5thwind.com — According to the NY Times today, "To watch a movie, the Linux user must install necessary codecs, or decoders. One way to do that is to first download a program called Automatix from www.getautomatix.com.? Apparently, he was not running the Gutsy beta.
Oct 4, 2007 View in Crawl 4
Closed AccountOct 5, 2007
You sorta contradicted yourself there. If you use a piece of unapproved software to decrypt a DVD (e.g. playing it on your computer) that's a copyright violation. If you've not paid the royalties or license fees for the codecs to "legally" playback that DVD, you are in violation of the law.
spr0k3tOct 5, 2007
Hypocritical: Feeding a known troll.
c0mpw3rkOct 23, 2007
vlc did not work for my DVD playback needs.
nybble41Nov 19, 2007
You are confused.It is not a copyright violation to play a DVD on your computer. It is not a copyright violation to use independently-implemented codecs to decrypt or decode the contents of the DVD -- although decoding it may be a patent violation if the decoding process (specifically MPEG-2) is patented. CSS is *not* patented, to the best of my knowledge (I believe they chose to make it a trade secret instead), and MPEG-2 decoding is available to anyone under RAND terms, so the only legal obstacle to playing back DVDs is the special DMCA provisions against circumventing technological copy-prevention measures. This is independent of copyright violations; one can circumvent such measures without ever violating copyright.