Digital Rights management

[youlikeicecream]

Obviously realised the error that they made (revenue loss) Nigel. Unfortunate as the first version sounds like more fun than the second, bit of a drag when you have to buy 5 copies.

Mike

[hairymunky]

DVD-region free for pc and anydvd for pc get rid of the "user-prohibitons" on dvds. would be nice to see something like that for linux. libdvdcss is great and quite necissary.

erm.. I'm creating an app, just like DVD Decrypter/Smart-ripper for Linux just now, but with the way things are (DVD Decrypter shut down), Im kind of wary of releasing the source code and getting my ***** to wear as earings
But then if I release it, its then in the public domain, free, open-source...
If P2P software isn't illegal, then it must be ok to make backups of DVDs you already own!!

[Nigel]

So are you actually writing code to decrypt DVDs or are you just calling libdvdcss where necessary ?
If the former, you are likely to find yourself in trouble. If the latter, make it so it will work with unencrypted DVDs out-of-the-box, put hooks in for the decryption routines for protected DVDs with suitable error messages ("This DVD is copy-protected") if the library isn't found. Don't supply the library with the app, but let it be known that if you get it from elsewhere it "ought" to work with your app.
This seems to be how Xine gets around the problem.

[hairymunky]

Im going with the second method, just making a front-end ui for libdvdcss and dvdread libraries.
It will work with unencrypted files, and with libdvdcss it will decrypt locked dvds.

Still got lots of suff to sort out first though, but its getting there

[Tux_Rocks]

I really dislike the whole concept of digital rights management. If I buy an mp3 or whatever off napster I want to be able to do whatever I want with it. I think it's just about restricting what the user can do with media. The right way to catch software pirates / music pirates etc is to go after the worst offenders and not the end users. I shall steer clear of DRM for as long as I can. The DVD's I get have some form of encrption but I don't think that can be helped unfortunately.