3 ms·
(disclaimer: I wrote that page :) ) Well, there are 2 legal parts that apply here: - DRM - software patents. Software patents for DVDs are almost all over (
by jbk 11y ago
(disclaimer: I wrote that page :) )
Well, there are 2 legal parts that apply here:
- DRM
- software patents.
Software patents for DVDs are almost all over (it's a 20 year old technology). And in Europe, we don't have valid software patents.
On the DRM part, libdvdcss is not DeCSS, it's either finding the right key or brute-forcing to find the right key. In order to play a DVD, you need to "open" the DRM, else you cannot have playback.
In the case of VLC+libdvdcss-bundle, it's usually fine in (sane) juridictions because it's a player, not violating the copyrights holders. On some other, it's illegal.
- Joeri 11y agoThe underlying motivation of the encryption on DVD's goes beyond preventing piracy. It's about making sure you cannot skip past the ads at the start of the movie. They needed a mechanism to require all DVD players to respect the flags on a DVD that say "this cannot be skipped", and did that by pushing it into the 1996 WIPO treaty that you must have anti-circumvention laws that prohibit people from breaking the encryption on copyrighted materials without the permission of the rights holder. Only licensed players are decrypting with permission. VLC is not a licensed player, so VLC often runs afoul of such laws. Just because the patents expire doesn't make the anti-circumvention laws go away. Those laws only stop applying once the copyright on the DVD expires, in a century or so.
- kuschku 11y agoWell, those anti-circumvention laws, for example in Germany, only apply in some cases. For example, as soon as software is included on the CD, too, breaking the DRM becomes legal.
- throwawaykf05 11y ago> And in Europe, we don't have valid software patents. That is categorically untrue, and you should stop telling people that. In Europe, software is not patent-eligible "as such", but it is if it solves a technical problem. The only thing that eliminates is "business method" patents, which are just a subset of what people generally refer to as "software patents".
- egeozcan 11y agoI'm interested, could you please give an example?
- yrro 11y agoThere are plenty of patents listed at http://www.mpegla.com/main/programs/avc/Documents/avc-att1.pdf http://www.mpegla.com/main/programs/avc/Documents/avc-att1.p..., http://mp3licensing.com/patents/ http://mp3licensing.com/patents/ and http://www.mpegla.com/main/programs/hevc/Documents/hevc-att1.pdf http://www.mpegla.com/main/programs/hevc/Documents/hevc-att1....