Legal Update

[Vladimir Kosovac]

Jeff Spaleta wrote:

> I don't think you've got a firm grasp of how screwed up "contributory
> infringement" can be.
> The act of explicitly discussing the details about what is and is not
> legal and where what is and is not available is, could very well
> increase the liability for contributory infringement for the party
> hosting the webpages containing that detailed information that also
> host links to 3rd party resources where these materials can be gotten.
>  Stuff like that can be construed as a "willful" act to aid
> infringement.
> 
> We've just got the legal nod to link to 3rd party repositories as long
> as we make extremely general references and we do not get into the
> specifics of the contents of those repositories. 

Since Red Hat Legal's directions are very clear on the issue, the way
forward might be "ThirdPartyRepositories" fp.o page, linked to from
codeina, firefox start page, (anything else?).

Apart from direct links to livna/RPM Fusion, other repos maybe, this
page could provide a bit more general reference to what exactly third
parties are hosting, by listing multi-media players, display drivers,
etc, rather than explicitly mentioning encumbered codecs. That ought to
be 'general' enough to stay in clear from a legal perspective.

I am encouraged by a fact that 7 and 8 releases were praised for real
values they provided and that a lack of out-of-the-box
mp3/mpeg{2,4}/wm/flash support did not seem as important as it used to
be. It still is (important) and Fedora will address it by linking to
repository which provides said functionality.

Fedora can't make this one-click install but once people find their way
to livna pages, it's a no brainer. We now have a nod to at least provide
one-click way to the repo, so just do it and move on.

Vladimir

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