Re: Bug#156287: Advice on Drip (ITP #156287)
On Tue, Jul 29, 2003 at 06:14:53PM -0500, Steve Langasek wrote:
> On Wed, Jul 30, 2003 at 01:02:36AM +0000, Robert Millan wrote:
> > Whatever. The fact is that when we put Drip, libdvdread and libdvdcss
> > together we obtain what what the DMCA calls a "circumvention device for
> > copyright protection technology". This may happen in non-us, but must not
> > happen in main.
>
> I don't see any bright line that would be used here to legally
> distinguish between (Drip+libdvdread+libdvdcss) and libdvdcss by itself.
> It seems to me that if we're allowed to ship libdvdcss, we're also
> allowed to ship applications that use it.
This is what the DMCA reads:
"(2) No person shall manufacturate, import, offer to the public, provide,
or otherwise traffic in any technology, product, service, device, component
or part thereof, that--
(A) is primarily designed or produced for the purpose of circumventing a
technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected
under this title;"
The libdvdcss has the primary purpose of allowing DVD players to reproduce
CSS-encoded movies, and not that of circumventing CSS. Any DVD player has
the primary purpose of reproducing CSS-encoded movies, so the same applies.
Drip is a DVD ripper. Without CSS support, it rips DVDs but doesn't break
the CSS protection so it is not put in question. When CSS-enabled, its
primary purpose is argueably the circumvention of CSS, which is "a
technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected
under this title".
Anyway I find this discussion much useless, since the DMCA can't be applied
to non-us.
--
Robert Millan
"[..] but the delight and pride of Aule is in the deed of making, and in the
thing made, and neither in possession nor in his own mastery; wherefore he
gives and hoards not, and is free from care, passing ever on to some new work."
-- J.R.R.T, Ainulindale (Silmarillion)
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