4 ms·
Potentially, there's a 5 year jail sentence for doing that[1]. [1] https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/1204 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/1
by zucker42 6y ago
Potentially, there's a 5 year jail sentence for doing that[1].
[1] https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/1204 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/1204
- mvolfik 6y agoThe thing is he isn't circumventing copyright protection. He is just allowing it to play in his browser too, no downloading etc. I'm a legal noob, but there always was that "fair interests" like making stuff work on different devices/OSs (youtube-dl is hiding behind this a bit), would it not apply here?
- smogcutter 6y ago“Legal noob” is definitely one way to say “I am absolutely not a lawyer”.
- zucker42 6y agoThe ambiguity here is why I said potentially. Does circumventing a technical measure mean to access the content without Widevine, or is using Widevine in an unintended way enough? However, the law quite clearly says that fair use doesn't matter; you can't break DRM even if you're not violating copyright.
- matheusmoreira 6y agoImagine spending 5+ years in prison over copyright. I've seen news about violent criminals doing less time for violent crimes with actual victims.
- avmich 6y agoLet's rephrase: can you create a clone, a derivative work of a working OS browser, which only has DRM part not changed? I'm not sure if you're asking for technical or legal advice. If legal, then since most of us are not lawyers here, strictly speaking we can't judge if "Hello, world!" program will put us in jail or not.
- zucker42 6y agoProbably not, at the very least since Widevine is licensed by Google.
- mcjkrw 6y agoWould it be legal if DRM is not shipped with the browser, but the user can download and install it separately (copy it manually to the browser folder)?