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463Chapter 19Playing Music and Video .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 copyfor yourself, or (of course) selling copies of the work without permission fromthe copyright holder. Some people arguing in favor of file trading with copy- righted materials claim that the DMCA infringes on their ability to share content they own. In fact under existing copyright law they do not own much at all and certainly do not possess the rights to redistribute the contentunless they are reselling them in an allowed manner. .Copyrights will expire at some time in the future and fall into the public domain. Basically, you run into the same issue as with the first item. So your DVD moviefalls into the public domain (eventually), but to freely copy the content youmust again circumvent the protection 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 oftheacts that are illegal. What is a protection scheme? Some argue that it could benearly anything. Many pundits fear that the DMCA can be used to curtail the use ofnondigital copyrighted works such as books because the law is so vague in definingits own borders. While the courts are trying to clarify where the legal line is in any particular situation, there s a problem in that often the company suing to protect its copyrights is a largecorporation or group and the defendant is either a new company or even an individ- ual user. Court battles are expensive, and the broad scope of the DMCA essentiallyprevents 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 (generally70years) and extended it by another 20 years, preventing several valuable proper- ties, including film and images of Steamboat Willie (the first Mickey Mouse), fromentering the public domain. The question of practicality is very important when examining copyright issues. Inother words what does all of this mean to you as a Linux user? Well, it means thatifyou have to use any trickery to copy MP3s off your CD collection, you could bebreaking the law. Several CD protection schemes used by record companies are designed to preventdigital piracy, but they are very easy to circumvent in most cases. But should youget caught making MP3s off a protected CD, you could be sued and or arrested(hypothetically speaking). It is quite possible that some of the security on CDs isintentionally weak. It saves development costs and allows the copyright holder topursue anyone who has ripped the CD because there is no legal means of doing so. But that is just speculation. Note27_
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462Part IVRunning ApplicationsHow you are allowed to use the audio, video, and other media you keep on yourcomputers is increasingly dictated by law (U.S. and international). There was a timewhen you could essentially disregard this issue, but in the era where individualcomputer users have been successfully sued by corporations and industry groups, a little more caution is required. Copyright Protection IssuesThe biggest factor in the new world of digital media policy is the 1998 DigitalMillennium Copyright Act (DMCA). This law ostensibly establishes a frameworkforimplementing several international treaties concerning copyright protection. The DMCA has been widely criticized because it potentially intrudes on the free- speech provisions of the U.S. Constitution. Many people view computer code as aprotected form of speech. A conflict arises because the DMCA forbids the develop- ment of applications that are designed to intentionally circumvent content security. For example, Dmitry Skarlov is a Russian cryptographer who was arrested by the FBIwhile attending a conference in Las Vegas because he demonstrated an applicationthat could decrypt Adobe eBooks. If nothing else this event demonstrated that the DMCA had teeth. Unfortunately theseteeth have been used not only to protect legitimate commerce, but to pursue com- puter scientists at academic institutions researching content protection schemes, encryption, and a range of other technologies. Because the DMCA makes it a crimeto manufacture and transport technology used to circumvent copyright protectionschemes, many researchers have abandoned valuable research that could yield better (stronger and more useful) protection schemes or reveal critical flaws inexisting ones. While DCMA has provided some clout for content providers to legitimately protecttheir material, such as persuading search engines to drop information about linksto illegally posted and copyrighted information, there are times when that clout hasbeen abused. Some copyright holders, it seems, are more than willing to use theDMCA to curtail three rights allowed under pre-DMCA copyright law. Copyrightlaw stipulates: .Users can make a copy of any copyrighted work for academic purposes, report- ing or critique. This includes a wide range of uses, from students/instructorscopying materials for research to someone creating a parody of publishedmaterials. But what about a student making a copy of some DVD materials fora multimedia presentation? The student has fair-use access to the material onthe DVD, but the DMCA makes it illegal for the student to break the DVD encryp- tion that would allow the student to actually copy the material. The fair-use rule is a privilege in others than the owner of the copyright to use thecopyrighted material in a reasonable manner without his consent. Note27_
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Playing Musicand VideoOne of the most popular and enjoyable activities on acomputer is playing audio and video. With improvedmultimedia players and tools for storing and managing con- tent, Linux has become a great platform for storing, playing, and managing your music and video files. In this chapter, you learn to use the sound, video, digital imag- ing, and other multimedia tools available for Linux. You explorethe process of configuring audio and select video devices andexamine the kinds of media formats available for Linux plat- form, how they work, and how to make the most of them byusing the right applications. Linux is an excellent platform for taking advantage of widelyused formats such as MPEG, AVI, OGG, QuickTime, andRealMedia. There are several players available for the variousformats, and this chapter discusses several of them to helpyou determine which might be the right one (or combination) for your interests and/or needs. Probably still the most widely used piece of multimedia tech- nology remains the CD-ROM, so this chapter takes a detailedlook at setting up and burning your own CDs. Regardless ofyour need to store data or create audio and software CDs, youwill find there are many tools to help you get the job done. Playing Digital Media and Obeying the LawWhat an end user can legally do with digital media is a hottopic right now. What exactly can you do as faras makingcopies of your CDs, DVDs, and other media? Unfortunately, there is no real good answer. This issue affects just aboutevery computer user, either directly or indirectly. 1919CHAPTER …In This ChapterLegal issues withdigital mediaUsing your Windowscontent on LinuxPlaying musicSetting up TV andaudio cardsRecording andripping musicWatching TV andcamerasWatching moviesandvideos …
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RunningApplications…In This PartChapter 19Playing Music and VideoChapter 20Working with Wordsand ImagesChapter 21E-Mailing and Web BrowsingChapter 22Gaming Alone and Online …
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457Chapter 18Running Bootable Linux DistributionsBoot Feather Linux and it comes up with a simple Fluxbox window manager. Withan Ethernet card and DHCP server, you are automatically connected to the network. To use that network, you have Sylpheed as your e-mail client and Dillo as your Webbrowser. Play music with xmms and view PDF files with XPDF. If the computer you are using has enough memory, you can install more applications. Right-click the desktop and select Enhancements and Extras.Install. Then choosethe application you want from menus such as games, multimedia, office, and othercategories. You might want different Web and mail clients (such as Mozilla Thunderbird andFirefox) or a different window manager (like ICEwm or XFCE). (I chose AbiWord fromthe office menu. Feather Linux downloaded it and added the Abiword icon right tothe desktop.) SummaryDozens of bootable Linux distributions have appeared in the past few years. Thosedistributions can contain anywhere from 1.4MB of data on a firewall bootable Linuxto many gigabytes of data on a bootable DVD. Without needing to touch the com- puter s hard disk, these distributions can offer full-featured systems that are tailoredto be desktop systems, multimedia players, rescue systems, or many other types ofsystems. Many bootable Linuxes are based on KNOPPIX (described in Chapter 11), so theyfeature very fine hardware detection and strong network connectivity. Nearly alloffer ways to access data from the hard disks of the computers on which they arerunning. While many bootable Linuxes are still experimental in nature, you canhave lots of fun playing with them just be sure to handle with a bit of care. …
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456Part IIIChoosing and Installing a Linux DistributionYou can get other DSL files that will let you download other applications from yourdesktop as well. Visit www.damnsmalllinux.organd select the link to the myDSLrepository. More information about using Damn Small Linux is available at the project FAQpage, www.damnsmall.org/faq.html. Feather LinuxBecause it is fashioned to run in 64MB, the Feather Linux distribution fits on a mini- CD or 64MB bootable USB pen drive. The developer took technology from KNOPPIXand scaled it back to what you absolutely need in a desktop system. The Feather Linux CD image is included on the CD that comes with this book. Refer to Appendix A for more information on copying and burning Feather Linuxto CD. The way Feather Linux presents its applications on the desktop makes it easy to findthem. The icons are attractive and go well with the available themes. Figure 18-2shows an example of the Feather Linux desktop. Figure 18-2:Feather Linux provides key desktop features while fitting in 64MB. On theCD-ROMNote25_
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455Chapter 18Running Bootable Linux DistributionsDamn Small LinuxIf you want your desktop Linux distribution to fit in your wallet, Damn Small Linuxis one of your best choices. Damn Small is one of the first distributions based onKNOPPIX to fit on a bootable business card (about 48MB currently). Damn Small Linux is included on the CD that comes with this book. Insert thatCD into the CD drive on your computer, reboot, and press Enter from the LinuxBible boot screen to start Damn Small Linux. There is also an ISOimage of DamnSmall Linux on the CD, so you can burn it to a CD or bootable business card CD. With KNOPPIX inside, you have many of the features you get with KNOPPIX: excellent hardware detection and boot-up to a desktop with network connectivity(provided you have an Ethernet connection with DHCP). Many features specific toDamn Small, however, are there to let you get a workable desktop system in a smallmedium (mini-CD) and low RAM. Damn Small s default desktop is pretty simple. Right-click the desktop to see amenu of features you can select. Here are a few things you want to do when youfirst boot up Damn Small: .Enhance your desktop Right-click to see the Damn Small menu, then selectDesktop.Full Enhanced Desktop. This adds some icons to your desktop tolaunch applications, some applets in the lower-right corner to display systeminformation, and a workspace editor. Select Desktop again if you want to changethe Styles (colors and window borders) or Configuration to change desktopbehavior. .Get a network connection If you don t automatically get on the Internet atboot time, select System.Net Setup from the Damn Small menu. Then you canchoose to configure your Ethernet card, DSL connection, dial-up modem, orwireless card. .Browse the Web Damn Small comes with the Dillo Web browser. SelectApps.Net.Dillo to start browsing. The browser is small, fast, and can runonany X window manager because it doesn t require GNOME libraries. .Configure and read e-mail The Sylpheed e-mail client is also very compactand runs fast. Select Apps.Net.Sylpheed to open it. Configure it and you canbe up and reading your e-mail within a few minutes. .Try out other applications Right-click and look through the menu for appli- cations that interest you. To see descriptions of those applications, visithttp://damnsmalllinux.org/applications.html. .Get other applications Even though it is not included on the Damn SmallCD, you can download the Firefox Web browser from Mozilla to use live withyour Damn Small Linux. Select Apps.Net.Got, the bandwidth, and thenchooseFirefox. On theCD-ROM25_
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454Part IIIChoosing and Installing a Linux DistributionIf you think MoviX is cool, you ll really like the idea of the eMoviX project. WitheMoviX, you put a mini-MoviX distribution on a CD or DVD with your video, sothatyour video content comes with its own bootable player! (See http://movix. sourceforge.net/Docs/eMoviXfor details.) At the time of this writing, MoviX hadn t reached a 1.0 release number yet. Thatimplies that there are probably more features and bug fixes to come before thedevelopers feel comfortable calling it a real release. While there are still some roughedges to it, MoviX is fun to play with. GeeXboXGeeXboX (www.geexbox.org) is another bootable multimedia player distribution. From the screen that appears after GeeXboX boots, you can use your cursor toselect the location of the content you want to choose. Like MoviX, you can play avariety of audio and video content. It also boots up on your network, so you can getaudio and video content from it. Because GeeXboX is so small (just a few megabytes), you can fit it easily on a mini- CD, bootable business card, or even a pen drive (provided your computer can bebooted from those media). There is no graphical interface; you just use the keyboardto select content and simple controls from menus. Use arrow keys to move among the few GeeXboX selections (Open, Controls, Options, Help, and Quit). Press Enter to make a selection. You can open a file from hard disk, a music playlist, directory of images, or removable media (DVD, VCD/XCD, or audioCD) containing video content. Press M to show or hide menus and use P to pause. Booting Tiny Desktop DistributionsIf you want to take Linux on the road so you can read your e-mail and browse theWeb, there are a bunch of mini-desktop distributions that fit in 64MB or less. Becausemost of these distributions are based on KNOPPIX, you get many of the great fea- tures of hardware detection, network connections, and software installation built in. The distributions, however, focus on getting the most important applications avail- able to you in a small space. For that reason, they may not have drivers for everypiece of hardware on your computer or include your favorite software. However, once you are up and running, because these distributions are capable of booting upon the network, they often let you download the software you want to use right intoyour running system. Two examples of tiny desktop Linux distributions are Damn Small Linux andFeather Linux.
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453Chapter 18Running Bootable Linux DistributionsThe libdvdcss library, needed to decrypt DVD movies (even if only for playback), has been the subject of legal suits. Although this library is available on the Internet, no legitimate Linux systems in the U.S. distribute this library, and using it could beillegal. You should research this issue yourself if you plan to add libdvdcss to MoviXor any other Linux distribution that includes MPlayer or xine media players. .Music Audio files in AVI, MP3, Ogg Vorbis, and other formats can be played. .Images You can run a slide show using the Linux Frame Buffer Image(fbi)viewer that displays images in JPEG, PNG, and a variety of other imageformats. Because the MoviX player itself doesn t include any video, music, or images for youto play, it gives you choices on where you can load those items from. Here are thepossibilities, depending on what is available from your computer: .DVDs If you have a DVD drive on your computer, you can play supportedcontent from there. (As previously stated, that doesn t include most commer- cial movies, by default.) .VCDs and SVCD These are video formats that can be put on standard CDs. .Audio CDs Standard music CDs (including AVI, MP3, and other formats) canbe played. .Hard disk files Any supported content that is on the local hard disk canalso be played from MoviX. Like KNOPPIX, MoviX detects hard disk partitionsand then mounts them as you request files from those partitions. The mountsare done read-only, by default, so you can play your content without any riskof deleting or otherwise damaging it. .Network MoviX boots onto the network if a DHCP server is detected. Although the friendly user interface doesn t appear to support it yet, softwarein MoviX should enable you to get content from your LAN or Internet to play- back using an NFS (UNIX file sharing) or FTP (standard Internet file sharingfacility) file server. MoviX boots right up to MPlayer, so you can eject the MoviX disk, insert a CD, DVD, or VCD into your drive and play any supported content. Right-click the desktop tosee your choices for selecting content. If you are comfortable moving around in Linux, you can go to different virtual terminals while you are using MoviX. Press Ctrl+Alt+F2 to view a sound mixer orCtrl+Alt+F3 to go to a Linux shell. Then press Ctrl+Alt+F4 to get back to the mainscreen (with MPlayer). Select Switch to MoviX from the menu, and you can chooseto run your audio player, slide show, or TV viewer (the latter if you have a televi- sion card installed). Caution25_
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452Part IIIChoosing and Installing a Linux DistributionFigure 18-1:Use INSERT to troubleshoot computers and networks. Booting Multimedia DistributionsBecause one of the things people like to do best with a home desktop system is playmusic and video, it s no surprise that there are several bootable Linux distributionsthat do just that. Using these Linuxes, you can immediately turn any PC into a dedi- cated multimedia player. Two examples of bootable multimedia distributions are MoviX and GeeXboX. MoviXWith MoviX (http://movix.sourceforge.net), you run a multimedia player thatdisregards the operating systems (Windows, Linux, or otherwise) installed on yoursystem. Because MoviX is small enough to run in your system memory, after it hasbooted you can remove it and insert the CD or DVD. With MoviX, you can play: .Videos You can play video from many different formats, including DivX/XVID, MPEG 1 and 2, and MPEG 4. So that MoviX can be freely distributed, it doesnot include the capability to play most DVD movies.
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