How to install Windows Codecs in firefox for MPLAYER

Andy Green andy at warmcat.com
Wed Aug 23 18:31:11 UTC 2006


Tim wrote:

> The problem is that someone else deliberately denies the opportunity.

Yes, what makes that a complete killer is the vast and long embedded 
case law for copyright and patent infringement.  In the US there are 
"statutory damages" written into law allowing a music rightsholder to 
demand and get up to $150K per infringement.  The publicised showtrials 
of P2P downloaders are actually getting whacked for the *lowest* value 
open to the prosecution according to the punitive law.

> to work on some things.  Only a few have even heard of unencumbered
> schemes, and ones that often are better (sound-wise, as well as for

Because of the culture of property rights for virtual, copyable stuff 
like music, the encrypted formats will not naturally go away any more 
than a "better lock" for a door on real property would fall out of use. 
  It'd be lovely if the general public rebelled at the restrictions, but 
I think it will have to get very onerous before they can confront their 
content addiction.

The only real answer that is compatible with the property rights reality 
is to repeat the whole RMS vs proprietary software deal with liberally 
licensed media using Open formats.  It shows signs of precursors in the 
universal use of MP3 for podcasts, I know it may be patent-encumbered 
but it is unencrypted and is the lingua franca.  There is plenty of free 
music, but much of that is not liberally licensed.  Only place I found 
that could turn into ground zero for a liberally licensed really open 
format revolution (it supports Ogg) is http://jamendo.com.

-Andy
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