• Embed Doc
  • Copy Link
  • Readcast
  • Collections
  • 1
    CommentGo Back
 
81
O
ne of the most popular and enjoyable activities on a computer isplaying audio and video. With improved multimedia players andtools for storing and managing content, Linux has become a greatplatform for storing, playing, and managing your music and video files.In this chapter, you learn to use the sound, video, digital imaging, andother multimedia tools available for Linux. You explore the process of con-figuring audio and video devices, and examine the kinds of media formatsavailable for the Linux platform, how they work, and how to make the mostof them by using the right applications.Linux is an excellent platform for taking advantage of widely used formatssuch as MPEG, AVI, OGG, and QuickTime. A wide variety of players areavailable for the various formats, and this chapter discusses several of themto help you determine which might be the right one (or combination) foryour interests and/or needs.
Because many devices holding multimedia content areremovable (CDs, DVDs, digital cameras, Webcams, and soon), recent features in Linux to automatically handle removable hardware andmedia have greatly improved the Linux desktop experience. See the sectionon managing hardware in Chapter 3 for descriptions of how features such asUdev and HAL are used to manage removable media.
Some Linux distributions are more multimedia-friendly right after the installthan others. An example of this is Freespire, which comes pre-loaded andable to support Flash, Java, and MP3 content the minute the installation com-pletes. This can save you a great deal of time trying to track down licensingissues and resolve problems. Features that are not included with the installa-tion, such as DVD playback support, can be found at the Click-N-Run service(
www.cnr.com
). Ubuntu, Linux Mint, and even the defunct Linspire userscan use Click-N-Run to get both free and commercial software.
NOTENOTE
Playing Music and Video
IN THIS CHAPTER
Legal issues with digital mediaUsing commercial content onLinuxPlaying, recording, and rippingmusicSetting up TV and audio cardsRecording and ripping musicWatching TVVideoconferencingWatching movies and videosStoring and displaying imagesfrom digital cameras
 
82
Part II
Running a Linux Desktop
Playing Digital Media and Obeying the Law
Debate about just what an end user can legally do with digital media is a hot topic right now. Whatexactly can you do as far as making copies of your CDs, DVDs, and other media? Unfortunately,there is no really good answer. This issue affects just about every computer user, either directly orindirectly.How you are allowed to use the audio, video, and other media you keep on your computers isincreasingly dictated by national and international law. There was a time when you could essentiallydisregard this issue, but in the era where individual computer users have been successfully sued bycorporations and industry groups, a little more caution is required.
Copyright Protection Issues
The biggest factor in the new world of digital media policy is the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). This law ostensibly establishes a framework for implementing several internationaltreaties concerning copyright protection.The DMCA has been widely criticized because it seems to intrude on the free-speech provisions of the U.S. Constitution. Many people view computer code as a protected form of speech. A conflictarises because the DMCA forbids the development of applications that are designed to intentionallycircumvent content security. For example, Dmitry Sklyarov, a Russian cryptographer employed bya Russian software company, ElcomSoft, was arrested by the FBI while attending a conference inLas Vegas because he demonstrated an application that could decrypt Adobe eBooks. A jury foundSklyarov and ElcomSoft not guilty in December 2002, but the point is that companies
will
use theDMCA to litigate against those who publicize methods to decrypt encrypted content.If nothing else, this event demonstrated that the DMCA has teeth. Unfortunately, these teeth havebeen used not only to protect legitimate commerce, but to pursue computer scientists at academicinstitutions researching content protection schemes, encryption, and a range of other technologies.Because the DMCA makes it a crime to manufacture and transport technology used to circumventcopyright protection schemes, many researchers have abandoned valuable research that could yieldbetter (stronger and more useful) protection schemes or reveal critical flaws in existing ones. While DCMA has provided some clout for content providers to legitimately protect their material,such as persuading search engines to drop information about links to illegally posted and copy-righted information, there are times when that clout has been abused. Some copyright holders, itseems, are more than willing to use the DMCA to curtail three “rights” allowed under pre-DMCAcopyright law. Copyright law stipulates:Users can make a copy of any copyrighted work for academic purposes, reporting, or cri-
■
tique. This includes a wide range of uses, from students or instructors copying materialsfor research to someone creating a parody of published materials. But what about a studentmaking a copy of some DVD materials for a multimedia presentation? The student has fair-use access to the material on the DVD, but the DMCA makes it illegal for the student tobreak the DVD encryption that would allow the student to copy the material.
 
83
Playing Music and Video
4
The fair-use rule is a privilege that permits someone other than the owner of thecopyright to use the copyrighted material in a reasonable and limited mannerwithout the owner’s consent.
Users can sell copyrighted works that they own. You can sell your books, DVDs, audio
■
CDs, and other materials as long as you are not retaining a copy for yourself, or (of course)selling copies of the work without permission from the copyright holder. Some peoplearguing in favor of file trading with copyrighted materials claim that the DMCA infringeson their ability to “share” content they “own.” In fact, under existing copyright law they donot “own” the copyrighted material and certainly do not possess the rights to redistributethe content unless they are reselling it in an allowed manner.Copyrights will expire at some time in the future and fall into the public domain. Basically,
■
this point raises the same issue as with the first item: Your DVD movie falls into the publicdomain (eventually), but to freely copy the content you must again circumvent the protec-tion inherent on the DVD, and by doing so, you run afoul of the DMCA.It is important to realize the DMCA is very vague about how it defines many of the acts that areillegal. What is a “protection scheme”? Some argue that it could be nearly anything. Many punditsfear that the DMCA can be used to curtail the use of nondigital copyrighted works such as booksbecause the law is so vague in defining its own borders. While the courts are trying to clarify where the legal line is in any particular situation, the problemis that, often, the company suing to protect its copyrights is a large corporation or group and thedefendant is either a new small company or even an individual user. Court battles are expensive,and the broad scope of the DMCA essentially prevents “the little guy” from ever making his case,because he cannot afford to fight.
In 1998 a law known as the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act, or CTEA, waspassed. This act took the already lengthy copyright protection period (generally 70 years)and extended it by another 20 years, preventing several valuable properties, including film and imagesof Steamboat Willie (the first Mickey Mouse), from entering the public domain.
From a practical standpoint, what does all this mean to you as a Linux user? Well, it means that if you have to use any trickery to copy MP3s off your CD collection, you could be breaking the law.Several CD protection schemes used by record companies are designed to prevent digital piracy, butthey are very easy to circumvent in many cases. But should you get caught making MP3s off a pro-tected CD, you can be sued and/or arrested (hypothetically speaking). It is quite possible that someof the security on CDs is intentionally weak. It saves development costs and allows the copyrightholder to pursue anyone who has ripped the CD because there is no legal means of doing so. Butthat is just speculation.Relatively few audio CDs come with protection of any kind, particularly those CDs already ownedby the world’s audiophiles. If you make fair-use copies of materials you own for your own use, you’renot likely to have to worry about anything. If you should decide to transport copyrighted works in
NOTENOTENOTENOTE
of 00

Leave a Comment

You must be to leave a comment.
Submit
Characters: ...
swankyjungle21108

Great tutorial mate. Here's the video tutorial for those who prefer video over text like me - http://bit.ly/cXQPGN

reply03 / 13 / 2010
You must be to leave a comment.
Submit
Characters: ...