regions and legalities

[Benjamin Pracht]

Le samedi 22 avril 2006 à 19:05 -0700, Jonathan Locke a écrit :
> 
> i'm not sure if this is the right list for this question, but if it's
> not maybe someone knows what list i should post to.  i'm an open
> source author (jakarta regexp, wicket) and i'm starting up a small
> company and we want to use videolan in our project to play dvds (in an
> applet in a web browser, which means i'm interested in finding a way
> to help the java bindings for videolan along somehow).  but we want to
> respect the current interpretation of the law as much as we can.
> frankly, i don't understand exactly what we're being asked to do by
> the MPAA and friends, but it appears that if we use videolan to create
> a product that doesn't restrict playing to a given region, we might be
> in violation of US law (DMCA?).

Well, I'm not sure anybody could pretend having any definitive opinion
on the subject. Moreover, regulations are not the same worldwide on the
subject... 

> is there a source where i can get a definitive answer to that
> question?  what are other companies doing in terms of integrating
> videolan into their public-facing projects?  did google switch from
> videolan to macromedia because of decss issues?

AFAIK, google didn't include decss support in its videolan based google
player. I see the move more related to the fact drm and open source
being quite incompatible, at least with the current DRM methods, and
flash player being pre installed on almost every computer sold in the
world. I'm not sure about that, but it might also be that vp6 royalties
are lower than the one the mpegla asks for mpeg codecs. 

>   finally, is it easy or even possible to tie videolan to a single
> region so it works like a regular dvd player?

Well, if you really need dvd support in your app, and want to tie it to
a zone, I guess it might be possible to add a check in libdvdcss (I'm
not a libdvdcss developer, so again, that's only a guess). However, keep
in mind that libdvdcss won't allow to read dvds outside the drive's zone
with any dvd drive sold for a few years anyway (manufacturers introduced
a low level check in their firmwares). Moreover, it seems Linspire
managed to get a license from the dvd consortium for a xine version
using an unmodified libdvdcss (I guess you'll need such a license too,
and perhaps one for MPEG PS demuxing and MPEG2 video / AC3 decoding,
depending on the amount of software licenses you are planning to sell).

Well, anyway, the only way to get a valid answer would be to ask the dvd
consortium, if they care answering to you... But the answer you'll get
will be with their (quite biased ;) interpretation of the US law.

>  that seems like the right solution in the current environment because
> it seems like it couldn't possibly be problematic for us legally.  of
> course, with the MPAA who knows what will be illegal tomorrow...
> thanks! 
> 

Frankly, I really doubt there are lots of people who know what is
illegal today...

-- 
BigBen

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