Premium Multimedia Legitimacy

[vbgunz]

A legal Ubuntu system with no multimedia support for so called proprietary and restricted formats is a system for the body snatchers. From Mozart to Mudvayne, MP3 to DVD, the use of these need to be legitimized in countries where the use of them is currently illegal.

Can the people behind Ubuntu at least think of opening a store and selling an official multimedia packaged add-on for Ubuntu systems with official support? I believe this will be a win-win situation as it may provide an extra income for Ubuntu to thrive and peace of mind for the rest of us.

Has this been discussed before?

[taurus]

Move to Cafe.

[pmj]

I would not pay. Not because I'm cheap, but because I shouldn't have to pay anyone for something like this.

[qalimas]

No. I would simply have an .ogg music collection instead of .mp3. (Which I'm working on converting my music to, by the way.)

DVDs, no, I wouldn't pay. Buying the DVD is payment enough to be able to watch it :rolleyes: ](*,)

I can't think of any other formats I would need/want/use... all I have is music and DVDs... maybe the avi and mpeg codecs... those I might actually pay for, no more than $1, though, they can't possibly be worth more than that.


We need an "I'd pay for some of them (please post)" option =)

[tbroderick]

DVDs, no, I wouldn't pay. Buying the DVD is payment enough to be able to watch it :rolleyes: ](*,)


You didn't buy a DVD player? Or do you just watch DVD's on your computer?

[saulgoode]

If it is illegal on my system then I will fight its becoming popular.:p

[Mathiasdm]

1. As far as I know, it's legal where I live: Europe.
2. If it wasn't legal, I'd probably use only .oggs (I'm in the process of slowly switching to them anyway).

[maniacmusician]

if it legitimizes it, sure why not. a small price to pay and it sends out the message that we're not all pirates.

[BoyOfDestiny]

No, I wouldn't pay for it.

These players/files/codecs etc are original and more often than not Free Software.

The industry as is would be nowhere with policies like this. I can only imagine the lack of a Personal Computer (Remember what PC means?) if things like the Compaq BIOS had not been clean-room reverse engineered.

I would however pay for it, if the source code was taken from the creators.

However, this isn't the case. It's just a free implementation.

I can only imagine an official one would be problematic as with other proprietary stuff (along the lines of: oops we didn't release it for your distribution or architecture, or sorry there was a security hole, oops doesn't work with your kernel etc...) Don't get me wrong, I'll use proprietary when there is no alternative, but there are just less headaches for me when things are Free...

So if push came to shove, I'd use closed set top boxes (come to think of it, which I use 99% of the time for DVD anyway), or dump the offending formats (I can survive without mp3s.). The mp3 patent will expire in around 5 years anyway... i could hold off until then. :)

As for DVD, the DMCA needs to make an exception for playing back YOUR DVDs that you've PURCHASED regardless of when, where, and what you play it on. Especially, for personal use.

[kripkenstein]

This has been discussed many times before. Linspire/Freespire use their Click'N'Run store to sell things like this, and they offered to let Ubuntu users use it also. There wasn't much interest. Meanwhile, Click'N'Run has been open-sourced (or is in the process), so it may be available for Ubuntu soon, for those that want it - which, again, may be fairly few people, but if they want it, I don't see anything wrong with that.

[Enverex]

if it legitimizes it, sure why not. a small price to pay and it sends out the message that we're not all pirates.

What does pirating have to do with being forced to pay AGAIN for the media you've already bought simply to be enabled to use the mechanism to play it?

[Engnome]

Well If we could pay to make changes to the law we would be screwed. Who do think has most mony? We or the big companies?

OSS would have been outlawed long ago. DRM format would rule the world and Windows would be the only legal OS.

[rai4shu2]

[x] Maybe

[christhemonkey]

Mayhaps you mean something like the fluendo webshop?

https://shop.fluendo.com/

You can download a gstreamerplugin that legally playbacks mp3s.

(Its in the repos already: gstreamer0.10-fluendo-mp3)
((theres also one for demuxing mpeg2: Package gstreamer0.10-fluendo-mpegdemux))
(((They are both MIT licensed, ie Opensource)))
((((And when i say legally, IANAL!))))

EDIT: Only legal in desktop use:
https://core.fluendo.com/gstreamer/trac/wiki/FAQ#id4
So for business you need to purchase a different license.

[EdThaSlayer]

To me it depends on how much it costs. If it is above $2-5 then no.

[teet]

To me it depends on how much it costs. If it is above $2-5 then no.

Yeah I agree.

Also, would this be a one time fee sort of thing or would you have to pay each time you upgraded? With a 6 month release cycle, this could become very costly if the fee was $25+

A $5-10 one time fee might not be too terrible. However, if the patents on a lot of these things are going to run out soon I might just take my chances and wait it out

-teet

[vbgunz]

I don't think I meant for this thread to become a political and/or moral issue. It isn't about what's right and whats wrong and who is attacking our freedom and/or how things should be in the world today. At the moment, very popular multimedia activities are illegal in some countries and it is a very real issue. Other than boycott, rant and flip-out, how can we simply legalize it?

[kebes]

I don't think I meant for this thread to become a political and/or moral issue. Other than boycott, rant and flip-out, how can we simply legalize it?

Well I think it's an unavoidably political issue. You ask "how can we simply legalize it?" and I think the answer should be: "repeal the laws that make it illegal." I'm not interested in continually paying more money to "be allowed" to do things that (in my opinion) should be innate freedoms.

So if the question is "would you pay for a 'sanctioned' multimedia add-on for Ubuntu" my answer is "no." If the question is "would you be willing to put money/effort towards changing the situation that prevents free operating systems from supporting multimedia?" then my answer is "yes."

[kripkenstein]

Other than boycott, rant and flip-out, how can we simply legalize it?

As I already mentioned in this thread, the simple solution is Click'N'Run (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linspire#CNR). See this (http://www.desktoplinux.com/news/NS2603651519.html) for some background on this topic; Eric Raymond joined Linspire (makers of Click'N'Run) because he thinks, like you, that this issue should be solved by finding a legal, non-free solution.

[vbgunz]

kripkenstein, thanks for that link. (http://www.desktoplinux.com/news/NS2603651519.html) I wholeheartedly agree with Eric on the issue. Linux will never dominate the desktop without thinking like that. I can fully understand the Feisty move with including proprietary drivers and I undoubtedly understand why Ubuntu will be the distro in which all others are measured by.

I believe a multimedia add-on package to help enable and legalize all popular media use in countries where it is otherwise illegal is a good idea and is a win-win situation for everybody. my opinion.

[Extreme Coder]

So that everybody would choose some wierd no-law country nobody heard about? :P

What I really want to know is what is illegal in these multimedia codecs? Is it illegal to distribute them, or is it illegal to use them? If it is illegal only to distribute them with the OS, then fine, whenever someone needs to play a closed-format file, the media player would download the needed codec for it to play, and at the same time, that codec didn't get distributed with Ubuntu. Or am I totally wrong and have a flawed way of thinking? :P

[awakatanka]

No will not pay. i bought a dvd player i have already paid for the license. Got mp3 in it to so that license is also paid. Got a legal windows, i got with my laptop so i paid also for those licenses.

I bought it so i have the right what ever i wanna do with it. 1 license 1 pc/our something else, i simply hate. I buy my music so if i wanna listen to it on my linux in mp3 format i can because i own a copy of the license already, same for movies.

[kripkenstein]

News: you can now purchase legal codecs from Fluendo (https://shop.fluendo.com/).

[pmj]

News: you can now purchase legal codecs from Fluendo (https://shop.fluendo.com/).
Yikes, that's way too expensive, and still not enough to play every file out there.

[Kateikyoushi]

No, I have the hardware to do that already, so I would not pay for a soft to do it on another system as well.

[golem3]

It's terribly defeatist to have to pay for programs on Linux. The whole point is to have a community of free apps. While I know I am a bit hypocritical in that I use Macromedia-Adobe's Dreamweaver and Flash via WINE, its a program that is essential to my work and teaching.

I don't see why anyone should HAVE to pay for multimedia capability. When an artist, film industry, whatever the media source is, cuts and album/dvd/blu-ray..whatever, there isn't any rule about where or how it is played as long as the MEDIA was payed for. NOT the operating system.

The answer is NO.