Somehow I don't think the MPAA would agree with that argument....according to them your homebrew DVD players are the work of evil wicked mean an nasty hackers regardless of whether or not they own legitimate players..but it does tend to show the falacy of the authority of the copyright schism that the MPAA and Kaplan argue. If the authority is granted by buying an authorized player, then owning one grants the authority and it can't be revoked if you play the DVD on an unauthorized one.
Ole Craig <olc@cs.umass.edu> Sent by: owner-dvd-discuss@eon.law.harvard.edu
01/08/2003 10:27 AM
Please respond to dvd-discuss
To: dvd-discuss@eon.law.harvard.edu
cc:
Subject: Re: [dvd-discuss] Re: TurboTax for free?
On 01/08/03 at 18:57, 'twas brillig and Sham Gardner scrobe:
> On Wed, Jan 08, 2003 at 12:47:58PM -0500, Ole Craig wrote:
> > Somehow, I suspect that Jon did not construct his DVD hardware
> > out of spare parts, but rather bought a mass-manufactured DVD drive
> > from one of the DVDCCA cartel participants. I am sure that drive came
> > with a key. So Jon was doubtless in possession of a key, nu?
>
> DVD ROM drives don't contain player keys, Sanctioned DVD video players
> (including software players) do.
Yes, and I am certain that Jon received just such a package
along with his DVD drive, much as I did when I bought mine.
If purchase and possession of a player key is the thing which
confers authorization to view the content, then Jon and I are both in
the clear when we run our homebrew DVD players, despite the fact that
our players do not use the key in its original wrappings [software].
Ole
--
Ole Craig * UNIX, linux, SMTP-ninja; news, web; SGI martyr * CS Computing
Facility, UMass * <www.cs.umass.edu/~olc/pgppubkey.txt> for public key