Linked by Thom Holwerda on Thu 27th Jan 2011 22:28 UTC
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Are you sure that the Fluendo DVD player is fully legal in the U.S. though? From their license page:
With respect to MPEG-2
“USE OF THIS PRODUCT IN ANY MANNER THAT COMPLIES WITH THE MPEG-2 STANDARD IS EXPRESSLY PROHIBITED WITHOUT A LICENSE UNDER APPLICABLE PATENTS IN THE MPEG-2 PATENT PORTFOLIO, WHICH LICENSE IS AVAILABLE FROM MPEG LA, L.L.C., 250 STEELE STREET, SUITE 300, DENVER, COLORADO 80206.”
“USE OF THIS PRODUCT IN ANY MANNER THAT COMPLIES WITH THE MPEG-2 STANDARD IS EXPRESSLY PROHIBITED WITHOUT A LICENSE UNDER APPLICABLE PATENTS IN THE MPEG-2 PATENT PORTFOLIO, WHICH LICENSE IS AVAILABLE FROM MPEG LA, L.L.C., 250 STEELE STREET, SUITE 300, DENVER, COLORADO 80206.”
I'm no lawyer, but it sounds to me like the end user still must purchase a license from the MPEG LA in order to legally use Fluendo DVD Player in the U.S. Whether they would even offer an individual license to a consumer, and at what price, is still unknown.
So I ask again, can I please buy a cheap (under $10) license that will grant me permission to use existing software such as mplayer, VLC, MPC, etc to play back discs I already purchased a license for when I bought the disc in the first place?





Member since:
2005-06-29
Well it must be a trivially cheap price for the license. Here in the Southern U.S., you can pick up a fairly nice home DVD player that will also play Divx/Xvid, VCD/SVCD, photo CDs and sometimes .mkv files for around $20-30 retail. Cheaper if you eschew the retail stores and buy online.
Considering I couldn't homebrew a player that capable -- even using a free second hand DVD tray/laser assembly, the most expensive part -- for that price, I'd love to know just how inexpensive this license is and why it's never been offered to the general public as a standalone purchase. The closest I've found is buying Cyberlink's DVD playback software (which they did release for Linux) but it's nearly $50 unless you find a license key on eBay at a discount. On top of that, I can't stand their lame DVD software anyway. Even VLC is better (I personally prefer mplayer to VLC, for those who care).
Honestly, the idea of having to have a license for both the content and the playback mechanism is so redundant and unnecessary, it boggles the mind. I can almost accept being licensed to watch the content itself, but the moment my money becomes theirs and the media is in my hand it should be mine to watch how and when and where I please, on whatever hardware I can fit the disc into.
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Amusingly, the Daft Punk song "Technologic" started playing on my mp3 player as I was typing the second paragraph. My device is trying to tell me something...