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RIAA vs Linux and DVDs
PlayfullyClever writes "The entertainment industry has put itself on the fast-track to destruction, using well-proven tactics as explained in Preventing DVD Playback on Linux Like Prohibition in the 1920's. Are their heavy-handed tactics to lock up and control everything we touch signs of plain old human stubborness?" Or more likely- greed.
Okay this whole DVD decoding thing got started over the ruse that there was no playback device for linux neccessitating decoding and ripping in order to play them. It's a ludicrously lame argument but let's ignore that.
Why does the RIAA not provide a free Linux playback device for DVDs? Sure they would have to pay royalties to the MPEG algorithms folks to offer it. But that would be ridiculously cheap. For that matter they could easily push to get a law taxing all bare PCs with a few cents to pay for an MPEG royalty. Put the algorithm right in the BIOS if you want.
In any case the point is that both sides in this fight are being disingenous. If the issue were really about the lack of a DVD player on linux then the RIAA could fix that. And like wise if the lack of a player were really the reason Linux users have to rip dvds then they could just buy a commercial playback device. Both sides are lieing out there asses.
So cut the crud. this is about whether or not people have the right to rip and secondly if they have the right to re-distribute. In most cases the answer to the first is they should though specific laws make it illegal, and in the second case, no, because it's not fair use to re-distribute copies--lending your own yes, maybe making a mix tape, yes, but not a carbon copy. To put the latter one in persepective should tower records or amazon be allowed to buy one celine dion cd and then just sell copies? What if they just gave them away. Duh, neither is fair use.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
why doesn't slashdot just refuse to link to article-submitters sites in stories unless they are directly story-related and in the text, then there'd be less useless submiss... oh, I see.
for all the complaining about **AA greed, slashdot is for-profit and exactly the same - knowingly producing substandard work for a quick buck (dupes, appalling editing, slashvertisements).
A DVD from Blockbuster is a read-only device. How is it going to know its in a computer? Your computer fucked up, if anything. Chances are your computer was misconfigured or something was wrong with the DVD (some form of copy protection gone haywire?)
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And despite of your little tirade at Blockbuster the majority of us watch movies on the television
-everphilski-