[vlc-devel] ATTN: removal of website playlist parsers

[Rémi Denis-Courmont]

Le jeudi 16 avril 2009, David Flynn a écrit :
> publishing the souce code does not.  It gets more dubious with
> binaries. It gets more dubious as to who is the one doing the
> violating.

I don't disagree that the combination of software and hardware may 
constitute a technological device that could infringe some patents. But 
I don't see that as a concern for the VideoLAN project as a software 
publisher. It may very well be a concern in the case of OEMs and STBs. 

Fortunately, the VideoLAN project does not provide any hardware.

Also, I may be wrong, but I believe that patent infringement is not a 
criminal matter. In other words, you cannot be prosecuted for patent 
infringement. Instead a patent holder must sue (which costs money). On 
the other hand, piracy is - including accessing YouTube without 
authorization, or, under DMCA and EUCD, providing LUA scripts 
essentially meant to access YouTube without authorization.

-- 
Rémi Denis-Courmont
http://www.remlab.net/