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Re: Re: [dvd-discuss] Geeks in government: A good idea?



On 18 Aug 2002 at 9:54, Tom wrote:

Date sent:      	Sun, 18 Aug 2002 09:54:44 +0200
From:           	Tom <tom@lemuria.org>
To:             	dvd-discuss@eon.law.harvard.edu
Subject:        	Re: Re: [dvd-discuss] Geeks in government: A good idea?
Send reply to:  	dvd-discuss@eon.law.harvard.edu

> On Sun, Aug 18, 2002 at 02:05:18AM +0000, ronald@caprock-spur.com wrote:
> > >How many commercial Linux distros include one of the free DVD
> > >players?
> > 
> > SUSE has Xmovie and Mandrake seems to, but RedHat doesn't seem to. That said
> > they may not have the libcss installed and would require a download/install to
> > play encrypted DVDs.
> 
> suse does not support encrypted DVDs and says so quite plainly on their
> support website. they include xine for unencrypted viewing and distance
> themself from any support for DVDs under Linux.
> 
> even Debian doesn't have libdvdcss in their distro. there is, indeed, a
> very visible chilling effect here.

Yes indeed....If they distribute it then they are "trafficking" in 
circumvention technology. OTOH, if it is legal for me to write my own DVD 
player and it is legal for me to give it to my friends...then if it is legal to 
give it to friends of friends then P2P distribution with some soft of 
authentication ("joe Sent me") of DVD players may not fall afoul of the 
DMCA...somehow I doubt that argument would get much respect in court. In the 
2600 case they were making it available to the public via linking. Actually the 
whole situation may become reminiscent of prohibition. Suddenly it became chic 
to drink in speakeasys and all it took was "joe sent me" to get in.


> 
> 
> -- 
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> pub  1024D/2D7A04F5 2002-05-16 Tom Vogt <tom@lemuria.org>
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