On Tue, Jul 29, 2003 at 06:14:53PM -0500, Steve Langasek wrote: > On Wed, Jul 30, 2003 at 01:02:36AM +0000, Robert Millan wrote: > > Whatever. The fact is that when we put Drip, libdvdread and libdvdcss > > together we obtain what what the DMCA calls a "circumvention device for > > copyright protection technology". This may happen in non-us, but must not > > happen in main. > > I don't see any bright line that would be used here to legally > distinguish between (Drip+libdvdread+libdvdcss) and libdvdcss by itself. > It seems to me that if we're allowed to ship libdvdcss, we're also > allowed to ship applications that use it.
This is what the DMCA reads: "(2) No person shall manufacturate, import, offer to the public, provide, or otherwise traffic in any technology, product, service, device, component or part thereof, that-- (A) is primarily designed or produced for the purpose of circumventing a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title;" The libdvdcss has the primary purpose of allowing DVD players to reproduce CSS-encoded movies, and not that of circumventing CSS. Any DVD player has the primary purpose of reproducing CSS-encoded movies, so the same applies. Drip is a DVD ripper. Without CSS support, it rips DVDs but doesn't break the CSS protection so it is not put in question. When CSS-enabled, its primary purpose is argueably the circumvention of CSS, which is "a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title". Anyway I find this discussion much useless, since the DMCA can't be applied to non-us. -- Robert Millan "[..] but the delight and pride of Aule is in the deed of making, and in the thing made, and neither in possession nor in his own mastery; wherefore he gives and hoards not, and is free from care, passing ever on to some new work." -- J.R.R.T, Ainulindale (Silmarillion)
