Viewing a DVD with OSS is now illegal
This post was published 2 years 10 months 20 days ago and its content may not be valid anymore.That’s right, illegal. Starting today, December 31st, reading a DVD with Open Source Software (OSS) in France will be illegal.
Starting tomorrow December 31st 2006, reading a DVD protected with CSS (as most DVD are) is illegal in France when it is done with a software allowing to circumvent the protection, such as VLC or mplayer which can both use the libdvdcss library. Today’s Journal Officiel (where laws and executive orders are published) says that you may be fined 135€ (around $180) for doing so. This includes watching any DVD that you have legally purchased.
What a way to start the new year for 2007. View the PDF outlining the documentation concerning the new rules surrounding OSS, video decryption, and personal rights. I don’t know about anyone else, but this new rule is, well… Ridiculous.
Well, luckily its only France for now…. But I am afraid that the level of such idiocy is possible to achieve in whole EU as well.
But on what grounds is it illegal? If so then why can I watch it using Windows media player or real player and theirs no problem about it. Utter nonsense.
I think the idea is that WMP using a purchased decoder is ok(This sometimes comes with the computer), but using VLC(which uses libdvdcss) is illegitimate. Still bullshit. The law goes along with all the idea of content ownership. If someone pays for a DVD, they have the right to use it how ever they want, minus, say, distribution.
French are crazy.. and smelly.. :D
Hasn’t it been illegal in the states for quite some time? DMCA and all that jazz.
Fairplay rights in the US. No existing laws which prevent us from viewing content on open source software like VLC / MPlayer. Kids will be throwing computers at legislators if something like that happened stateside.