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Dolby Tells NetBSD Project: Don't Decode AC3
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.
Oddly, I don't see many Swedes or Finns , good socialists they are, lining up at our borders or dying to get into our country. Perhaps socialism isn't as evil as it's made out to be, or capitalism as good as it's made out to be?
Exactly. The Finnish and Swedish systems are largely based on socialism, and I feel that that's a good thing. It creates equality between the rich and the poor.
In my opinion, Communism is an ideal system, but unfortunately it just doesn't work with humans - too many temptations and corruption. That's why I'm not suggesting Communism as a governmental system, but think of the idea behind it - everybody does the same amount of work and gets the same amount of reward. (disclamer: I am not a communist, however I try to think about all ideologies objectively.)
I consider Socialism as a "milder form" of communism, and it has many benefits, but of course also negative sides. Taxes are high, and consequently also prices are high. That's one thing that is often complained about Finland. But have you every tried being sick in Finland? Medical care is extremely cheap, given to all citizens by the goverment.
In the US as I understand it, you have to pay for everything yourself or by an insurance. Those who can't afford an insurance are in a very bad situation.
(OK, nowadays after the recession a lot of cuts have been made in Finland, and many have turned to the private sector for medical care. Many complain that not enough funding is given to health care, but still you can get it. I, for instance, don't remember ever using a private hospital in Finland - and I'm not from a very poor family.
Remember, too, that our beloved Linus is from Finland, and though he lives in the US, AFAIK he has no intensions on applying for US citizenship.
I doubt, therefore I may be.
linking should be the same legally is telling someone where to find some information. That should never be illegal.
If it is, then we need to lobby the governemnts to make it explicitly protected as free speech.
I wonder what dodo there in Legal didn't realize that NetBSD's business plan is to "build the best and most portable (ported?) free UNIX-like OS and give it away free with complete source code with no restrictions for commercial use or extension".
I wonder what licensing terms they have that are amenable to those goals?
...but just because you want something for free doesn't mean you have the right to it. Guess what? The United States has patent laws. Guess what? That means you can't violate someone's algorithms. Is this Dolby's fault, for wanting to protect their property as the law says they have the right to do? Or should you be running for government so you can change the policy instead?
Those who don't remember Napster and doomed to repeat it...
As a Finn I often find the US conception of socialism more than slightly odd.
Addmittedly we don't have a Thatcher-Reagan economy and our right-wing parties start to the left of the Democrats. Still socialism is not the right term if you ask me. Such terms as the welfare state or social democracy are more suited.
We do have extensive social security, public education and public health services. Trade unions are also major political organizations instead of mob gangs. This still doesn't mean that the workers control the means of production as our friend Karl Marx put it.
Only a few things like trains and the state alcohol resale monopoly (still exists!) are still mostly or completely owned by the government. Except for the national broadcasting company nearly everything is on the privatization list.
We do have more governmental control in many areas (radio licensing, .fi domans, etc.), but our economy is still a market one. I have no great craving for total economic liberalism as Adam Smiths invisible hand theory has been disproved over and over again.
I've been waiting for forever for a good test lawsuit like this-- someone being threatened for linking to something which may be of dubious legality, but doesn't have the OOH COPYRIGHT PIRATE 2600 HACKER!! connotations that DeCSS did.
We need a firm legal precedent to be set showing that hyperlinks are always free speech, even if they link illegal content.. hopefully BSD and the EFF will give us that.
Timothy phrased his comments such, that it sounds like the content creator is trying to limit playback on FreeBSD, which is completely wrong. This simply is a developer exercising their right to control how their code is used.
That's incorrect. The letter did not say anything about illegally used code. It seems that Dolby is trying to limit the use of an independently developed program (written using the ac3 spec), based on a vague claim of IP rights. AFAICT, the letter doesn't give any specifics as to what ac3dec is violating... no specific patents or trademarks seem mentioned. And iirc, ac3 is a standard, and Dolby Digital is the trademark....
for instance i got this a few months ago because my program ripped live365.com streams.
The Digital Millennium Copyright Act ("DMCA") prohibits the circumvention of "a technological protection measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title." 17 U.S.C. * 1201(a)(1)(A). As previously noted, Live365.com has designed its web site and related software to ensure that the streaming music it provides on its Internet radio stations complies with the provisions pertaining to the statutory license to publicly perform sound recordings under the Copyright Act. In so doing, Live365.com has taken precautions to preclude users from recording or storing transmissions of its Internet broadcasts. The player software designed to be used with Live365.com does not permit recording and, in fact, is designed to prevent it.
In contravention of this precaution, you have created software which enables users to store these broadcasts. This has circumvented a "technological measure" which "effectively controls access" to copyrighted works. See RealNetworks, Inc. v. Streambox, Inc., No. C99-2070P, 2000 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 1889, at *18-19 (W.D. Wash. Jan. 18, 2000). Such manipulation of Live365's protective measures constitutes a violation of the provisions of the DMCA.
Ya, it's a load of bullshit, but unless you can afford to defend it you SoL.
-Jon
this is my sig.
- Mycroft
Dolby has lots of patents that mention AC-3. Here's one of them:
P TO 2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=/netahtml/search- bool.html&r= 1&f=G&l=50&co1=AND&d=pall&s1=d olby.ASNM.&s2=ac-3&O S=AN/dolby+AND+ac-3&RS=AN/dolby+AND+ac-3
http://164.195.100.11/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=
At least, the USPTO search said it mentioned AC-3...
Anyway, see figure 9 in that (the pseudocode). Not only is it dead obvious, it *doesn't work* in some cases. Consider chunks of len = 2, and the forbidden pattern 01, with replacement pattern 10:
Now, encode this: 01.
You get: 101. Which contains 01.
OK, so you're not allowed to pick 10 as your replacement... so what is allowed? 11? OK, encode this:
1101
You get:
111101
Contains: 01
Sure, that's not what they mean... But my point remains: this patent isn't worth the electrons it's printed on.
Become a FSF associate member before the low #s are used
In other words: validity of patents is not dependent on their enforcement. You can be as selective as you want. Trademarks, however, are invalidated by lack of enforcement..
You're right about the DMCA part. This is not about circumventing copyright protection devices.
In my view it has much more in common with Rambus. Dolby has been pushing their solution as a "standard" sic!. They are trying to push all content providers towards their solution. This means you can buy a copy of a movie with dolby, and you have to pay dolby licence money to get access to that copy. In that sense, they're playing the same game as RIAA.
They are also playing the same game as rambus.
Dolby is making a bunch by getting a slice of the cake both for the encoding and decoding. We shold only have to pay at one of the ends. Content providers should pay dolby tax, and content consumers should get to decode for free, since they've already paid the tax indirectly through the content provider.
Legally everything Dolby did is just fine, but I don't have to like it.
-- Another senseless waste of fine bytes.
The New York DeCSS case governs linking to websites that provide access to the allegedly anticircumventing software.
And there was a case last year out of a Utah District Court involving the Mormon Church, and holding that links to copyrighted subject matter constituted a form of copyright infringement.