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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.

4 of 499 comments (clear)

  1. linking should be legal by bigpat · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

  2. Bwahahaha! by 11223 · · Score: 5, Interesting
    Dolby just said that they have license plans congruent to their "business plan".

    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?

  3. Thank God. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

  4. Re:I don't understand this by inburito · · Score: 5, Interesting
    I vote for the following addition to slashcode: Whenever the word patent or trademark is mentioned in an article or submission people who haven't already done so should be forced to read a short introduction to the general legalities involved and answer a short quiz before being allowed to view the article.

    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..