[KLUG Members] Movies? Weird!!!

[Adam Tauno Williams]

>>It is illegal to play most DVDs on Linux.
>How do you know this?

It is a commonly discussed topic in Linux forums.  Most Linux magazines have
carried articles about this.

>That statement seems a bit extreme.

The laws are extreme, and deeply stupid.

>Is that to say that it is NOT illegal to play most DVDs on Windows? ...

You have to have licensed software, on Linux you don't.

>Why?

Er....

>What is the reasoning behind such laws?

Reasoning?  None.  It boils down to paranoid rich people (are they're any other
kind?).  It is the year 2002, almost 2003,  yet it is culturally acceptable to
have no idea whatsoever how any of the technology around you works - thus people
get elected who are either (a) the stooges of the wealthy or (b) deeply stupid.
 Next time your at a public education facility, find a random
official/administrator, and slap them.  Ultimately it is their fault.

>>At least without a hardware decoder,
>>and those aren't very common.
>The people who sell DVD-ROM drives are not advertizing this very much

Why would they?  "Just use M$-Windows."  Geeks are just an annoying and trivial
percentage of the population.  Of course, geeks invented encryption, DVDs,
etc...  Ultimately it is a self-defeating; the next hundred years are going to
be just fabulous.