[wellylug] MPEG/DVD encoding/decoding.

[David Zanetti]

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On Wed, 5 May 2004, JP wrote:

> 1. Is it illegal to circumvent encryption, or to
> posses tools for doing so?  I don't think it is
> illegal in NZ at the moment, but I don't know for
> sure.

I don't believe it's illegal in NZ at this point. Very likely that if we
want, for example, free trade deals with the US, "aligning IP protection"
will mean we'll have DMCA-like laws here.

> 2. Are there patents on _decrypting_ css?  I suspect
> if there are patents, they will be for using css to
> protect media, not on reversing it, but who knows.

It's a trade secret. I don't believe there's anything patentable about CSS
(although what the USPTO are willing to allow could be quite broad, given
their extremely poor history of quality patent examination).

Actually, it _used_ to be a trade secret, it's not any more and the
DVD-CCA admited as much IIRC. Hard to keep something a trade secret if
it's in publically filed court documents. :)

> In any case, if Aus get the DMCA, you can probably
> expect NZ to get it too after a while.  There is a
> focus on regulatory harmonisation in the two markets.

I'd assume that .au will get a DMCA soon then, given their free trade deal
with the US.

> So, two options in the long-run:
> 
> 1. Licensed software player (presumably would have to
> be closed source to get the license?)

With it no longer being a trade secret, I'm unsure why it needs to be
closed source. The problem is the "other uses" which open source lends
itself well to. But certainly I'd expect anything I have to pay for would
be closed source.

> 2. Hardware solution (these do exist for Linux, but
> aren't cheap, and I don't know if complete source is
> available for the drivers).

The problem is it would _have_ to be securely routed to a display to meet
the expectations MPAA has. In other words, you couldn't implement it as a
kind of HW accel option, because I could just take the very nice clean
digital decrytped/uncompressed images coming out of it and push those into
anything I liked. 

And that leaves outputs from the card w/Macrovision and not a lot
else. Not that I'm convinced the MPAA would be happy with that as well.

The core problem is MPAA don't really want general purpose devices doing
any of this, from reading the media thru to display. They want it
protected along the whole path. 

- -- 
David Zanetti           |  (__)             
#include <geek/unix.h>  |  ( oo    Mooooooo 
http://hairy.geek.nz/   |  /(_O ./         
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