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DivX;) Goes Legit
ZooB writes: "There is an article running on CNET right now about DivX and how,(and I'm sure this comes as no surprise to anyone reading this here), such a technology used so frequently for piracy can be used in a legitimate manner. The article is interesting enough, but take careful note of the comment by an MPAA representative. "We are aware of DivX and similar technologies, but it's not the technology that's the issue, it's how it is applied," said a spokesman for the Motion Picture Association of America, who declined to comment specifically on DivXNetworks. "Our concern is with technology that is marketed, promoted and used as a tool for piracy." His first sentence seems to fly in the face of the DMCA as the law is currently written and then, perhaps realizing what he has just said, the spokesman back pedals and contradicts his previous statement! It is nice to know that someone besides a politician can speak out of both sides of their mouth."
Go after the small fry, sue the hell out of him, then taken their technology. Notice how mp3 companies are now now servants of the RIAA?
Sue MS? How can they? THey provide the OS? Go after apple or realnetworks? Can't either. Big mmedia companies who use their technologies. What does DiVX
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ping -f 255.255.255.255 # if only
Considering the Security Systems Standards and Certification Act (SSSCA) is the next step for DMCA and, likely, endorsed by MPAA it seems the /. community should do what it can to stop SSSCA in its tracks now.
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From Wired magazine: "The SSSCA and existing law work hand in hand to steer the market toward using only computer systems where copy protection is enabled. First, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act created the legal framework that punished people who bypassed copy protection -- and now, the SSSCA is intended to compel Americans to buy only systems with copy protection on by default."
If you have a minute and oppose SSSCA, please sign the petition opposing this drafted legislation at:
http://www.petitiononline.com/SSSCA/petition.html
"There ought to be limits to freedom"
Without a force to counter the natural greed of big business they will milk anything, and everything, to the last drop. Control the actors and directors, control the content, control the distribution, control the branding. Maximise the return on investiment, minimise the risk. Piracy provides a countering force, and DivX;) is the latest tool to effect that force.
Once government might have fulfiled that limitation role, might have kept big business in check, but no longer. Do you think they pay attention to what the public say? Providing they won't talk with their feet (and they won't), then the movie companies know they can ignore the protests - just mouth reassurances.
Now when the movie studios want to increase prices, there is a counter. When they want to limit distribution to the timing they like, there is a counter. When they want to only distribute their choices, there is a counter.
Piracy is the only effective weapon to really be noticed by big business. Say thank you.
When I hear DivX, I think of two things, actually. A pirate video format, and a failed marketing
experiment by the fine folks at Circus City.
I've always been annoyed with the name. Why go out of your way to choose a name that matches an existing (crappy) video standard. Not only is the name the same, but I've run into enough conversations where there is at least some ambiguity.
Seriously, I hope the people that came up with that name are forever getting pissed off by people mistaking their work for the failed Circuit City format. It'll teach them a lesson to pick names more carefully in the future.
Then again, they may rename it to something worse, like DeeVeeDee. :)
Even more surprising is the number of people I've talked to that don't even know that there was a previous video format called DIVX. Is the collective memory of the internet community that bad?
When I first saw the article, I thought the discussion would include the (lack of) "openness" of the codec.
I think it did not make many noise, but they have closed the codec, and halted the open version. Proof?
their post on their forum!
Well, let's realize this. The used idealist open source hackers to make their closed source codec and also money. Their license was less acceptable even than the darwin license!
What did they do? They make a "reference" implementation open. It contained all the features needed for MPEG4 except any optimizations. But then they did learn how to make a codec, they made another indoor version (which we do not know to contain code from open version). And they made it "faster" and "more reliable".