[ Thanks to Kelly
McNeill for this link. ]
“DeCSS is the name of a piece of code written for Linux in order
to play DVDs on a Linux-driven DVD player. Unfortunately, it seems
that in order to run DVDs on a Linux-based computer, it helps if
you remove the copyright protection on the DVD — one of the
features of the DeCSS-code. CSS is the acronym for the industry DVD
copyright standard, which DeCSS deconstructs.”
“I don’t want to give the wrong impression. If you’re
thinking, “Sweet Linux action. Between Star Office, The GIMP and
this crazy free DVD thing, this Linux OS must be the most excellent
OS,” you might be disappointed. It’s really a technology that
requires a good amount of Linux knowledge to use, but the
implications are encouraging for the future of open source OSes
like Linux.”
“Despite being made illegal in the United States and the charges
against DeCSS’ underage author in his native Norway, the code
continues to surface on download sites from servers located in
countries around the world. This past August, Hacker Group 2600 was
defeated in court for linking to sites where you could download
DeCSS. Still this hasn’t stopped access to DeCSS. 2600 can still
post their site list without linking the addresses. Also, because
so many people are offering it for download, often a simple search
on most commercial search engines should turn up a link to a DeCSS
download site.”