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Dolby Tells NetBSD Project: Don't Decode AC3

Posted by timothy on from the snappy-letterhead dept.

Mycroft writes: "There's a new entrant into the open source DVD legal battle: Dolby Laboratories. The NetBSD Project received this letter demanding that links to the open source ac3dec package be removed. What's next?" Probably what's next are yet more letters sent to every other project which enables decoding of content on platforms unsupported by the format licensors. Remember, you don't buy anything anymore -- you license it.

5 of 499 comments (clear)

  1. This is why licensing should stop. by nougatmachine · · Score: 5, Informative
    Pretend for a minute that in the future, almost everything will be licensed (your car, your computer, whatever). If I do something that displeases my employer, maybe make some disparaging remarks about them online or something and it gets traced back to me, could they pressure other companies to revoke my licenses, effectively taking everything back from me? Yes, this is paranoia, but the fact is that if I can't own things, they can be taken away.

    I once angrily spouted out at a family gathering, "I hate capitalism, but I still want to own my own stuff!" What I didn't realize then is that I actually hated our current system, which technically isn't pure capitalism, or rather, doesn't capture capitalism's ideal of everyone fighting fairly and letting the markets take a logical course of action. Silly me, I used to think logic drove us humans. But what's the alternative? Socialism? Eww.

  2. Wow. by 11223 · · Score: 5, Informative
    I didn't realize exactly what this was (the site linked is mega-slashdotted), but a quick google search turned up the following:

    • It's part of the Linux Video project, which describes it as "completely useless to 99.99 percent of users out there. It is mostly of use to those interested in audio coding research and evaluating codecs."
    • There's an XMMS plugin for it.
    • It's also part of the ALSA project, which chances are provides your sound drivers if you're using one of several popular Linux distributions.
    • RPMFind also has RPMS for it (try rpmfind ac3dec!)

    Before someone accuses me of being a karma whore - I'm already over the cap and sinking towards 50 fast!

  3. Patents at work by tbo · · Score: 5, Informative

    Ok, the letter from Dolby was none to clear about what the actual problem was, but I suspect it's a patent infringement, not copyright. As such, it has little or nothing to do with the DMCA.

    Put plainly, if you develop an encoding/decoding standard, and intelligently patent key parts of that standard, you own it. Doesn't matter if anybody reverse-engineers it in a clean room. You still own it until the patent expires.

    The only ways around the patent are to find a completely different way of decoding/encoding the data (very unlikely, if the patent attorney did his job), or doing everything in a country in which the invention is not patented, does not have extradition treaties (etc) with the US, and is not part of whatever the hell that international convention on IP is called. Such countries generally aren't good places to live or work, for other reasons.

    Is Dolby in the wrong? I'd have to see the details of the patent to say. It may be genuine innovation, or it may be more along the lines of the Amazon one-click patent.

  4. Re:Cleanroom? by joto · · Score: 5, Informative
    Doesn't matter at all. If Dolby has patented it, there is nothing you can do. A cleanroom implementation is used to avoid problems with copyright, not patents.

    Unfortunately, I don't know much about either what AC3 is all about, or what the patents claim, but a quick patent search on delphion showed two patents related to it.

    1. Recording medium, recording apparatus and recording method for recording data into recording medium, and reproducing apparatus and reproducing method for reproducing data from recording medium
    2. Apparatus and method for reproducing data from recording medium containing data units

    So I don't think a cleanroom implementation would help at all. But there could be a way to work around the patents...

  5. Dolby Labs is right by elandal · · Score: 5, Informative

    Going against the general Slashdot hivemind, I agree with Dolby in this. AC-3 (Dolby Digital) is patented technology, actually has required research and is very good, effective and inventive .

    White papers are available from Dolby's website, and the technology is free for all to look at, with some exceptions (uses some noise reduction methods not described in the freely available white papers).
    And, if Dolby wants, they can charge license fees. However, I wouldn't be surprised if they'd grant the LinuxTV team a free license with restrictions. Dolby labs isn't evil, but they're a business and mostly IPR company that licenses technology for manufacturers of consumer electronics. They have their own professional devices, though. So the license might have eg. restrictions about using the technology in an embedded system (eg. Nokia MediaTerminal, but Nokia can afford the license if they want to).

    Also, from my discussion with Dolby Labs at one time when I was considering writing Pro Logic & Pro Logic II codec I would say that they are friendly. They required that they get the code for review before I'm allowed to say that it is Dolby anything compatible, but assured me that if it's free, open source software, they wouldn't charge licensing fees.