Ask Ubuntu General Room

@anyone how far are we going to let the copy protection circumvention questions go...we covered that mac in vm questions are theoretically okay because it could be mac server, but we're starting to get more "how do i copy this streaming content" question types. you want to do it, that's your moral prerogative, but asking on AU may be going a little far...

Q: Copyright and morality in questions

@aking1012 (Disclosure: I am not a lawyer.) Why should we have a problem with "how do I copy this streaming content" questions? Potentially that could be copyright infringement in some instances, but generally recording a broadcast for later viewing is not illegal. Related:

6

I stumbled across a question today that was right up my street: grabbing video from webofstories. If I were to paraphrase it it would be: I want to download videos from a video streaming site that doesn't provide download links. Everything about this is tailored for me. As part of ${DAYJOB}...

fair points all around

On the other hand, perhaps I am missing something--you may want to post a new meta question (if you feel this is different or broader than that one), or (if you have a position you want expressed and you think that question is the same as this issue) post a new answer there.

12:26 AM

@Flabricorn today was a boring day.

> "We nuke any question we see about people trying to circumvent DRM."

Er... we do?

Isn't playing a region-encoded DVD on Linux considered circumventing DRM?

Yes, we do. Super User policy that we "adopted".

So I can't ask how to play a region-encoded DVD on Ubuntu?

@GeorgeEdison well, we were specifically going after people who were talking about WINE and DRM with software.

(iirc the details of the situation)

Now that I agree with.

Circumventing DRM to cheat authors out of payment for their products is wrong.

A: Is discussion of techniques for removing DRM permitted?

12:29 AM

90

Unless it is a clear call for warez, discussion of DRM should be given the benefit of the doubt. Per Joel: I would hate for us to censor legitimate, technical discussion just because what we're talking about happens to be illegal in some jurisdictions. We should have the same standards as un...

But playing a DVD... that should be covered under fair use if you own it.

That is the policy that I have been following.

@lazyPower it's a bit of a gray area.

shuts up before his mouth gets him in trouble

I wish that whenever content was licensed to an individual, they could transform the content into any medium they wanted for their own personal use.

I think a good amount of issue is intent

circumvention for media that you explicitly own is white for me. ripping streaming content is tottering on a line though

12:31 AM

format shifting is a whiter grey area than trying to break DRM

@JourneymanGeek and again, if it is obviously for warez, then we give it the benefit of the doubt.

@GeorgeEdison To play the devil's advocate: Authors of proprietary DVD playing software generally must pay the DVD CCA to implement CSS. And even if they didn't, one effect of the DVD CCA is to give authors of proprietary software a special ability to make DVD players. When people use FOSS DVD playing software to play CSS'd DVD's, are they cheating the authors of those proprietary programs?

Weren't the CSS keys reverse engineered in a clean room fashion?

...or am I mistaken?

@EliahKagan I don't remember the exact ruling, but I seem to remember someone ruling that for purposes of compatibility, it's fine to have multiple implementations.

@GeorgeEdison I believe that is the case. I do not mean to suggest otherwise.

12:33 AM

They were, but most distros don't include software that has em 'in case'

(there have been a number of cases, the most recent being Google vs. Oracle with the Java API ruling iirc)

its the reason we have medibuntu

Don't forget that we wouldn't have Wine if clean-room reverse engineering was forbidden.

Indeed. It's a legal gray area, and one that nobody knows about.

And there's a difference between "how do i run warez/os x" and "How do i rip a DVD i own"

hmm

12:34 AM

There is a huge difference.

yup

@jrg Right, I'm not saying I think it's illegal to implement dvdcss in FOSS code, or to use such an implementation. Instead, I'm taking a position quite radically on the other side of the issue: I'm suggesting that even adopting a rule saying we prohibit questions about cracking DRM to avoid paying authors may be too broad, at least if it is applied unthoughtfully.

even where both are grey areas, one is blacker and one is whiter.

@EliahKagan: The other side of the puzzle is many of these questions can't actually be answered ;p

and wording!

leaves I'll be around in the regulators if you need me for moderator stuff, I can't stomach this talk right now, at least with the sunset outside my window.

"How do i run (media X) on (OS Y)?" Would be more palitable than "I want to strip the drm from media X cause they people who make it are DRM happy scumbags who are infringing on my freedom to run it on OS Y"

lol

(no offence to ideological linux users. But hyperbole was necessary to make my point more obvious)

12:36 AM

@JourneymanGeek That is very important. I feel that often there's discussion about whether or not a question should be closed for being against some policy, when actually it should just be closed as off-topic or not-a-real-question. On the other hand, we should try to avoid falling into the trap of interpreting controversial questions (except those that are calls for debate rather than questions) as OT or NARQ more readily than non-controversial questions.

Some people believe that simply slapping an Apple sticker on a PC makes it "apple-branded hardware" and that you can install OS X on it.

Anyway, I gotta run now.

See you all tomorrow.

@EliahKagan: I actually mean cannot be answered as in, there's no solution

Marco Ceppi

sparks convo

So how about that [Competing Product]

o/ @Marco

needs ice for coffee... and totally didn't mean to spawn a debate

12:58 AM

People talk about how Ubuntu doesn't have any good applications. I hereby declare that all Windows screenshot applications suck, and that Shutter rules the playing feel. :D

Now if gtk-record would just use a semi-normal output format... (read as most of the standard transcoders choke on it at least for me)

@aking1012 heh, yeah.

i don't even care about it being "normal". I just want it to be consistent.

well...consistently transcodable by the staple tools would be nice

I've had some settings that work this go around, and then don't the next. (In VLC)

best solution i've found is to use mencoder to "copy" the streams to a new container with -idx option to force re-indexing, then ffmpeg/avconv based tools work fine

osalt should so have a this ~= that list somewhere they might, but i haven't seen it. would be a great link to drop on software recommendation questions

another nvidia black screen question :(

1:10 AM

LINKY SO I CAN DUPE IT? smile

Q: Correct way to install nvidia-173 driver on Ubuntu 12.04?

0

After chasing around an unfortunate bug wherein my Dell's Nvidia GeForce FX 5200 requires a driver other than either nouveau or nvidia-current, I came across this: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/nvidia-graphics-drivers-173/+bug/948053 Trouble is I'm not certain how to proceed from her...

12.04 drivers nvidia

that's not a dupe is it...

i don't think it's a dupe. i think it's a bug/not-exactly supported card. with a name like stick, you've got to wonder about the motivation though

I think he's my age. maybe a little older.

Waa I got -10 rep because of a comment....

1:14 AM

o0

Welcome to the club.

this guy downvoted all my answers just because I commented on a post which he has answered

some people are really too shallow and ignorant

oh don't worry, there's systems against that

The Master Control Program will handle it.

what's MCP?

1:17 AM

lol

Tron!

I FIGHT FOR THE USER

I call the master control program, the OS :P

I really shouldn't use experimental package managers in production.

apt-torrent messing up on you or something?

no, i'm running a really screwed up version of homebrew. - mxcl.github.com/homebrew

it's this really really screwed up thing that i've spent weeks hacking on. it also screws up dependencies and tries to step on apt-get's toes.

The Interrupter

2:04 AM

Bounty offered: Adding x-scheme-handler without a popup in firefox http://askubuntu.com/questions/162268/adding-x-scheme-handler-without-a-popup-in-firefox?atw=1 #firefox

Tweeted by AskUbuntu on July 16, 2012 at 1:34 AM

Flabricorn

3:00 AM

@jrg Today wasn't too entirely boring for me, I went and saw Moonrise Kingdom with my girlfriend - Damn good movie, love Wes Anderson.