The illegality of playing DVDs on Linux

[Chip Marshall]

On 09-Mar-2010, Benjamin Scott <dragonhawk at gmail.com> sent:
> On Tue, Mar 9, 2010 at 11:04 AM, Chip Marshall <chip at 2bithacker.net> wrote:
> > Legal DVD playback in Linux is entirely possible, you just have
> > to buy software to do it.
> 
> *Technically*, I think what you have to buy is a *license*.
> 
>   I don't know what the terms of the licensing agreements for this
> stuff are.  I wonder if someone could buy a license for a FOSS
> project?

I did a bunch of research on this about a decade ago (hard to
believe its been that long already) and I seem to recall that
because the algorithm protecting DVDs was so weak, the CCA would
not grant licenses to open source projects, since it would expose
the system.

10 years later and everyone and their brother knowing how to
crack DVD CSS, it might be more feasible, but I still doubt
they would sell a license to anything other than a closed
source product.

-- 
Chip Marshall <chip at 2bithacker.net>
http://weblog.2bithacker.net/          KB1QYW        PGP key ID 43C4819E
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