Lol, fair enough, I don't know what your intentions are for Freevo - and I still think its much ado about nothing. You mention Jon Johanson, but I just got an email back from him - and as far as he's concerned he is now pretty safe from any real danger of prosecution.
It was he who did the circumvetion, not you or anyone else, that is why the lawyers went after him and not just ordinary every day users. In any case Jon has been aquitted of all charges against him, so we still have to see an example of a single sucessful prosecution of anyone using their Linux OS and associated applications for legitamate reasons. If they want to make an example of me for doing it (not that they ever will) I will be happy to volunteer for that particular task. Unjust laws should be resisted, not simply submitted to. Personally I do not relish the idea of going hunting on the web for functionality that has been removed, when this functionality is now fairly standard throughout nearly all Linux distributions. In my eyes, it is somewhat akin to using a hammer to crack a nut. At this time and in the absence of any real pressure to comply with this legislation, even from the legislators themselves, it is almost certainly overkill. If this were the case I would hope you would at least preserve two options, one version of freevo fully enabled and hosted in a non hostile country and one that kind of just sat there and didn't do much until you added it back in yourself - if you were fortunate enough to find the components you need. I don't see the logic in it myself, as the one thing most users will do is try their hardest to immediately re-add this functionality back into freevo (Perhaps even those argung for the removal of this functionality now would do this too?) Well anyway, I guess in future that will teach me to stay quiet. :) All I did was mention the word 'legal' and everthing else from that point on has stemmed from this. My biggest concern is for the average user who having installed freevo sufddenly finds they can't use it for very much and if they do want any interesting functionality they will have to go hunting on some pretty obscure web sites with no gurantee that anything they find will be compatable. Personally I would probably simply question if it was worth the effort and then look for an alternative - of which there are several I know of, none of whom are contemplating removing any functionality. (Indeed if anything they are seeking to add functionality, not take it away). Nonetheless you are one of the project maintainers, so if you wish to remove these components (even though they have allways been technically illegal) that is up to you. I don't see any need for it and unless your sending your DVDs and MP3's accross the internet, I doubt the RIAA or anyone else will be monitoring your activities. (Which is also why I assume govenment agencies are so tollerant of Linux users). This seems very much like giving up even before any fight has started, or indeed even before there was any serious talk of a fight. But again, since you are one of the developers, my influence in this regard is likely to be limited. Q Q ----- Original Message ----- From: "Matthieu Weber" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Tuesday, July 29, 2003 2:28 PM Subject: Re: [Freevo-users] Legal issues [Was: audio.cdbackup] On Tue 29.07.2003 at 01:52:36PM +0100, Q wrote: > "I hope I have been able to make myself clear what it was I was worrying > about." > > Kind of I guess... But ultimately as I said there never has been a way to > resolve these issues - and unless the linux/freevo community comes up with a > couple of million bucks there never will be either. Yes. > My point being, either you live with the fact that your technically breaking > the law (and always have been for as long as it has been possible to play > this media in Linux) or you give up, strip Freevo of virtually all of its > most important functionality and end up with something that to all intents > and purposes is practically useless. [...] > The choice, at least to me, seems simple. Either you give up, or you go on. > If you go on you do so in the full light and awareness of what your doing - > and more importantly, why your doing it... > There is a middle solution, which has been adopted by other projects team: provide the user with what is legal, and let the user find by himself what is not. Thus the complete tool will be functional, but the user has to do the "illegal" part by himself. > The bottom line is we are talking about two completely different groups of > people anyway the (so called) pirates and ordinary every day Linux users, > most of whom I would assume are unlikely ever to want, or need to pirate > anything. All I am saying are that the chances that the RIAA (or anyone > else) are monitoring this project, are at best minimal in the extreme. That is true. But "they" are more and more monitoring, and the probability is raising from extremely low to less extremely (even though it is still rather low). > DVD/MP3 functionality in Linux is someone else' fight, someone with > presumably much more money than any of us. So my advice is simply, until it > becomes a problem, let those with more time and resorces worry about it. > > I think your interpritation of some of the legal aspect of this issue are > extremely harsh. No one can stop you mentioning things - in a democracy > freedom of speech is enshrined in law. So simply mentioning a codec or a > application that may aid circumvention can hardly be said to be assisting in > making that circumvention possible. Welcome to the real world. U.S and European Union are everyday less of a democracy. Companies are paying politicians for making laws that will increase their profit and reduces the freedom of people, who anyway don't care and won't notice anything until it is too late, and nowadays consider people who care as "nerds", "anarchists" or "lunatics". DMCA/EUCD, software patents, DRM/Palladium/TCPA (the two latter ones have changed names to look more innocuous, but remain the same) are all targeted to the same goal: allowing the big companies to get more money, crushing the smaller ones, and taxing more money from unaware citizens. Your freedom of speech exists, as long as it does not interfere with another law (like DMCA). In France for example, racist speeches are against the law, even though there is "freedom of speech" there. The problem with DMCA and EUCD is that they are far too much generic, and you can use it for almost anything. > I confess I think this is all very extreme, but if it ever did become a > problem (which it does not currently appear to be) you should still be able > to allow indirect linking to applications anyway, so long as the linking > wasn't 'live'. Anyway isn't the base of Freevo, Mplayer? I don't see why > that is your problem either. If the autorities ever do go after anyone > (which is doubtful) surely they would go after the developers of MPlayer Doubtful? Haven't they gone after Jon Johanson, the DeCSS guy? Even though he was not in the same country? When you see that U.S. government is willing to enforce U.S. law *outside* of the U.S. by any possible mean, I don't consider everything is possible :( > first? I assume that would at least give you enough warning to make > alternative plans. They might, but they have no obligation to do so if they decide that you would make a good ``example''. > As I said, let's wait until we see a single attempted prosecution of anyone > using Linux to watch/back-up their own legitamately bought media files, then This is not the point, one more time. The point is that ``Freevo telling people how to do it'' is also illegal. That people are actually doing it or not is not relevant. > we perhaps should reassess the risks. For the moment I think it is all > highly over stated. May be. But as I already said, I prefer preventing than curing. Matthieu -- (~._.~) Matthieu Weber - Université de Jyväskylä (~._.~) ( ? ) email : [EMAIL PROTECTED] ( ? ) ()- -() public key id : 452AE0AD ()- -() (_)-(_) "Humor ist, wenn man trotzdem lacht (Germain Muller)" (_)-(_) ------------------------------------------------------- This SF.Net email sponsored by: Free pre-built ASP.NET sites including Data Reports, E-commerce, Portals, and Forums are available now. Download today and enter to win an XBOX or Visual Studio .NET. http://aspnet.click-url.com/go/psa00100003ave/direct;at.aspnet_072303_01/01 _______________________________________________ Freevo-users mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freevo-users ------------------------------------------------------- This SF.Net email sponsored by: Free pre-built ASP.NET sites including Data Reports, E-commerce, Portals, and Forums are available now. 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