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-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On Sunday 20 Apr 2003 12:32 pm, Julian Hall wrote: > Hi Keith, > BTW as a passing interest, what muppet decided that it is illegal to > play DVDs on Linux? Illegal to play my own purchased DVDs on my own > purchased computer?? I don't think so! It would be legal IF one of the DVD companies sold you a licenced Linux DVD player but in the absence of one for protected movies, the DVD issuing company expect you to PAY for the DVD player of their choice which is Windows (or Mac (I think?)). You purchased the DVD but not the rights to the movie - i.e. copying, changing or re-selling. You can do what you like with the DVD (the plastic itself) but the movie (allegedly) is not your property. The companies say that you gain the rights to watch the movie when you pay extra for an approved player. Whether that is actually valid in law, I don't know as there is nothing on the packaging stating that an approved player is required. Like copy-protected CD's, the companies are trying to force you to only use certain equipment to access the copyrighted material. What the companies term illegal (but still not tested under UK law) is using the open-source code reverse engineered by DVD-Jon because that code is not authorised for use by the copyright owner. (I think). Not all DVD's are protected (99% but not all). I prefer to use the DVD-player downstairs and watch it on a TV screen - the office isn't exactly a comfortable place to watch a movie. I paid for the DVD-player and I paid for another DVD-player as software when I bought my last PC with Windows. Some DVD's come with yet another DVD-player for Windows so I'm certainly not going to pay anyone for another DVD-player for Linux no matter what Time-Warner say. The Redmond Tax is bad enough without the DVD tax too. What's needed is some way of releasing a version of the DVD code that can play all DVD's but which doesn't open the door to copying. Full open-source is being attacked by the copyright owners, full closed-source proprietary drivers aren't available and would not be acceptable if payment is involved anyway - perhaps some way of running the byte-code from existing Windows installations. I can't see a DVD player run via Wine being particularly watchable but if the overhead can be reduced along the lines of the SpeedTouch ADSL modem with it's Windows byte-code, it might work. While we're talking legal: what do people think of the SCO / IBM spat? - -- Neil Williams ============= http://www.codehelp.co.uk http://www.dclug.org.uk http://www.wewantbroadband.co.uk/ -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.0.7 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQE+opeeiAEJSii8s+MRAjMTAKDZilY+o4CZeNeqzaXZmOpvDAbfIwCg2X0h lWJKM3Wu0YiYzEhN/++CRi0= =FiDh -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- The Mailing List for the Devon & Cornwall LUG Mail majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxx with "unsubscribe list" in the message body to unsubscribe.