Bug#549607: azureus: Azureus implements DRM in the form of the private flag

[Christopher Wellons]

Package: azureus
Version: 4.2.0.8-2
Severity: normal


Azureus obeys the unofficial "private flag" in torrent files, which
intentionally disables decentralized features in the client against the
user's will. Like the broadcast flag, this is a form of DRM and is against
the spirit of freedom that Debian is all about. Note that is it not possible
to remove or disable the flag in the torrent file itself as it will change
the info_hash.

Just as was done with PDF readers that obeyed copy-prevention flags (i.e.
xpdf) this defect should be disabled in the packages that Debian
distributes.

Ideally the flag would simply be ignored, but if a compromise is needed
torrents with the private flag set could have decentralized features
disabled by default, but still allow the user to enable them if desired.
This would respect the user's freedom while allowing the torrent file
distributer to express their wishes.

-- System Information:
Debian Release: squeeze/sid
  APT prefers unstable
  APT policy: (990, 'unstable'), (500, 'stable')
Architecture: i386 (i686)

Kernel: Linux 2.6.30-1-686 (SMP w/2 CPU cores)
Locale: LANG=en_US, LC_CTYPE=en_US (charmap=ISO-8859-1)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/bash

Versions of packages azureus depends on:
ii  java-wrappers               0.1.15       wrappers for java executables
ii  libcommons-cli-java         1.2-2        API for working with the command l
ii  liblog4j1.2-java            1.2.15-7     Logging library for java
ii  libswt-gtk-3.4-java         3.4.2-3      Standard Widget Toolkit for GTK+ J
ii  openjdk-6-jre               6b16-1.6.1-1 OpenJDK Java runtime, using Hotspo

Versions of packages azureus recommends:
pn  vuze                          <none>     (no description available)

azureus suggests no packages.

-- no debconf information