-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 houghi wrote:
The problem is that they have to integrate tightly with the shipping X Server to fulfill the mandatory copy protection mechanisms (macrovision). This makes shipping a generic DVD player for Linux very difficult. Ah, so if there would be a legal version of libdvdcss2, that would cause a
On Tue, Oct 04, 2005 at 08:37:35AM +0200, Marcus Meissner wrote: problem? Somehow I do not think so.
Be careful to distinguish between copyright and patents. That's probably what's the most misleading with libdvdcss2. - From the copyright aspect, there's no problem whatsoever, as libdvdcss2, mad and lame are (L)GPL (or BSD or whatever, they're OpenSource). So, from that point, you might very well package it and distribute it according to their license (=(L)GPL). The problem is with patents and licenses that apply to the underlying technologies. For MP3, the issue is with the patent license: as already discussed often on this list, a few businesses (Thompson and Frauenhofer, amongst others) hold patents on various parts of the MP3 technology. Yes, it's even that bad: it's not just one company having the patents, it's several of them. Some of them specify that you MAY NOT distribute implementations of their technology without buying patent licenses on them. That is the reason why mad (an MP3 decoding library) is (L)GPL, but may not be distributed for free as part of SUSE Linux OSS. The "commercial" (boxed) SUSE Linux version may do so because Novell is a licensee and pays a distribution fee to the patent holders. Of course, that license fee is included in the price of the boxed set. It's even worse for e.g. lame (an MP3 encoding library), as their patent [license] restrictions on MP3 encoders are very harsh. Maybe now you realize with Ogg/Vorbis is so important and why you should definately use Ogg/Vorbis (or Theora) when you rip and encode your music or movie collection. Ogg/Vorbis is not only Free software, it's also _free from patents_: "Ogg Vorbis is a completely open, patent-free, professional audio encoding and streaming technology with all the benefits of Open Source." (http://www.vorbis.com/) Also read the 3 paragraphs on their website, starting here: http://www.vorbis.com/faq/#com With libdvdcss2, it's even more complicated, as it might infringe patents, depending on the country you live in (and its laws). Given how aggressive the music and movie industry is at the moment, that means you're potentially a legal target for them, pretty much anywhere in the world. And it doesn't even matter if you're right or wrong, patents are basically cash machines. So, to summarize: libdvdcss2 is (L)GPL, but infringes patents because they break the conditions by which you are allowed to play encrypted DVDs. As a side note: never, ever use the term "intellectual property". It doesn't mean a thing. That's a PR term (probably invented by SCO ;)) that very vaguely refers to copyright and patents, which are two totally different things. "Intellectual property" is not a term that has any "legal" meaning. So make sure to use the correct terms "copyright" and "patents", appropriately.
To build an installer around that should not be too hard, be it deb, rpm, tgz or even a binary.
Well, I'm afraid that even providing an installer could get you into trouble.
Depending on the country you live in and the country where your installer is hosted, it can.
As an example: recently, in Germany, Heise (the largest IT news website and magazine publisher in
Germany) has lost in court because they were publishing a *hyperlink* to a DeCSS2-capable DVD ripper
software (for Windows). They're appealing, but who knows how this will end.
It's a sick, sick world, and I'm afraid we ain't seen nothing yet.
Hope this clarifies the MP3 and DeCSS2 shmoo once for all.
cheers
- --
-o) Pascal Bleser http://linux01.gwdg.de/~pbleser/
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