libdvdcss

[Anders Karlsson]

On Sat, 2006-06-03 at 23:44 +1000, Alexander Jacob Tsykin wrote:
> On Saturday 03 June 2006 20:52, Anders Karlsson wrote:
[snip: Marillat]
> Or else its illegal.

MPlayer and Xine is in themselves not illegal. Combining them with deCSS
code pushes them into that direction though.

> > If people campaign for the 'no cost' solution to be included
> > (libdvdcss), it will fuel the picture the content producers are painting
> > of Linux users as thiefs and criminals. If people weigh in behind
> > Fluendo's effort that is legal but will cost money, it takes the wind
> > out of the sails of the content producers.
> >
> I don't know anybody who says that Linux people as a whole are thieves, nor 
> have I heard of such a person. Even Microsoft doesn't say that, and Microsoft 
> certainly pulls its own weight in the area of FUD propagation. Furthermore, 
> this non-free solution will not be open source, so there will be no way for 
> the Ubuntu developers to support it.

SlashDot should perhaps be taken with a pinch of salt, but there are
regularly stories on there where FOSS is compared to communism and
inference is made that Open Source users are thieves.

*AA has in the past inferred that as Linux distributions don't honour
their DRM efforts as Microsoft Windows does, Linux software is used to
facilitate piracy and theft. No doubt they will do so again.

> > Or there is the smartest solution of all, don't but content that has CSS
> > or any other form of DRM. Once enough people do this, the incentive to
> > use DRM disappears and there will be no need to include libdvdcss or
> > other legally dubious solutions to access content.
> >
> And in the meantime all of these products are unavailable to us. This is not a 
> solution, it takes years for this sort of thing to have a noticeable affect, 
> even if a critical mass of people were to start doing this, which they won't. 
> Its a nice idea, bu what we need is a practical solution.

Unfortunately the practical solutions will take time as well. Piratbyrån
in Sweden is trying to change copyright law through political lobbying.
That takes years, probably decades to pay off.

If anyone has a legal, effective and free/open solution to defeat DRM
and content protection, I'd be most interested in hearing about it.

> > Not watching DVD's on my Linux desktop is a small price to pay to get
> > rid of DRM once and for all.
> 
> For me its a large price I won't pay. I want to watch DVDs which my parents 
> don't like, so the DVD player and TV are out of the question. That only 
> leaves my computer. If I don't watch DVDs on Linux, then my only options are 
> to download movies illegally, stealing from the people who made them, 
> something I won't do, or to not watch movies. Neither of these is a 
> satisfactory solution.

Doing the right thing rarely comes without a price. I hear you, and I
understand you. Jan Claeys suggested a player available in Linspire,
that seems to be the only legal way so far.

-- 
Anders Karlsson <trudheim at gmail.com>
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