It looks like the exemption is pretty narrow: ripping DVDs for the purposes of extracting a short excerpt that meets fair-use criteria, for use in another, larger work of commentary or criticism. Essentially, it's now okay to rip a Disney movie for the purposes of grabbing a clip for use in your video podcast discussing representation of gender in Disney movies or something.
There's more general interoperability language in the DMCA though, so it's possible that if the creator of a Linux DVD player were prosecuted, they'd be acquitted. Falling under one of the Copyright Office's explicit exceptions is safer but I don't believe exhaustive.
There's more general interoperability language in the DMCA though, so it's possible that if the creator of a Linux DVD player were prosecuted, they'd be acquitted. Falling under one of the Copyright Office's explicit exceptions is safer but I don't believe exhaustive.