Re: DRM legal advice
Jonathan Wiltshire <debian@jwiltshire.org.uk> wrote:
> I am preparing a package called get-iplayer, and a potential sponsor has
> asked me to get your opinion before we go further.
I have used get-iplayer on occasion. Thank you to all involved in the
third-party debian packages.
[...]
> get_iplayer (renamed to get-iplayer for Debian naming restrictions)
> avoids this by fetching programmes through the iPhone channel in
> reasonable quality and saving them to disk. However, this also evades
> the DRM protection so the user is free to keep the files for as long as
> (s)he likes, which obviously isn't what the BBC wishes.
>
> Upstreams documentation does encourage users to respect the restrictions
> that would be in place and remove files after they should have expired,
> but there is no technical mechanism for doing so.
>
> Can you advise what the Debian position on this is? Please keep me in
> CC.
No, we cannot advise what the Debian position on anything is. We can
give our opinions and ask you to convey them to those who do decide
the debian position (maintainers, sponsors, ftpmasters).
debian-legal is advisory. The decision-makers are the ftpmasters
(ultimately, but they're a bit busy and tend to listen to advice)
and the package maintainers. Sorry if that wasn't clear.
Usually, the maintainers ask debian-legal, but there are some
notable exceptions, IMO thanks to various hate campaigns. If
two maintainers have totally different views, I guess ftpmasters
get to play referee while debian-legal are the linesmen.
Back to the package:
It's evading the DRM, not cracking it, so I think it also evades the
various DRM/TPM enforcement laws. On that front, I'd include it in
debian.
One minor concern is whether the downloaded video files require codecs
from non-free to play. I don't think they do, but I've not checked
that closely recently. If it requires non-free codecs, I'd submit it
to the contrib archive.
Hope that helps,
--
MJR/slef
My Opinion Only: see http://people.debian.org/~mjr/
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