VLC not allowed to support Blu-ray disc playback in France

The opensource video player VLC is not allowed to playback Blu-ray discs in France. The French anti-piracy organisation HADOPI has informed VideoLAN, the  developers of VLC that they are only allowed to play Blu-ray discs if they have permission from Sony.

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VLC has experimental Blu-ray support since version 2.0 but does not support playback of discs protected by AACS . The software also doesn't support playback of  BD+ discs. The developers are unable to support it in VLC as Sony, who develops the Blu-ray copy protection, only gives encryption keys to licensees.

VideoLAN was planning to support Blu-ray discs and asked HADOPI if this would be allowed. According to the French law for intellectual property, companies are allowed to ask government organisations for permission if important information that is essential for interoperability is withheld from them.

In this case HADOPI decided that VideoLAN will have to ask permission from Sony and  is not allowed to get information from decompiling or reverse engineering of the code. A license from Sony for Blu-ray playback is not an option as VideoLAN would need to make the code opensource. VideoLAN can appeal against the decision but it's unclear if it will.

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