[plug] Open source DVD playback

[Peter Wright]

On Thu, Oct 04, 2001 at 06:46:19PM +0800, John Knight wrote:
[ Matt said: ]
> >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.
[ snip ]
> >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.

Oh, and regarding "closed-source" library and/or executables... um...
well... the other tiny little bugger with that is that you can't just have
one library/executable for all platforms and so if you are dealing with a
not-terribly-popular platform (the sort of platforms for which the userbase
as compared to Linux's userbase is much like that of Linux to MS-Windows)
you are completely at the mercy of the library maintainers as to whether
they feel like releasing the lib for your platform. Oh, and don't forget
that in this context a "platform" refers to both the OS and the
architecture - so it wouldn't matter how many closed-source players or
libraries are available on Linux/x86, it wouldn't do you a damn bit of good
if you're using a Linux/Alpha machine (hi Simon ;).

With open-source stuff, you can build the library on any platform you feel
like (relatively easily - the various open-source DeCSS-related
libraries/plugins that I've encountered (ie. that I've compiled for use
with Xine, mostly :) tend to be fairly small and in clean ANSI C source
code. Not depending on any funky external libraries. Should be fairly
trivial to port to any platform on which a C compiler is available).

> >  - Matt
>
> Then this has to be taken care of in the executable. Instead of it just
> decrypting it in order for it to play, the executable should be able to
> act as a player that doesn't fast-forward through the warnings etc.

Erm. Yes. The "etc." As in, the advertisements. That you might not want to
have to play through again and again and again and again when you've
legitimately purchased a piece of content.

> Then all we have to do is design a GUI around it and stick in the
> necessary video code in so that we can watch them, depending on what OS
> you're using.
> 
> This way the DVD consortium could have complete control on how the
           ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Emphasised to clarify the point.

> players behave and could also make sure that they ARE JUST PLAYERS if you
> get my drift.

*grin* Ah yes, but.... this is _really_ the whole point. Many people simply
don't really care about their freedom and their rights(?) (or lack thereof)
to fair use of the content that they have legitimately purchased.

However, some of us do. Maybe not all that many of us, and maybe not to the
absolutist level of the Prophet RMS, but some of us do to a limited extent.
For example, I'm quite happy to pay cold hard cash for closed-source
commercial software on Linux (okay, they're only games, but still :) as
long as I feel that that my rights to use that software aren't
significantly constrained. NB. I do NOT expect to be able to distribute
copies of the content (whatever form that content may be in) to other
people without explicit permission from the copyright holder - because
that's the way copyright works (if it can be said to work).

However, I do want my rights of fair use.

With other forms of content that I purchase (ie. CDs and DVDs, to give the
most pertinent examples), I expect to have the freedom to view that content
as I like. I _don't_ expect to have my freedoms artificially constrained
for no good reason (and if there was a good reason, it'd have to be a
really really good one :), such as by the ridiculous DVD zoning system
which serves absolutely no legitimate purpose.


Pete.
-- 
http://akira.apana.org.au/~pete/

-- 
Old programmers never die, they just become managers.