[Fsfe-ie] Letter about EUCD implementation

Conor Daly conor.daly at oceanfree.net
Sat Dec 13 22:48:07 CET 2003


On Sat, Dec 13, 2003 at 05:32:18PM +0000 or so it is rumoured hereabouts, 
David O'Callaghan thought:
> Dé Sath, 2003-12-13 ag 12:24, scríobh Conor Daly:
> > On Fri, Dec 12, 2003 at 02:47:59PM +0000 or so it is rumoured hereabouts, 
> > Ciaran O'Riordan thought:
> > [...] 
> > > amended with:
> > > "Means of benefitting shall be permission to circumvent, or permission
> > > to make use of a protection-defeating device to make legal use of a
> > > copyrighted work, if no other practicable means is provided."
> > 
> > The thing _I_ see in this is that the win32 DVD player that _is_ provided
> > will be considered "practicable means" and so the linux-based free DVD
> > player still will be illegal.
> 
> What if such "practicable means" require me to agree to onerous license
> terms for, say, Microsoft's new Media Player software? Can I be forced
> to choose between having a DVD I can't play on one hand and a DVD that
> can only be played if I agree to a license requiring me to allow
> Microsoft, say, access to my OS and network on the other hand?

As one colleague of mine said:  "You don't have to buy the DVD in the
first place".  If I make available for sale a work (eg. software, ebook)
that requires certain software to make it accessible and you don't have
the platform necessary to run the software, you shouldn't buy the work
from me in the first place.  If you're not prepared to agree to an onerous
license to use the necessary platform, you shouldn't have bought the work.
If you can make your choice of platform run my software, that's fair
enough but, if not, what gives you the right to crack my content
protection?

These are the sort of arguments we'll see when this comes up for
challenge.  Of course, when the challenge _does_ occur, there will be the
option to obtain the work in another medium that is _not_ content
protected and the judgement will be in favour of the content protection.
Only when the challenges have been met and content protection has been
upheld will the providers stop producing their works on unprotected media.
Video films will no longer be available, only content protected DVDs.
Cassette tapes will disappear and CDs will acquire their own content
protection.

When there is no other way to obtain the work than the medium that
requires the win32 DVD player, then it might be possible to argue that we
shouldn't have to agree to a Microsoft license to make legal use of a
work.

Conor
-- 
Conor Daly <conor.daly at oceanfree.net>

Domestic Sysadmin :-)
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