Guides/Playing Proprietary Media Formats

It is possible to play many propietary multimedia formats, including encrypted commercial DVDs, in Linux. To do so, however, may or may not be legal where you are. Please visit https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Medibuntu for details.

Why?

Depending on where you are in the world, these codecs may be legal or illegal to download, use and distribute.

This is because many laws in one country are not shared by other countries. For instance, in Saudi Arabia it is illegal for a woman to drive. In most countries a woman has the right to drive if she obtains the proper credentials. In the case of Linux, for example, a codec that allows you to play encrypted commercial DVDs is illegal in the United States, unless it is obtained through a licensed vendor. Included in the Ubuntu distribution now used on some Dell computers, for instance, is the ability to play DVDs. This is an authorised use. Shift Linux, like Ubuntu Linux, cannot provide this option out of the box because of differences in the legal status of the open source codec libdvdcss2. This is not because libdvdcss2 is illegal 'everywhere'. Rather, it is because it is illegal in some countries. In other countries, it is a person's right to download, use and distribute it, just as, in the United States and other countries, it is a woman's right to drive providing she has obtained the proper credentials.

It is entirely your responsibility to determine if the laws of your country permit you to download, use and distribute libdvdcss2 and other codecs for proprietary formats.