I understand that; my question was about legality. I would rather buy the Fluendo OnePlay if playing them was illegal, as it seems to be (and I wish they all used Ogg). But I do not want to spend about as much as Windows cost me just to play protected content, presuming that the Ultra DVD player from the Windows store is itself legal to use.
More research finds this: Why Watching DVDs on Linux is Illegal in the USA
And Fedora states,
Fedora is unable to include support for playback of DVD video because it requires patented technologies and the necessary software may violate the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), a copyright law of the United States. The MPEG-2 video compression format is protected by patents under United States law and international treaties. The CSS encryption scheme is a copyright protection measure, and the code that open source players must use to decrypt DVD media [via libdvdcss] using this scheme may violate the DMCA since it can be used to circumvent that protection.
Thus nocodec' versions of the Mint iso images used to be offered.
I realize you are just being an honest man here, which is noble. but I am pretty sure you have nothing to worry about with “playing” DVDs and audio CDs. Many times these statements are just disclaimers to cover their own rears in case of some sort of liability suit against themselves.
This restriction would be like saying that only certain brand radios, CD players, or DVD players are allowed to be used to play these mediums. They are just insulating themselves from the end user with these statements. I think the only thing you might have to be careful with is routing around the international “zone” protections on DVD’s, or if you copy and share anything and this can be proved or actually enforced.
Even then I have never heard of this actually being enforced. it is more of just a mental deterrent. It would be grasping at straws and a lost cause to try and keep you from using any tools you want to just “play” these mediums. :)