Watching legal DVDs on Linux claimed illegal
I feel mad! I feel mad because of legal issues on playing DVDs on Linux with open source software. Issues that are really based on nonsense, misclaims and misunderstandings that I’ll try to address along this rant.
But first: I made a page with guides on how to install different players on different linux distributions. Only two now but you can help by writing more instructions. So please check out Full DVD support on Linux guide.
I decided to write this after Finnish Court of Appeal overturned earlyel court decision making it basically illegal to view DVDs on Linux. The basis on this is total nonsense but there are similiar problems on some other countries too. Let me explain why it is wrong, does not make sense and why (in my opinion) nobody should care about the software beeing “illegal” when concidering using linux system to view DVD’s.
Heart of the problem: so called “copy protection” of DVD’s
Most commercial DVD movies today use so called CSS (content scrambling system). CSS is claimed to be copy protection system and it is said that the unlicensed CSS descrambling programs can be used to make pirate copies of DVDs. This is false.
CSS does in no way stop you from using your DVD reader to read a raw image of DVD on harddisk and then burn it on another DVD. CSS is not disc specific so the burned DVDs will work on any player/software just as well as the original. This can be done with any modern operating system by using tools so essential for legal DVD burning that they cant be banned.
What CSS does is that it prevents players with no descrambling capability from showing the video correctly. Also it prevents tools used for extracting the video (or part of it) from DVD and encoding/saving it on another format (eg. divx). The later is indeed most often used to make a pirate copy of video smaller and sharing it on internet. This, I believe, is what makes big companies to try making DeCSS, libdvdcss and other open soucre solutions for descrambling video on DVDs. This still is ill thought.
Libraries, like libdvdcss, do not do anything by self. They provide the functions to descramble CSS “protected” video to use by other programs. While programs exist that use this for “ripping” video (which, I believe, is what “they” try to prevent) it should not be illegal to install libraries like this for use by DVD players. If it really were right to make anything illegal it should rather be any software made with the purpose of illegally ripping protected content. A player known as MPlayer even compiles by default with it’s own version of descrambling library statically compiled for the players own use.
Does banning software even help?
First: Even by legal programs a duplicate of DVD can be saved as file, distributed illegally and burned on DVD by downloader. While formats like divx that can crunch the video size even to fit single movie on CD without much of a quality loss are popular on pirate videos I doubt that today full DVD images would not be almost as viable solution for most downloaders as the smaller files if “ripping” software could be made illegal with succesfull results.
Even so, can anyone realistically believe that banning these utilities would make them unavailable for pirates? Surely they would be preserved and distributed among pirates the very same way that pirate movies are! Or do they think that making them illegal to use it would stop the pirate from installing them because that would break the law? Hello?
Conclusion on bann of software
Denying the use of these open source solutions does not stop pirates from using them. Thus the ban only harm those who wish to watch their legally bought DVDs. Specially users of Linux or other open source systems who do not wish to install an expensive and inferior OS (the usual alternative beeing Windows) just because they wish to view movies.
…just wondering
In Finland the law states that downloading pirate movies, records or software for personal use only (that means leeching without sharing) is not a punishable crime. I wont be considering any non-open source OS on either (or any) of my computers - not to mention that systems inferior to Linux/Unix are out of question. I also dont have a TV nor DVD player and am not planning to buy any such additional needless devices when my second computer can and will be used as full entertainment system for all that is media. Considering this, if installing of libdvdcss and a player using it is made punishable, would it not be safer for me to not install them, never buy DVDs and simply pirate any and all non-free movies that I want from the internet? Even ecologically it could be a better choice as several movies as divx (or like) could be burned on single DVD instead of one pressed DVD for each movie.
…just wondering ;) I think I will be a shameless arrogant bastard and install the highly illegal piece of software for viewing my legally bought DVD’s.
Example case: So what happened in Finland?
Originally the Helsinki district court had ruled out that CSS protection used in DVD is “ineffective” (see references ). This is true, it really is rather sad attempt on decryption. Finnish copyright law says that only circumvention of “effective technological measures ” is illegal and cracking (even ripping when it’s for private use) non-effective protection is in fact legal. This resulted in CSS cracking code itself was legal and charges were dropped for those accused of copyright infrigment. Later everything went crazy.
Next year the Court of Appeal overturned the CSS decision. Their arguments?
According to the court it was fundamental that… “…circumventing protection, at least on Linux-system has apparently required at least legal or illegal install of protection circumvention program”.
Apparently it seems that the court automatically assumes that on Linux you need to install some “illegal” cracking tool to view DVDs. Seems that now it was not that much the descrambling code itself as target but more importantly that code on Linux.
Also ignored is that some distributions ship with video player (with full DVD support) installed by default. Some distributions do not but provide such programs from official repositories - which does not sound very shady, it’s the usual way to install additional software on modern linux systems. Only part of distributions do not provide player with DVD CSS support officially. Even for them you can download the source code of the program and manually compile it, which is also very normal installation routine on linux/unix systems.
The court continues to claim that “Regular user cant be expected to be capable of accidentally by his own actions to circumvent the protection”. This claim was actually proven wrong in district court before but no proof was presented to actually prove the claim. Personally even if there was I still see no way this could logically overturn the decision. Remember, it was not about intentionally passing protection but about protection beeing “ineffective”.
So according to court a “regular Linux user” cant watch DVD movies without intentionally cracking the CSS-protection. They claim that regular user selecting a player to install from, let’s say, Mint Linux packet manager (actually it installs player by deyault) and using it has any idea about any kind of protection cracking happening. Besides the legal point, what the camels ass is wrong in watching your legally bought DVDs even if the player does “crack” the protection to show the video!? What the hell of a kind copyright infrigment is that anyway?
The specific program was also claimed to make it possible to copy the content in addition to watching it. The program only decrypts CSS, not copy the content.
They make no attempt to claim CSS as “effective though, which was the exact point that made any of these tools legal when used legally (which not even ripping the video alone was).
A lot of this court case description was translated from finnish version of Court of Appeal overturned the CSS decision @ Turre Legal, which is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 License
Ending words
Based on all I wrote here I strongly recommend to “question the authorities and think for yourself “. I dont see where the victim is if you choose to use this program even if illegal on your country - and personally dont recognize a victimless crime as crime at all. In my opinion neither should you.
Remember to check out Full DVD support on Linux guide - and if you have knowledge, please provide instructions (by posting a comment) for installing player for some distribution specifically or by compiling by hand from source if instructions for specific case are not there yet. At the moment of writing there are only two instructions: Ogle+libdvdcss on Debian and compiling mplayer from source.
References
- Käräjäoikeus:CSS on tehoton suojakeino & again in english: Finnish court rules CSS protection used in DVDs “ineffective”
- CSS muuttui tehokkaaksi hovissa & same in english: Court of Appeal overturned the CSS decision @ Turre Legal
- Wikipedia:Content Scrambling System
- Wikipedia: libdvdcss
- Wikipedia: DeCSS
- DVD Descrambling Code Not a Trade Secret
DVD CCA Surrenders in Bunner DVD Descrambling Case - Electronic Frontier Foundation Media Advisory
Fight for your rights! Even fight the law if the law is wrong!
Related posts
Author is a 29 years old linux zealot and hacker from Finland.
Tags: css, DeCSS, dvd, freedom, legal, libdvdcss, Linux/Unix, Open Source, rant
![[Fedora Powered]](/ico/tiny/fedora_powered.png){kind=small}
![[Apache Web Server]](/ico/tiny/apache.gif){kind=small}
![[PHP Powered]](/ico/tiny/php2.png){kind=small}
![[Wordpress]](/ico/tiny/wordpress.png){kind=small}
![[MySQL]](/ico/tiny/mysql.png){kind=small}
![[W3C Standards]](/ico/tiny/w3c.gif){kind=small}
![[Debian GNU/Linux]](/ico/tiny/debian.png){kind=small}
![[Perl]](/ico/tiny/perl2.gif){kind=small}
August 11th, 2008 at 2:33 pm
No problem, glad you liked it :)
August 17th, 2008 at 3:58 am
Oh, Thanks! Really interesting. keep working!
August 20th, 2008 at 12:47 am
Howdy Partner, I am glad I pressed harder enough until I found dvd burning programs, because this post on Watching legal DVD’s on Linux claimed illegal was extremely helpful. Just last Tuesday I was pondering on this quite a bit.
August 21st, 2008 at 1:00 pm
That is a very interesting article and really points out the incorrect way that people think about copy protection.
August 22nd, 2008 at 10:02 am
Thanks Locutus - and great to see my favorite IT-/Linux- blogger reading my nifty blog (yes, I know I invited you but still :) ).
August 23rd, 2008 at 3:46 pm
Whatz Expert, what made you want to write on Watching legal DVD’s on Linux claimed illegal? I was wondering, because I have been thinking about this since last Saturday.
August 24th, 2008 at 10:19 am
I was just looking around for some good blogg sites and stumbled upon this 1. Real well built site.
Click Here to see another site related to this one.
This is a great thing for me to comment about. I have bookmarked this page and will for sure be back for more depth. Thanks
August 27th, 2008 at 9:25 pm
“So according to court a “regular Linux user” cant watch DVD movies without intentionally cracking the CSS-protection.”
noniin, en ollut edes kuullut css:stä ennen tätä ja kyllä ne DVD:t on mun ubuntussa ihan nätisti pyörineet. I guess I’m not a regular linux user then. :D
August 27th, 2008 at 10:00 pm
That declaration of DVD’s being watched on Linux illegal is thanks to laws like the DMCA in the USA that seem to repeal the fair use rights of people who have the media.
Here’s a hint, though: Watch DVDs anyway on Linux. It may be “illegal” but it’s almost unenforceable and it they sue there’s too good a grounds for appeal that could turn laws like the DMCA upside-down.
Bottom line: NEVER trust groups like the MPAA, RIAA, or the BSA. They’re out to skin fair use alive.
August 28th, 2008 at 6:50 am
This also has to do with patent issues. Just like the MP3 format for music is patented and technically to use it you have to pay for the decryption scheme. It sucks, but it is hard to stop something like this in linux, especially since many set top boxes run mini-OSs based on the linux kernel.
August 29th, 2008 at 1:49 pm
@huu Say no more, the whole legal issue around this (here in Finland as in elsewhere) is based on total bullshit claims.
@Yaro Yes, I’ve read a lot about DMCA, RIAA, MPAA and others because even though I live in Finland we have similiar legal problems with this stuff. We two have couple organization like those, TEOSTO for example.
The big thing they ignore is not just the bullshit claims they make but the fact that this wont stop piracy, it will only make things harder for those who buy DVD’s legally. Reminds me of copyprotected CD’s that surprisingly didnt play on quite a few CD players at all.
Your hint is what I’ve been saying too: Do not accept these “laws” - at all. They are based on bullshit.
@Kris Technically yes - but is it fair? I bought DVD-drive, I bought a movie and IMHO these kind of patents should not be legal. With what I bought with my own money I should have total right to watch that movie - even if the player I use does use the horribly criminal libdvdcss library ;)
Patents? XVid is not patented, in Finland freeloading (as long as you dont also share) is not punishable… So, those who make the laws, tell me your opinion, should I pay for my movies or just load them illegally because, hey, the software I use breaks a patent - a patent that should not exist, not as long as they dont license the source to be used on OSS players.
Soon to come: Second article about CSS, I read CCA’s FAQ about their CSS system and there is a big pile of claims about importance of CSS that has to be proven wrong. Which really is not hard, btw.
Anyway, thanks for all the comments - seems my blog is starting to gain readers :)
August 29th, 2008 at 10:52 pm
*sigh* This is one thing that has bothered me since I’ve started using Linux. I’d rather not worry about it.
Note: You might want to update the browsehappy notifier so as to not appear under Opera.
August 29th, 2008 at 11:12 pm
Same as Jon. Your site is telling me to switch to a safe and secure browser. I am using Opera 9.52, so that warning can sod off.
August 30th, 2008 at 12:40 am
You can’t spell and you abuse the apostrophe. Please fucking stop it.
August 30th, 2008 at 5:31 am
Your website is telling me to switch from internet explorer. I’m using Firefox on Mac OS, and tons of Linux users are getting the same thing. Fix it.
August 30th, 2008 at 7:18 pm
Dell has licensed official CSS descramblers from the DVD-CCA for their ubuntu laptops. So you *can* watch dvds legally, just buy a dell or find what they’re licensing and see if you can buy it too.
And don’t worry, the DMCA is coming to finland too - it is part of several multinational copyright “treaties”. Amazing other countries have been able to stave it off as long as they have.
August 31st, 2008 at 10:40 pm
In the title, you spelled DVDs as “DVD’s.” This is incorrect. There is no possession. GET YOUR GRAMMAR RIGHT!!!!!
September 2nd, 2008 at 2:34 pm
@J0n, Same & JB
I mean no offence - I’m using Linux+FireFox myself and bumped into the same banner… I think it would be good idea to keep it for everyone because more webmasters could catch up with the campaign…
But I like to please my readers - later today I’ll try to find time to use a simple PHP code to check if browser identifies itself as MSIE and show the banner only for those cases.
@chang & Jeff
I bet I can spell better english than you can finnish. English is not my native language, polite notifications are welcome but beeing rude is just mean and stupid.
Jeff, I hope I have fixed all the errors you mentioned in this article now. However consider this:
I offer this blog as service for those who find it interesting, entertaining or otherwise worth reading. I believe The important thing is not 100% correct grammar but writing good enough so the reader has no problems understanding it. I’ll try my best though but still this is not my native language.
September 2nd, 2008 at 6:15 pm
@jambarama
I wont buy Dell, no IBM, no… I assemble my ‘puters myself, modify them, etc.
However this could be better than nothing for those who are willing to buy a new system and accept that they cant choose their player but must use proprietary closed source program. LinDVD is only licensed for manufacturers btw…
Anyway, I guess one can take that road if they feel that obeying laws just because they have been written is more important than freedom. No offence to them, but my points hold:
1. I have explained how using these “illegal” open source solutions for watching DVDs you paid for (and as I see it now own them) hurts nobodys rights.
2. Also I explained why making the software illegal does nothing to prevent people for using them for illegal purposes (ie. ripping to divx and sharing on P2P).
Let me add that this law, if you obey it, takes away some rights that should be unquestionable. If I buy a CD I do have right to listen it with any player/software, even rip it to copy those songs into my own MP3 player for my own entertainment.
It’s only fair that you can do the same with movie that you bought. These laws are to strip your rights away - media giants are trying to say that buying a movie does not anymore mean that you own that copy. See my older post: Sony BMG’s anti-piracy lawyer redefines ’stealing’.
These laws are justified by claims about piracy problems - as explained they do no harm to pirates, they only limit rights of the honest customers and make their use of legally purchased media harder.
These media companies, by this kind of actions, treat honest customers like criminals! I will not accept that. I also use closed source proprietary software only if I have a very strong reason. Here I see OSS solution that I can use to view DVDs without doing any harm. If they could succeed stopping me, limiting me to their proprietary systems I would not buy DVDs - let me give you money that you deserve and choose the software I want for viewing them or I will never buy your movies but I will most certainly get them “the other way”. If they are not fair to me, why should I, the customer, be fair to them?
We already have something similiar commonly called Lex Karpela. Also, quoting from Wikipedia DMCA page: On May 22, 2001, the European Union passed the EU Copyright Directive or EUCD, which addresses some of the same issues as the DMCA.
This should never make us actually acknowledge these laws as something we should live by. Not if they are clearly wrong.
September 3rd, 2008 at 5:10 pm
Here we go!!!
September 8th, 2008 at 2:25 am
Soo stupid!!!
September 23rd, 2008 at 9:15 am
@Goatse:
It is silly to refer to people protesting, however they choose to protest, laws which serve no other purpose than to restrict the fair and ethical use of products consumers buy. When you buy a car, and tune it outside of the specs allowed by the manufacturer for it to stay under warranty, the manufacturer does not sue you, or attempt to have you arrested. No, they simply void the warranty. These production company’s have no rights outside of voiding the warranting that is implicit with your purchase of their product.
September 23rd, 2008 at 9:17 am
bah!!
warranting == warranty
September 23rd, 2008 at 9:43 pm
@Kevin
Indeed - the point of purchasing a DVD is that afterwards you do own it and have full right to view it. Still here we are, beeing compared to guys making money of selling truckloads of illicit movie/software copies that they never even paid for. ‘ts not right, a honest software pirates (leechers, not sharers) are treated better here in Finland.
And why? Because CSS decryption is not licensed for open source programs thus the programs have to crack the miserable scrambling system that quite honestly does not even deserve name of “encryption”.
And who are those people that we hurt by using these programs or libraries like libdvdcss? There arent any, that’s why you never get a reply that makes even remotely sense when asking this.
Luckily the law is impossible to enforce (except when people like me openly state that I am not and never will be bound by these laws). Still it’s a matter of principle and even more imprtantly a matter of opening peoples eyes before any more laws restricting our fair freedoms are set!
October 22nd, 2008 at 5:03 pm
Yep - I would agree with that.. Thanks for the line.
November 4th, 2008 at 9:17 pm
#1: Get off his ass for spelling and grammar. Better yet, take this amazing knowledge of the English language you have, and go get a job as a professor of English at Cambridge. Oh, can’t? STFU then.
Personally, I feel there’s one solution to all this mess - Civil Disobedience.
You violate my consumer rights (ergo, I purchase a DVD, nowhere does it say I MUST have a CSS decryption device in order to play it) then I violate your stupid law and watch whatever the hell I want, when I want, how I want.
When they feel froggy enough to prosecute people for this, I’ll be happy to slam some other people in jail - Namely my neighbors who constantly borrow movies from each other. I’m sorry, they didn’t PAY to view that material. I believe that’s a violation of the DVD warning at the intro… >.>
Hmmm…while I’m at it, I’ll have anyone arrested who drives around with their music loud enough that I can hear it outside of their car - public performance of copyrighted material.
And I could go on and on with the stupidity of it all until SOMEONE SOMEWHERE buries their head in shame and slinks off to the corner with their millions they’ve already made off this retarded crap.
Cheers,
Ghost_BOFH
September 3rd, 2009 at 4:59 am
Bravo, great answer.
September 22nd, 2009 at 8:11 am
I don’t know If I said it already but …This blog rocks! I gotta say, that I read a lot of blogs on a daily basis and for the most part, people lack substance but, I just wanted to make a quick comment to say I’m glad I found your blog. Thanks, :)
A definite great read..
-Bill-Bartmann
September 26th, 2009 at 6:19 pm
Thats very good to know… thanks