Verily I say unto thee, that AHappyCamper spake thusly:
> Doug Mentohl wrote:
> Mossberg is sounding more and more incompetent!
>>
>> "Oh, and there’s no built-in software for playing commercial DVDs"
>
> Now, with copyright laws as they are, he is bordering on incompetency
> and even idiocy! Surely, he knows that only Linspire and Freespire have
> a licensed DVD decoder agreement?
>
> Who in our right mind would advocate "piracy"? That is a 'feature'
> promoted in the Microsoft world!
Right sentiment, wrong argument.
Playing commercial DVDs under GNU/Linux using libdvdcss and say MPlayer,
is a violation of the ridiculous American DMCA ... /not/ copyright laws,
therefore /piracy/ has nothing whatsoever to do with it. Incidentally,
this ridiculous law has no bearing outside of the US (and Australia?).
So on the one hand, Mossberg is right, insofar as there is no officially
licensed DVD playback software available for Ubuntu (AFAIK), although
I'm sure PowerDVD for Linux is available through the channel (not direct
to consumers though, AFAIK). But OTOH Mossberg probably knows damned
well that most Ubuntu users will use MPlayer and libdvdcss regardless,
so his complaint is moot. If he's going to bitch about anything, he
should bitch about things like the DMCA, the RIAA, the MPAA, and all
those other Quango entities that try to extort money for content on a
subscription basis, rather than an "in perpetuity" basis.
--
K.
http://slated.org
.----
| "OOXML is a superb standard"
| - GNU/Linux traitor, Miguel de Icaza.
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23:05:58 up 56 days, 22:00, 2 users, load average: 0.00, 0.00, 0.00
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