My opinion is that they aren't afraid of Linux players, or DeCSS running on a computer; but what happens when they lose the lawsuit and the code in DeCSS becomes legal?
Right now, a relatively limited group of companies make console DVD players. The licensing market-entry barrier is just too high for most smaller electronics manufacturers. But, remove the CSS licensing fees (I've seen anywhere from $10,000 to $1,000,000+ written here), and suddenly we have a Rio-like DVD implementation that can play movies from ALL regions, as the manufacturer would have signed no agreement to prevent it from doing so.
This brings up another point I haven't seen yet. How difficult would it be to compile DeCSS and burn it in a PROM; combined with an MPEG decoder card, a (region free) DVD drive, and a little bit of software, this box could be taken into the courtroom and used to prove that DeCSS is about WATCHING movies, not copying them. "Go ahead, lawyer boy -- copy the disk that is playing in that playback-only box."
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Right now, a relatively limited group of companies make console DVD players. The licensing market-entry barrier is just too high for most smaller electronics manufacturers. But, remove the CSS licensing fees (I've seen anywhere from $10,000 to $1,000,000+ written here), and suddenly we have a Rio-like DVD implementation that can play movies from ALL regions, as the manufacturer would have signed no agreement to prevent it from doing so.
This brings up another point I haven't seen yet. How difficult would it be to compile DeCSS and burn it in a PROM; combined with an MPEG decoder card, a (region free) DVD drive, and a little bit of software, this box could be taken into the courtroom and used to prove that DeCSS is about WATCHING movies, not copying them. "Go ahead, lawyer boy -- copy the disk that is playing in that playback-only box."