[plug] Open source DVD playback

[Matt Kemner]

On Wed, 3 Oct 2001, John Knight wrote:

> This is just an idea of mine, but why don't the 'DVD standard people' (to
> give 'em a technical term!) release a closed source, executable decryption
> programme? What I mean here is that you simply get the programme itself, and
> then base the player around it so that DVD secrets aren't released to the
> world and we can resume making DVD players,

Because the reason the DVDs are encrypted in the first place, is so the
DVD consortium has control over what people do with the DVDs.

By only licensing the decryption code to people who pay a license fee and
sign a contract, they are able to:

a) receive MORE money via the licensing fees
b) ensure that those players that are created are written so that people
   cannot fast forward past the advertising, and cannot export the stream
   to disk in another format (such as divx) easily.

If they were to release a closed-source library for people to write their
own players with, they would lose that control, and if you have been
following the court cases at all, you would realise that the MPAA and RIAA
are trying to cling onto their control for as long as they can.

 - Matt