Linux Founder Lambastes DVD Lawsuits

By Sushuma on 2000-02-02 11:19:23

(ZDNet)-Linus Torvalds, the founder of Linux, roundly criticized the companies that have sued websites and programmers - one as young as 16 years old - to keep the secrets of DVDs under wraps.?"This is a perfect case of companies that want to screw their customers over," he said during the opening keynote speech at LinuxWorld.?"DVD companies want to control the market, and not by offering a good technical solution, but by suing their own customers." Last October, an international group of programmers published the source code to a program that broke the encryption protecting DVDs from playing on unauthorized platforms.?One of the programmers, 16-year-old Jon Johansen of Norway, was brought up on charges of copyright violation and interrogated by police.?Torvalds refuted that version of events.?"It was just a case of people wanting to play DVDs on their Linux systems," said Torvalds.?While DVD movies can be played on Windows and Mac systems, Linux has not been officially supported by movie makers.?Read more ...

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