According to BBC and Forbes the EU has finally rejected the bill against software patents. I hope this will let me freely use mplayer and amsn.

Apparently: ...More than 1,700 Europe-wide companies, represented by the Free Information Infrastructure UK (FFII-UK), joined the plea for the European Union to reject any law which patents software...

Wished I was there :P.

Another link I thought you might be interested in is the Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure

Happy Reading, Cheers