libdvdcss

Libdvdcss is a program library for decrypting DVDs, which were encrypted with CSS. The library, which is part of the VideoLAN project, is used by a variety of open source DVD player programs and is considered very portable. Supported operating systems GNU / Linux, BSD, Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, BeOS, Solaris, and HP -UX. The software is licensed under the GNU GPL.

Operation

Libdvdcss will generate a list of possible keys. If none of the keys work ( for example, if DVD is regionally encoded), a brute-force algorithm is applied. libdvdcss therefore ignores the region code of a DVD.

Legal assessment

Some Linux distros have libdvdcss is not in their official package sources before (about openSUSE, Debian and Ubuntu ), because CSS is patent protected and they want to risk a lawsuit due to laws in the way of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. In most countries of the world, although there are no software patents, but the Linux distributions are finally available in the U.S. and want to keep it that way.

In the official Debian repositories but found libdvdread4 the package that allows an installed from other sources libdvdcss is automatically integrated into the system so that it is used by software.

In Germany and other countries, it is forbidden to write programs or distribute to bypass the copy protection measures.

Would a German court of last resort in CSS for an "effective technological measure " explain ( § 95a Copyright Act, as amended by Article 1 of the Law of 10 September 2003 version), so would be to use this library in Germany not permitted. Thus, a court judgment, there is not the time.

There is also the representation, after the CSS is merely a playback Protection: The DVD can be copied indeed, but watching without decryption program is not possible. It is unclear whether courts would follow this view (where - in contrast to the use of DeCSS - the application of libdvdcss was not subject to court ).

In the end, this is probably irrelevant in view of § 95a Copyright Act, as protection against unlicensed playing CSS is a technically effective restriction of rights and thus potentially subject to the relevant legal restrictions.

The use of libdvdcss would 108b Copyright Act be punishable in this case pursuant to § insofar as they are not " solely for their own personal use of the perpetrator or the perpetrator personally connected persons is ". In the case of private use are only civil claims of rights holders into consideration.

Finland

The Helsingin käräjäoikeus ( Helsinki District Court ) decided on 25 May 2007 that CSS can no longer be viewed as ' effective ' copy protection. The protection system was circumvented in 1999.