-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On Sun, Mar 19, 2017 at 08:52:14PM -0500, Michael Milliman wrote:
[...] > As an addendum to my previous post on this topic, the reason this > library is not included in the Debian repositories is that there are > legal issues in some jurisdictions associated with using this library. > I'm not sure exactly what the legal issues are, but it has something to > do with copyrights, not of the library, but of the videos. So, you > might want to check on the legalities in your jurisdiction. To be more specific: the DVD's content is (almost always) encrypted (the so-called "Content Scrambling System" aka CSS). To unscramble, you need a key, issued by one industry consortium. Every "device" manufacturer (a device can also be a piece of software) has to get such a key, under the usual "industry standard" abusive conditions, perhaps involving some money changing hands. Now DeCSS managed to circumvent all that -uh- circus, which AFAIK involves some "leaked" keys (remember each "device", that involves software, has some key somehow embedded in it. Obfuscation makes it difficult, yet not impossible to extract the key). The currently preferred libdvdcss uses another approach and doesn't need leaked keys. In some jurisdictions, the wormtongue^H^H "content industry" lobbies have managed to make it illegal to circumvent (or help in circumventing) such "intellectual property protection schemes". Even talking about it (as I am doing now) might be considered iffy in some jurisdictions (I think the situation is a tad better these days, but I might be wrong). This is the famous DMCA in the USA, although we have similarly appetizing things over here in the EU. The gist of the thing is that you *might* get in hot water by even offering such a library in the InterTubes (the original DeCSS author actually got into legal hot water). And that the laws and their exceptions are so mushy as to be ideal food for lawyers. The kind of warm and humid climate where FUD grows best. In a nutshell, best to get politically involved or at least to throw some money at those fighting the good fight (in the USA you have a huge choice, like the EFF and the FSF to name but two). Read more here: [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Content_scrambling_system [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DeCSS [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libdvdcss Regards - -- tomás -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.12 (GNU/Linux) iEYEARECAAYFAljPnacACgkQBcgs9XrR2kZhpACcDRwIB/Zb8ZsDzZShu5bd8odF S3kAn3HsmE2ADuI3NLZiaLWgYkJ/UfZr =qWYV -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
