Re: debian-multimedia.org considered harmful
2012/3/17 Arto Jantunen <viiru@debian.org>:
> Thomas Goirand <zigo@debian.org> writes:
>
>> On 03/17/2012 06:11 AM, Romain Beauxis wrote:
>>> 2012/3/11 Mike Hommey <mh@glandium.org>
>>>
>>>> The problem is: decss is illegal in very much more than just the US.
>>>> This is a very different situation.
>>>>
>>> Orly? Do you know of any law and/or court case backing this assertion?
>>>
>>> Romain
>>>
>> There is a DMCA in both US and UK (at least)...
>
> The EU has a directive that requires member countries to implement at
> least some parts of the DMCA. For example Finland opted to implement the
> full thing, and people have actually gotten convictions for using decss
> (so far only people who turned themselves in as a protest, however).
>
> The US has a lot of power and desire to push their agenda through in
> other countries, which tends to mean that a legal problems in the US
> will easily spread to a lot of places. The ACTA and TPPA things are
> "nice" examples (they include the DMCA and worse).
Yes, but how does that make decss or other CSS decryption codes illegal?
It's a cliche comparison but still, CSS decryption is the knife and
DMCA is the murder; the fact that murder is illegal does not imply
that knives are.
There are grounds for declaring a CSS decryption code illegal, such as
license and patent infringement but, as far as I know, there is not
existing legal decision on that mater, at least in western Europe.
Furthermore, concerning libdvdcss, encryption keys are generated or
brute-force'd which makes it even harder to argue based on
intellectual property.. Also libdvdcss has never been legally
challenged.
Most of the legal arguments on this matter are based on legal
bullying. There may be some serious threat, though, but I believe that
it is wrong to consider CSS decryption codes "illegal" per say.
Romain
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