libdvdcss

[Anders Karlsson]

On Sun, 2006-05-28 at 18:22 +0100, Tristan Wibberley wrote:
> Alexander Jacob Tsykin wrote:
[snip]
> > That's true, to the best f my knowledge, but it remains effectively illegal as 
> > none of the major players are willing to risk it.
> 
> Many hardware players decode css encrypted DVDs and output the data in
> analogue, but high quality, form. I am guessing that they are only legal
> because at least one content producer has said it's okay for them to do
> this. I wonder if Canonical released an encrypted DVD could they
> authorise the use of libdvdcss to decode it and thereby authorise its
> distribution within Ubuntu?

The hardware DVD players manufacturers have signed license agreements
and other related agreements (like not letting decryption keys fall into
non-licensees hands). They may even have paid for the privilege.

libdvdcss AFAIK is based on the deCSS effort by DVD-Jon (who
incidentally has been prosecuted twice over the matter, both times
unsuccessfully thankfully) which under the DMCA in the USA certainly
makes it illegal. IANAL, but deCSS is probably on shaky ground in the EU
as well as it uses a 'pilfered' decrypt key. (The Xiph one IIRC.)

Whether Canonical release a CSS scrambled DVD or not will probably not
have any bearing what so ever on the legality of deCSS/libdvdcss.

#include "disclaimer.h" and so forth...

-- 
Anders Karlsson <trudheim at gmail.com>
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