[MPlayer-users] MPlayer hangs playing 'Sony Pictures' DVDs.

[The Wanderer]

Alexander Roalter wrote:

> The Wanderer wrote:
> 
>> Plus, some people (including at least one person who is considered
>> a dev) are most likely of the opinion that buying such discs
>> constitutes supporting DRM, and that permitting them to be played
>> would encourage people to buy them, and thus would constitute
>> supporting DRM - and thus that MPlayer *should not*, as a matter of
>> policy, be able to play such discs.
>> 
>> I don't know if I entirely agree with that perspective, but I can
>> easily see the reasoning involved in it, and it does make a certain
>> amount of sense.
> 
> One might think so, but I don't see the difference in breaking CSS
> for the sake of playing DVDs and implementing a smart VOB cell
> navigation for the sake of a) gaining better compatibility with all
> the fancy things a DVD can do following the specification and b)
> playback DVDs with arbitrary erroneous sectors by simply jumping over
> them. It is not as if these DVDs are broken per se (as is the case
> with some copy protected CDDAs).

Yes - as I said, I don't know if I entirely agree with the perspective I
cited. The fact that it makes a certain amount of sense doesn't change
the fact that other perspectives can also make sense, and the downsides
of that view may outweigh its upsides.

> And where here DRM should come into play I don't see. I sure get the
> idea of DRM, but no bundling to a specific machine/OS/application is
> the case here, nor is the data encrypted (apart from CSS).

(Note that it's possible that I have just mixed up terminology, both in
the previous post and this one. I'm not sure that that's the case,
however.)

"Restricting the circumstances under which a legitimate user may read
the data, for purposes of limiting the things which such a user can do
with the data" may be considered to constitute DRM, I think. Certainly
the people who arranged for the bad sectors to be present were intending
them to prevent the data from being accessed except in the ways those
people wanted to allow; very likely, they were intending to prevent the
data from being used in any way which creates a copy. If you see any
problems in that, feel free to point them out...

-- 
       The Wanderer

Warning: Simply because I argue an issue does not mean I agree with any
side of it.

Secrecy is the beginning of tyranny.