It’s final. Instapundit reports DeCSS (a DVD encryption unscrambler) is legal… if you live in the free world.
We send our heartfelt congratulations to the author of DeCSS, Jon Lech Johansen, on his acquittal and total victory over the forces of evil.
Revising words, histories, and morality to defend mistakes. Welcome to the world, v2003.
I didn’t say much in the article: but I should perhaps expand just a bit on the most important thing this means. If you, the reader, like myself, are a Linux purist, one whose home or office is a MICROSOFT FREE ZONE… then if you live in a country that is not ruled by media conglomerates, you can now legally install a driver on your workstation so that you may play the DVD’s you have purchased, just as you would have been able to if you were a user of the toy “operating” “system”.
Hopefully I’ll be moving south later this year – so once I am in the Republic, I too wil be able to play DVD’s. Which would make it worth my while to purchase a DVD drive. I’ve not bothered so far: why buy something you can’t fully (legally) use?
I look forward to it.
I’ve never understood the appeal of watching DVD movies on computers, but this seems like a step in the right direction.