VideoLAN might disappear !, The battle is not over... Options

[PatchWorKs]

During the night of 22nd to 23rd December 2005, while everybody is preparing for Christmas, the French Parliament will rule about the "DADVSI" law. This vote will be made with minimal discussion, as an "emergency" has been declared on this law.

This law is the French transcription of the european EUCD (European Union Copyright Directive) text, which itself comes from the american DMCA (Digital Millenium Copyright Act).
The main goal of this law is to restrict the rights of digital content purchasers. It most notably forbids them from working around technical content protection measures.
Doing so, writing or publishing software allowing to do so, or even merely talking about ways to do so becomes an offence that can be punished with three years in jail.

VideoLAN is directly impacted, most notably for its DVD reading capability (all Linux DVD reading software has the same problem). Should this law be passed, this would seriously hinder VLC's development.

The french website eucd.info collects a large number of related articles and documentation

This post has been edited by PatchWorKs: Dec 4 2005, 16:04

[rjamorim]

"VideoLAN might disappear"

Ohhh, what a surprise. These guys are throwing activism and apocalyptical threats again.

Sickening

[eofor]

"VideoLAN might disappear"

It won't disappear, this only means that they might have to pay licensing fees like everyone else (QuickTime, Nero, Winamp, WMP, WinDVD, etc). What they're doing now is akin to standing on the streets handing out free photocopied chapters of "The Da Vinci Code", telling people "it's your responsibility to find out if this is illegal here, if it is you should contact the publishers yourself to make arrangements".

[MedO]

It won't disappear, this only means that they might have to pay licensing fees like everyone else (QuickTime, Nero, Winamp, WMP, WinDVD, etc). What they're doing now is akin to standing on the streets handing out free photocopied chapters of "The Da Vinci Code", telling people "it's your responsibility to find out if this is illegal here, if it is you should contact the publishers yourself to make arrangements".

They can't pay license fees afaik, because open source projects won't get a license. Also, the fees are paid per shipped unit or something, which is kind of impossible to do with F/OSS. At least I think I read this stuff somewhere...

[Gabriel]

They can't pay license fees afaik, because open source projects won't get a license. Also, the fees are paid per shipped unit or something, which is kind of impossible to do with F/OSS. At least I think I read this stuff somewhere...

I personally don't understand why an open source project would not be able to get an mpeg license. Beeing willing to do it is another problem.
But codecs licenses is not the object of this topic, which btw is 1 year old.

[MedO]

They can't pay license fees afaik, because open source projects won't get a license. Also, the fees are paid per shipped unit or something, which is kind of impossible to do with F/OSS. At least I think I read this stuff somewhere...

I personally don't understand why an open source project would not be able to get an mpeg license. Beeing willing to do it is another problem.
But codecs licenses is not the object of this topic, which btw is 1 year old.

I meant the license to decode CSS. Maybe I'm confusing something here though.

[eofor]

I meant the license to decode CSS. Maybe I'm confusing something here though.

According to the CCA FAQ you can get CSS licenses in Open Source projects. Like MPEG licensing, it's a matter of choice. Although VLC might get away with it (they're most likely too small to be sued), VLC are a bit naive if they think they can continue forever to base the product on the free use of patented technology, while all competitors are paying up. The legal limbo can't be there forever so at some point, they're going to have to go legit or "go underground".

This post has been edited by eofor: Jan 18 2007, 15:41

[MedO]

According to the CCA FAQ you can get CSS licenses in Open Source projects. Like MPEG licensing, it's a matter of choice. Although VLC might get away with it (they're most likely too small to be sued), VLC are a bit naive if they think they can continue forever to base the product on the free use of patented technology, while all competitors are paying up. The legal limbo can't be there forever so at some point, they're going to have to go legit or "go underground".

I guess you assume this from the following text:

Can manufacturers of products for computers using the Linux operating system obtain a license to use CSS to manufacture a DVD player for Linux applications?

Absolutely. The DVD Copy Control Association would welcomes applications for the legal use of CSS from all manufacturers. In fact, Sigma Designs (www.sigmadesigns.com) is now marketing a DVD player for Linux under its license to manufacture products using CSS.

Read again. It says Linux applications, not Open Source.

[eofor]

Read again. It says Linux applications, not Open Source.

Unless I'm mistaken (and please correct), an application can be Open Source, but the CSS decoding library will have to be a binary library. This is the way lots of OS projects use proprietary technology (video drivers under Linux, for example). Then again, I'm not a lawyer.

[MedO]

Unless I'm mistaken (and please correct), an application can be Open Source, but the CSS decoding library will have to be a binary library. This is the way lots of OS projects use proprietary technology (video drivers under Linux, for example). Then again, I'm not a lawyer.

VLC is distributed under the GPL, and I think it is legally problematic to link GPL software and proprietary modules and distribute them as one package (see the NVIDIA kernel module). IANAL as well, though.