I'm not sure why. If the point is to make the firmware read every bit of the drive, that doesn't seem like it would break any copyright law. The encrypted data is rather useless without breaking DRM, but the DRM breaking doesn't happen in hardware.
If the firmware is based on existing, proprietary drive firmware, then distributing it may run afoul of copyright law, but if all that's distributed is a patch file then I don't see the problem there either.
There are quite a few countries with exceptions in copyright law for compatibility reasons, like modifying programs to make them work on newer hardware without the original authors' consent. The reason VLC (and many other open source projects) can play DVDs is that France, where VLC is based, has laws that make it legal to distribute a DVD playback library. I don't think any Linux distros have faced legal trouble over distributing VLC, even if they are American in nature.
I'm sure the copyright lobby will have a different opinion, but I don't think it's quite as black and white without knowing where the author resides and/it what nationality they have.
The DMCA is American law, so the parent comment can only be referring to America. Obviously doesn't apply outside there.
> I don't think any Linux distros have faced legal trouble over distributing VLC, even if they are American in nature.
That's because they generally don't distribute libdvdcss, which is the illegal part.
> Many Linux distributions do not contain libdvdcss (for example, Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora and openSUSE) due to fears of running afoul of DMCA-style laws, but they often provide the tools to let the user install it themselves. For example, it used to be available in Ubuntu through Medibuntu, which is no longer available.
> The DMCA is American law (...) Obviously doesn't apply outside there.
...and when you host your code on Github or Gitlab, they will have to comply with DMCA letters. After one round of exchanging counternotices the content will have to stay down unless the alleged infringer is willing to fight the matter in a US court.
Because the purpose is to read disks protected by technological protection measures. Circumventing technological protection measures is illegal, period. That's one of the things many people don't like about the DMCA. I'd recommend to start archiving this website now.
I mean, the post is from 2019, and MakeMKV has been around much longer than that. I know this isn't always the case, but I feel like if they were going to take down MakeMKV's site, they probably would have done it by now.
Maybe to the letter of the law, but I think there’s a reason why no one seems to go after MakeMKV.
If you’re using MakeMKV, then almost by definition you have a legitimate copy of the media you’re ripping, and as such not a direct target of any kind of piracy prevention. Obviously you could then post your rip on The Pirate Bay or something, but I don’t think that MakeMKV is generally blamed for that.
I have a ton of Blu-Ray movies purchased legitimately, and I use MakeMKV to rip them and play them with Jellyfin. I don’t distribute them, I only play them in my house.
Am I technically breaking the law? Probably, DRM law is weird and confusing in the US, but I doubt that the MPAA has a huge problem with what I am doing, since I am paying them for legitimate copies of my movies.
