuntu Zimbabwe LoCo Team
>> -------------------------------------------
>> http://www.ubuntu.org.zw
>> http://zimbabwe.ubuntuforums.org
>> http://www.ubuntu-zw.org
>> -------------------------------------------
>> http://www.karigon.net
>> Thinking way outside the box
>>
>
>
>
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