libdvdcss

[Anders Karlsson]

On Mon, 2006-05-29 at 14:09 +0100, Tristan Wibberley wrote:
> Usual sort of disclaimer applies: I am not a lawyer and any opinion
> expressed is merely wondering aloud and is not advice. All trademarks
> are owned by their respective owners (tautologically stupid thing to
> say, but that's what people seem to say when they mention a trademark term).
> 
> Jerry Haltom wrote:
> > Refer to the DVD-CCA. http://www.dvdcca.org/ They distribute licenses to
> > use their PATENTS, COPYRIGHTS and TRADE SECRETS in the US and other
> > countries. There is nothing public domain about this.
> 
> I couldn't find any mention of what is licensed for player or drive
> manufacturers except "Confidential Information". But tens of thousands
> of people know how CSS works and a simple google search will tell you
> how, so I don't think it's a secret anymore.

The confidential information is most likely the decryption keys.
Possibly also details about the region encoding etc.

Just because you know roughly how something patented/copyrighted
material works does *not* mean you have carte blanche to do with it as
you wish. Trade secrets is the only area where public knowledge *and a
lack of action from the originator* can give people rights. I think the
RIAA has more than amply demonstrated a willingness to protect trade
secrets.

> I could offer you a license for any patents, copyrights or trade secrets
> that I hold in the Linux kernel, and you may or may not be allowed to
> distribute it depending on other agreements you may or may not have or
> may or may not need. Now tell me, does that mean you can't distribute
> Linux unless you buy a license from me? Note that I *don't* offer you a
> license for anything, this is a for-instance.

You would not get patented material or trade secrets into the kernel
unless you had a written contract stating your donation of same to the
kernel project or public domain.

> > The US at least, and the DMCA specifically, prevents people from
> > distributing technology that decrypts DVDs. If no other country prevents
> > people from doing this, at least the US does, and Canonical must operate
> > in the US. But I doubt that is the case. There some some countries that
> > have more draconian laws than US.
> > 
> > All that stuff about DVD drives outputting analog copies, that was BS.
> > There is no such thing. There is only a digital connection from your DVD
> > drive to your PC. IDE or SATA.
> 
> My parents have a player at home that outputs analogue into their telly.
> It decodes CSS encrypted data and I trust that the manufacturer has been
> authorised to do so, avoiding action under the UK version of the DMCA.
> My questions are who authorised them to distribute such a device, where
> in UK law is that person authorised to give such authorisation, and what
> distinguishes them in the eyes of the law from Canonical?

Yes, a DVD player can decode CSS, and the manufacturers hold licenses
allowing them to put that functionality into the player. That license
agreement also will state that they have to protect the decryption key
so it is not trivial to extract it. This is where Xing (Xiph? Xing?
something like that anyway) failed, as they did not encrypt the
decryption key.

IF Canonical acquired a license for a CSS decryption key, they *can*
*not* make the key, nor the source for the player, available. If they
do, they are in violation of the license.

I would guess, as I don't know for sure, that the license probably
prohibits creating a player that dumps the decrypted data to disk or
other storage media. So that won't fly either.

> There seem to be two problems. Do Canonical, Ubuntu devs, and Ubuntu
> users have any and all copyright, patent, trade secret, and licenses for
> any other intellectual property necessary to distribute verbatim copies
> or works derived from libdvdcss? Do they have the same authority to
> authorise the creation of a player device in general and the same
> authority to determine the engineering standards that separate a player
> from a circumvention device as does the DVD CCA?

If I understood it right, deCSS is certainly a circumvention device, and
hence under the DMCA illegal. libdvdcss takes a different approach,
through guessing the key, but lacks a license and hence also falls in
the category of circumvention device. If Canonical wants to do business
in the USA, libdvdcss is a no-no to include on media or in official
repositories.

I am not certain on EU law, but there is something similar to DMCA in
effect here, and that probably makes libdvdcss illegal here as well.

Let's face it, until there is a official, closed source, properly
licensed player for Linux distributions, watching DVD Movies on your
Linux powered computer is most likely illegal. Saying that, as long as
the DVD's are properly purchased the content producers are most likely
going to turn a blind eye. The moment you use libdvdcss piracy and get
caught, it'll most likely get added to the sentence as an extra felony. 

#include "disclaimer.h"
#include "ianal.h"

-- 
Anders Karlsson <trudheim at gmail.com>
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