Playing TAU lectures from videos.tau.ac.il

[Shlomi Fish]

Hi Ariel,

On Thursday 22 Jul 2010 14:57:43 Ariel Biener wrote:
> On 07/22/2010 09:06 AM, Boris shtrasman wrote:
> > Don't know if that the case , but at least for some I had to work with
> > you must login to a web site (full auth) prior to to that the server
> > will disable the access to the files. Also make sure with wireshark.
> > 
> > Did you try with a perl script ? to connect and download the mms ?
> 
> I do not understand this thread. It is obvious that TAU does not want
> you to circumvent
> it's access protection. Even if this was possible, why would you do it
> ?  If you're pissed
> that it doesn't work well with Linux, and you are a TAU student/staff
> member, contact
> the TAU helpdesk, and open a ticket on the subject, and request they
> find a suitable
> solution for you.

I'll bite. What this thread asks is not how to redistribute these films for 
free or for pay [FreeDist], but rather how to legitimately view them on Linux 
while fully respecting the copyrights. Apparently, the TAU workers did not do 
enough work to ensure portability and interoperability for non-Microsoft-based 
operating systems, and the people who asked here want to find a good 
workaround. This thread is entirely due to their lack of ability (or because 
they did not care enough), and it should be expected given that people use 
Linux and want to view the lectures there, which is within their rights as TAU 
students. 

[footnotes]
[FreeDist] non-commercial distribution of publicly-available content is 
perfectly moral and should be legal, see:

* http://www.shlomifish.org/philosophy/case-for-file-swapping/

* http://remix.lessig.org/

* http://www.defectivebydesign.org/

[/footnotes]

> 
> That said, as TAUs CISO I am *telling* you that we are interested to see
> our staff
> and students access our protected data in the proper way, and that any
> other person
> is kept out.

That's good. 

> 
> Until we enforced this, many students sites not affiliated with TAU have
> published direct mms:// links to our content, which became available to
> anyone, anywhere,
> regardless of being affiliated with TAU or not, and thus infringing on
> our copyrights, on
> our academic staff copyrights, and also on Film studios copyright for
> some of our material.

That may not be a bad thing, because it gives publicity to the university, and 
allows other people to enjoy your content. See:

* http://remix.lessig.org/

* http://ocw.mit.edu/ (OpenCourseWare).

> 
>   If a staff member or student has a problem, we can find solutions via
> our internal means of
> doing so, and not via asking Linux-IL how to circumvent us.
> 

These internal means likely take time, as many people who have tried to 
contact the operators of web-sites that do not function in non-MSIE-browsers 
can attest to. In the meanwhile, people would need some Linux-specific 
workarounds, which would not be needed if the TAU staff cared enough about 
checking that. You reap what you sow.

Regards,

	Shlomi Fish

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