A Correction on Linux DVD Players

by on May 8, 2006 · 10 comments

Solveig Singleton has posted about an error she spotted in my Cato paper: Linspire does in fact sell a licensed DVD player. So it looks like I was wrong when I said that there are no software DVD players available for the Linux operating system.

I’m unhappy that I missed this. I spent several hours researching available DVD players, and I asked a friend of mine who administers Linux computers for a living, and while I found extensive informaiton about several players that required the (probably illegal) libdvdcss library, I didn’t find any information about Linspire’s player. My apologies for not researching the issue more thoroughly.

I have some thoughts about how the existence of Linspire affects my argument, and I want to comment on her analysis of the CSS issue, but I’m going to wait for her to post part two of her analysis before I do so. Singleton also says that I’m guilty of “breaches of professional ettiquette,” so I’m anxious to learn more about that.

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About Tim Lee

Timothy B. Lee (Contributor, 2004-2009) is an adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute. He is currently a PhD student and a member of the Center for Information Technology Policy at Princeton University. He contributes regularly to a variety of online publications, including Ars Technica, Techdirt, Cato @ Liberty, and The Angry Blog. He has been a Mac bigot since 1984, a Unix, vi, and Perl bigot since 1998, and a sworn enemy of HTML-formatted email for as long as certain companies have thought that was a good idea. You can reach him by email at leex1008@umn.edu.

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  • http://crescatsententia.org PLN

    I’m a bit puzzled–I looked at Linspire’s site, and it claims it is based on the Xine player. But the Xine player is GPLd–so wouldn’t Linspire’s player have to be, as well? Yet here it claims to be “closed source”.

    Is this a GPL violation, or am I just being trigger-happy? It sure would be amusing if the only “legit” Linux player was actually an infringing derivative work.

    PLN

  • Urijah

    The Linspire player is only for Linspire 4.5+, not for any Linux distribution though, and Linspire is not fully GPL compliant, which makes it ideologically problematic for many people, (though Freespire is coming out soon–no idea if it will work with the player.) Also Linspire is really oriented to the beginner Linux user, and would is not attractive to the experienced Linux user.

  • http://crescatsententia.org PLN

    I’m a bit puzzled–I looked at Linspire’s site, and it claims it is based on the Xine player. But the Xine player is GPLd–so wouldn’t Linspire’s player have to be, as well? Yet here it claims to be “closed source”.

    Is this a GPL violation, or am I just being trigger-happy? It sure would be amusing if the only “legit” Linux player was actually an infringing derivative work.

    PLN

  • Urijah

    The Linspire player is only for Linspire 4.5+, not for any Linux distribution though, and Linspire is not fully GPL compliant, which makes it ideologically problematic for many people, (though Freespire is coming out soon–no idea if it will work with the player.) Also Linspire is really oriented to the beginner Linux user, and would is not attractive to the experienced Linux user.

  • Doug Lay

    Ouch. Well, no paper is perfect :)

    Clearly the issue isn’t a lack of licensed Linux DVD players (after all, the TiVo units with DVD-R capability presumably include a CSS license), but a lack of licensed open source players. The requirement to “hide the keys” would appear to be completely incompatible with open source development – or am I missing something?

    Here’s something that may cheer you up, if you haven’t seen it already. One of the country’s leading copyright lawyers dissing the DMCA:

    http://williampatry.blogspot.com/2006/04/dmca-successful-in-what.html

  • Doug Lay

    Ouch. Well, no paper is perfect :)

    Clearly the issue isn’t a lack of licensed Linux DVD players (after all, the TiVo units with DVD-R capability presumably include a CSS license), but a lack of licensed open source players. The requirement to “hide the keys” would appear to be completely incompatible with open source development – or am I missing something?

    Here’s something that may cheer you up, if you haven’t seen it already. One of the country’s leading copyright lawyers dissing the DMCA:

    http://williampatry.blogspot.com/2006/04/dmca-s…

  • indyken

    Also, Turbo Linux from Japan sold a Cyberlink PowerDVD on Linux back in 2004.

    See their Press release.

  • indyken

    Also, Turbo Linux from Japan sold a Cyberlink PowerDVD on Linux back in 2004.


    See their Press release.

  • http://crescatsententia.org PLN

    My comment yesterday seems to have been eaten–are you sure the Linspire is legit? It claims to be based on the Xine player, but that’s GPLd–and Linspire claims to be closed source. Isn’t that a GPL violation? It would be amusing if the only ‘legit’ player were itself an infringing derivative work…

  • http://crescatsententia.org PLN

    My comment yesterday seems to have been eaten–are you sure the Linspire is legit? It claims to be based on the Xine player, but that’s GPLd–and Linspire claims to be closed source. Isn’t that a GPL violation? It would be amusing if the only ‘legit’ player were itself an infringing derivative work…

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