Legal Status of libdvdcss

[Matthew East]

On Wed, 2006-02-22 at 09:38 +0000, Mark Shuttleworth wrote:
> Matthew East wrote:
> > This is the debian view. I agree: the key is that in many countries the tool is
> > legitimate, and in fact I actually think that putting the warning about using
> > the script in a very visible guide such as the Desktop Guide is in fact an
> > improvement on keeping it hidden away in
> > /usr/share/doc/libdvdread3/README.debian. By including a clear warning in the
> > guide, we are in fact helping people to understand the situation better.
> >   
> I do agree that these issues are best dealt with clearly and in the
> open. It seems to me that having clear text in the obvious Ubuntu
> documentation that says "In some countries, it is generally believe to
> be legal to install and run the following code without additional
> licences. In other countries, you may need specific permission or
> patent licences. Please ascertain your legal right to use any code
> that may be covered by patents or other intellectual property
> encumbrances." or some such. If you can draft something up, I'll ask
> the Canonical legal advisers to take a view.

You can see the draft here:

http://mdke.org/images/dvd.png

It's a clearer version of what the documentation for the script itself
says, in /usr/share/doc/libdvdread3/README.debian, so it may be worth
showing that to the lawyers. If that is ok, then what our documentation
includes is more than ok.

(note that it's not a patent issue I don't think, it is a question of
circumvention of copy-protection).

Matt
-- 
mdke at ubuntu.com
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