is it illegal for mint to come preinstalled with the codecs?

[symon1980]

Hi, just wondering if it is legal for linux mint to come with the preinstalled codecs it comes with?
don't bother me too much, but a friend of mine seems to think that it could end up a problem
for linux mint in the future because of this......
can anybody clear this up for me?

[Fred]

symon1980,

There are some countries where it might be illegal, there are other countries that it is legal. If you are in a country where it is illegal, download the light version. It doesn't contain the codecs.

No one here would advocate you breaking your local laws.

Fred

[symon1980]

oops, i should of rephrased my question
i was wondering if it was legal or not in Australia?
not that it worries me. just curious:)

[Fred]

symon1980,

I am sorry, but I can't help you with the laws in the "Down Under."

As Sunny Rabbiera, pointed out, I sincerely doubt you could be held liable, even if it is illegal, if you have purchased a Windows license in the past sometime. The use of those codecs was one of the things you paid for. Granted, most of what you paid for was Bill's new Ferrari, but there was a bit in there for codecs too.

Fred

[Fred]

stevenofnine,

I could easily stand corrected. The last Windows EULA I had was for Win98. I don't want to read it bad enough to try to find it. I'll take your word for it. lol

Fred

[bth73]

Just my 2 cents worth, but how many times must you pay for the same property rights?
Lets count: vinyl records, 4 track tapes, 8 track tapes, cass tapes, CD's, DVD's Beta, VHS, windows 98, ME, XP, Vista, Mac os whatever, ECT,ECT,

[belovedmonster]

You may well want to read your EULA. I suspect you'll find you're licensed to use those codecs with a Windows license while using the Windows operating system. This is why, when you purchase a song via WMP, perhaps via URGE, DRM prevents you porting it to another platform, or limits you to 3 computers. As does iTunes.

That's got nothing to do with codecs!!! That is so the record companies can stop you from buying a song and then sharing it with other people. By limiting how many PCs and how many portable devices you can sync the song to it prevents mass copying of the purchased songs.

Now that DRM is all but dead their new tactic is to have a digital watermark hidden in the mp3, so you can freely copy and distribute the mp3 if you want to but that song will always contain the information of who originally purchased it which can be used to trace the file back to you. Which seems like a nightmare to me because what if your laptop is stolen and all your songs get uploaded to the internet and you get the blame for it? ...But this is another debate all together.