VLC Media Player To Use French Law for Enabling Blu Ray Playback

The VideoLAN Association, which publishes the free media player world famous VLC, just send a referral for an opinion to Hadopi . Best known for its mission to fight against illegal downloading , the High Authority for the dissemination of works and rights protection on the Internet is also responsible for developing legal offers and interoperability is to say the possibility of readthe same file on different media.

However, the VLC developers come up against a problem: their software can not, in the state, read Blu-Ray, protected by an anti-copy technology developed by Sony , which has the effect to prevent playback of discs on a PC.

Sony refused to make public or disclose computer code of these safeguards, lest it be used to circumvent its copy protection, but French law, reminds VLC, provides an exception just for ensuring the interoperability.

“VLC media player can implement use restrictions requested by the MTP [ Media Transfer Protocol] – copy, forced reading, etc.. software so scrupulously respect the wishes of copyright holders, “said the association in its referral, the Monde.fr could see .

Aside from adding a useful feature in VLC, VideoLAN think it is a symbolic event, and wishes “to advance the right of a very complicated issue, ” explains its president at the Point .

THE SPECTRUM OF DADVSI

The issue of interoperability was the subject of much debate in 2006, during the vote on the DADVSI, which transposed into French law the European directive on copyright . At the time, the industry recording and film estimated that technical protection measures are the best weapon to fight against illegal downloading, and some Members supported a legislative enshrinement of these tools. Facing them, collectives like StopDRM argued that limits should be imposed on these technical protection measures, otherwise consumers would find themselves prisoners of closed systems.

The final text reinforced the legal status of technical protection measures, but the State Council had subsequently reaffirmed the right to interoperability , after a request from the association for the promotion of free software April. When asked by The Point , the Hadopi confirms having received the referral of VideoLAN, and the case is under administrative instruction. It seems likely that the High Authority, based on the decision of the Council of State, gave his blessing to the association, as it provides guarantees of respect for its copy protection.

If the debates around technical protection measures have been very new intensity with the arrival of new video disc formats, including Blu-Ray, the debate has almost extinguished itself in regard to music files.

A from 2009, several major distributors of music digitally, including Apple , a number of sales with iTunes, had removed the locks of their digital music files. Technical measures of protection, however, remain present on almost all video files available on the market.