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-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 psutton wrote: > If I e-mail my local MP what do I say that I want him to vote against the EU > copyright directive because it will prevent me from watching dvd's on my > computer, under open source operating systems such as Linux, > > or just prevent me from watching dvd's altogether on my computer DVD's are just an example of a format that is nominally protected by a protection scheme, in principal any file format in the future might be deemed covered if it has a "protection scheme". Typically a protected medium would only have licenced players, so expect this law to lead to even larger numbers of formats where no free software player is available. You may be able to buy a proprietary player for a format if the vendor has chosen to licence it on your platform (remember Microsoft is I believe the largest US publisher, so they'll be dead keen to licence Linux players for all their formats won't they!). Indeed there appears to be nothing in the bill that prevents Microsoft from including such a mechanism in MS Word, and declaring any interoperable product illegal (or at least trying to sue), it is likely competing word processors would pass the "significant other commercial uses test". But it is just another stick to beat competitors with. Have a read of the paper I did for the AFFS, decide what aspects seem worst to you. It potentially changes the whole balance of copyright, it has the potential to be the effective end of copyright period. Once a product is protected, any thing that removes the protection is illegal forever (or at least until all that material under copyright in that system has expired from copyright, thus we would just about be able to read wax drum style gramophone recordings on Linux, with current copyright periods), thus even when copyright expires you have to go to the secretary of state to demand your natural right to copy it. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.2.1 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQE+HeNNGFXfHI9FVgYRAnAqAJ9Kfgo6aHdSixaOMjbPH5nvClwa9ACgpy/g gx9PljSXWTpRzc7ru6eqAxA= =SnSw -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- The Mailing List for the Devon & Cornwall LUG Mail majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxx with "unsubscribe list" in the message body to unsubscribe.