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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.
This is obviously a hoax. A lawyer would never have written the following sentence:
"considers the unauthorized use and distribution of the AC-3 technologies a direct threat and will pursue their legal right to extent permissible by law"
Multiple grammar errors and ambiguous reference in the same sentence? This letter was obviously penned by CmdrTaco.
You don't fool me!
So I guess Dolby will politely ask JVC to recall my DVD player and pull the AC3 decoder out of it since the ability to decode AC3 streams exists in there? Who knows, I might reverse engineer the whole thing!!!
Thank you. I'm glad someone understands.
The OpenSource rhetoric goes something like this: There is something that someone else spent years and millions of $$$s creating it. Why shouldn't we have it for free.
Ok, so they argue, we ONLY want it to decode the data. Well if that is possible, then the geeks will be screaming that now we want to ENCODE as well. If ya'll can do it for free, what does Dolby have to offer anyone?
clif
moderators: mod this parent down. GOTO the link, it's a blatant lie.
Moon Macrosystems. Sun's biggest competitor.
I bet /. would be up in arms, if MS could be proven to use open source code in one of their products in violation of the license.
.gifs, and Frauenhofer has the god-given right to prevent you from encoding/decoding MP3s. It maybe LEGALLY fine, but in my eyes morally bankrupt.
Yes, but only because MS would resell your code, copyright it as their own, prevent EVERYBODY else from using your code in their projects, and then reap the profits. Even if your fictional "Open Source" code is BSD and not GPL, this is wrong (and illegal).
Dolby is being held to a different standard because there IS a different standard. And when you say stuff like "It is entirely their perogative, [sic] to control who can use it", you are assuming the reader agrees that this is a fundamental right. Many of us happen to think government enforced monopolies are bad, no matter what.
And even if you ARE a DMCA moderate who thinks the "circumvention" clause is hunky dory, since when is AC3 a copy control device?
I am assuming you think UNISYS has the god-given right to prevent you from viewing