On Thursday 25 August 2005 21:20, Detlef Wiese wrote:
I read the other replies to this and do only want to contribute by giving a short explanation about the legal implications.
MP3 as well als CSS (Content Scrambling System for encrypting commercial films on DVD) are copyrighted and are not open source.
Unfortunately itäs not a question of copyright. If it were, all you'd need is a clean room implementation (without seeing the original source) and you'd be free and clear. This is a question of patents, and with patents it doesn't matter if you did it yourself, you still need a license.
If you want to play a song or video that was made using one of these systems, you must have a decoder (I imagine you know that). This decoder must be licensed by the owner of the encoding system.
For MP3 nice guys and maybe girls found a way around an developed LAME.
lame is an encoder, not a decoder, and as far as I know it's illegal. Decoders are legal on the other hand, because Thompson, the company that licenses mp3 technology allow decoders free licenses as long as they are given away for free. As soon as you start charging for it, they want a piece of the action. This is why you can download mp3 players for free, but not include them in a box with a price tag (without a license, at least)
But there is no legal workaround for CSS.
With MS-Windoze you can use WinDVD, PowerDVD etc, which all include a licensed version of CSS. Once there was also a company trying to develop an equivalent for Linux, called LinDVD, but that project never reached it's goal.
That was the same company that made WinDVD, and it very much reached its goal. It is included in the TurboLinux distribution today.