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More on LinDVD
periscope wrote to us about the Wired story that's currently running about InterVideo's LinDVD. We've mentioned this situation before, but now it looks like something's actually going to happen. As I said before, InterVideo has the CSS license to produce a player that the MPAA won't throw a hissy-fit over.
In your recent article about the protests in DC over the copyright act you quoted the MPAA as saying that "linux DVD players were available". I am dissapointed that the reporter failed to ask what players were available and then communicate that information to the protesters. More importantly, I feel that by omitting the fact that no DVD players for linux are presently available commercially the article was biased towards the MPAA and portrayed the protesters in an unfair light. I suspect your readers (like myself) would have been interested to know that no linux DVD player exists (legally) as a direct effect of the MPAA suing everyone who has created one.
I would like to request that you publish an addendum to the article noting that no linux DVD players *presently* exist. If you would like additional information about the current state of DVD use under linux, feel free to contact me. I would be happy to provide you with as much information as I have on the issue of linux DVDs. Thanks.
Anyone else think this quote is rather unfortunate? I really didn't think Linus would take this "Businessman's view" of the whole ordeal. Granted it's nice, but they've openly stated that a lot of their code won't be opensource, including the navigation code (which has no copyrights or other trade secrets attached to it AFAIK) Quite honestly, it seems to me that Linus might be losing a bit of his OpenSource Edge...
The release of an "MPAA blessed" DVD player for Linux is a bad thing. Here's why:
Most folks don't realize the underhanded tactics of regionalization and pay-for-CSS licensing. They only realize convenience and the 'poor hackers' inability to watch "The Matrix" on their Linux PCs.
The release of an 'official' DVD player for Linux makes it as convenient to watch DVD movies on Linux as it is on Win32. The 'poor hackes' should be satisfied by that - in the public eye.
The fact that regionalization and licensing of the ability to watch your (owned) movies is still there is not a convenience issue, so most people don't care. If the 'poor hackers' keep complaining about 'consumer rights', the MPAA cronies like CNN will just label us 'anarchists', mention kiddie-porn and bomb-making info that is to be found on-line....
Those 'nasty pervert hackers', always causing trouble...
This is not a step in the right direction. This is an MPAA maneuver to remove the one argument that speaks to the general public. What's needed is a FREE alternative on Win32, to show the masses that they do not have to pay to play DVDs.
-- What you do today will cost you a day of your life.
Now, the article's suddenly been noticed as if it's Hot Headline News, Stop The Presses, and considered hot news, and everyone's commenting on the quote in the last paragraph as if they never saw it before. Oh well.
My take on Linus's quote: Well, Linus isn't RMS. He's never claimed to be. He's not the die-hard ideologue Stallman is--and he's no dummy, either.
Open-source or not, a Linux DVD player app is something that will nonetheless improve the viability of Linux as an alternate operating system. Like the similarly closed-source apps WordPerfect, StarOffice, and so forth, it provides yet another thing that Linux doesn't yet have--and presumably provides it in such a way that people like me, who never could manage to get the DeCSS player apps to work, will have something user-friendly that we can drop the DVD into and go. And that's a good thing for getting more people to use Linux rather than Windows.
Anyway, for all we know the Wired flacks could have cut Linus's quote, or reworded it, to leave out any mention of "I'd rather it be open source, but..." We all know how movie posters and boxes mangle quotes from film reviews to suit their purposes...
Editor Emeritus and Senior Writer, TeleRead.org
This is an interesting situation; most of us seem to agree that the availability of proprietary DVD-playing software for Linux doesn't really cut it.
Now how do I explain this to my aunt?
Before we could just say that reverse-engineering CSS was necessary to enable us to create a Linux-compatible DVD player. With this no longer the case, we can now say "we need a free/open source DVD player"; but then we need to explain what "free" and/or "open source" mean, and it gets harder; a wrong choice of words could lead someone to believe (mistakenly) that, for example, we're just cheapskates who want everything for nothing.
So here's a challenge: who can come up with a single sentence, say no more than 20 words, which explains why a propietary DVD player for Linux is not sufficient?
Uh-huh, right. Try these scenarios on for size:
- there's no mention that the decoder will be supported for all of the major distributions, let alone minor or alternate language ones.
- What happens if the company is/goes public and a company such as the so-called evil empire (M$, AOL Time Warner, etc. ) buys enough stock to effectively control the decoder. They now effectively also have power to control my access (changing a closed spec, etc.) so as to render any investment I may have made in the DVD player and/or DVD's moot without my having a say so.
- Lastly, a closed source decoder means that I have no idea how well the decoder is written, whether it does other things (like tracking my usage patterns, etc.), how well it obeys system rules, does it work with all video cards, etc.
So thanks but no thanks. I'll vote with my money to continue the fight for a control free solution like deCSS.So if I don't happen to be running Linux on a main distribution,I'm still locked out of playing movies I paid for (if I were willing to buy CSS encoded DVDs in the first place, which I am not --I'm boycotting the damn MPAA until this thing is resolved).
...Open Source isn't the only answer -- but it's almost always a better value than the alternatives...
<60s style rant>
... in some ways this makes the situation worse. DeCSS was designed to provide a means to create a linux dvd player. However now the battle is more important then the original problem was. The lawsuites and prosocution of innocent people has changed what the battle is over. It started over the desire for a linux dvd player, it has become a fight for some of our fundamental rights.
This seems to be a way for the opposition to change the focus of the battle. Soon you'll hear them say "see if all of the linux users had just been willing to wait they would have had a *legal* means of viewing their dvds." Now fewer people are going to think that DeCSS is important. Fewer voices means less real change. Less chance of our being able to defend ourselves in the future. The outcome of the whole DeCSS problem is more important then if a few people want to watch dvds on linux.
None of us should use this dvd player. Not a single one of us should even buy a dvd. If we do, we are supporting their efforts, their lawsuites, and their PACs. If we want change we have to hit them where it hurts in the pocketbooks. </60s style rant>
Environmentalists are their own worst enemy. ~tricklenews.com
And not just that. As PC users, we want flexibility. I want to manipulate the video stream. I want to be able to stop a frame, capture it, and perhaps make a parody. In a film-making class, studying such things one frame at a time is one way of learning the craft.
There are just so many legitimate uses of DVD and digital media. I can't even think of all of them on the spot. To the MPAA: You never had any issue with how your movies are used. True, if we publish anything defamatory, you can sue. That not copyright law. Copyright law only extends to distribution, and many of are willing to abide my those laws! Who gave you the authority to dictate use terms upon us? Whatever gave you the authority to choose our OS for us?
And I am not even saying that this is an us-vs-you issue. By us I mean you too, in the future, when your future studios can't and won't be able to use these locked-in materials. Ever think about that? Don't tell me that the Warner-Fox-MGM-blah consortium will remain bed-fellows forever?