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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."
DivX is great, but the compression in software speed is incredibly slow.
Now that it is 'legit' I'm sure it'll withstand all the lawyers the RIAA will send at it, including the incorporation of a watermark, copyright tags, limited distribution counter...
It should be interesting to watch the development as it progresses- it truly is an outstanding codec... but with all the lawyers watching for a slipup, it might just not make it.
We should just ban everything that might possibly in some inconciveable way be used for anything even remotely illegal.
Naturlly the content provider's should be the ones to tell us what those things might be.
guvf vf zl fvt
...if they can get rid of the pirate hacker stigma, kind of like what MP3 has to overcome. I think that a big step would be to change the name. 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 believe it's DivX ;-)
Perhaps sniffing around for profitable oppourtunities with the MPAA et all has worn that nose clean off?
air and light and time and space
Observes Microsoft's Aldridge: "Trying to market yourself as the MP3 of video is not going to endear you to content owners."
In other words: Microsoft is your true solution for legitimate video and audio codecs. If you any other codec, then we'll assume you're a pirate, because why would you need another codec when you have DRM/XP/Passport enabled technologies?
Because anything not blessed off by the RIAA/MPAA is automatically copyright infringement. I honestly think this is what they think....
The arrogance of these people is really sickening.
For example, consumers can now rent the 1995 film "World and Time Enough" for $4.95 directly from Strand Releasing's Web site for five days, after which the file will become inaccessible.
kind of ironic, when that's exactly what the original DIVX did
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
-
ping -f 255.255.255.255 # if only
DivX is not legit. It uses patented technology, which needs per-copy license fees which haven't been paid by anyone. The MPEG-4 standard is full of patented methods (which is what DivX ;-) and OpenDivX is based on). Besides, DivX ;-) used copyrighted code, which further makes it illegal. I don't know how far Project Mayo got with replacing all of Microsoft and MoMuSys's code with their own. There're lots of posts on their forums with people questioning how the heck they started off with the copyrighted code.
Banu
If Microsoft analyses the DivX product looking for IP violations... would they not have violated the DMCA?
slashdot shenanigans
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.
.
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"
Try http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-202-7093278.html for a fast-loading, flash-free version of the article.
Withdrawal before climax is very ineffective and those who try this are usually called "parents."
"The DivX technology lineage is based on using Microsoft technology and re-branding it as its own," said Michael Aldridge, Microsoft's product manager for the Windows Digital Media Division.
Translation: All of your codec are belong to us.
*** Where are we going? And what's with this handbasket?
*gets out the equine cadaver bat*
It absolutely amazes me that we keep going back to blaming a format for piracy problems. It's simply foolish, really. By the laws of Internet probability, someone will come up with a compression scheme to transmit data. That scheme will naturally contain little if any copy protection scheme, because why copy protect something you want to disseminate?
The only way to truly win that war is to create a format that works better and includes a level of copy protection that is both secure and doesn't impeded normal operation. Unfortunately, this seems to be a holy grail that companies aren't able to reach yet. Encrypted CDs aren't the answer, because they don't work on PCs or some players. Neither are proprietary forms of encoding, because no one wants to spend $400 on a special player to play one lousy movie or CD.
Wish there was an easy answer to this issue, but as long as there is data, there'll always be a way to compress and send it.
Electronic Frontier Foundation for online civil rights information
...It is nice to know that someone besides a politician can speak out of both sides of their mouth.
I agree, but you got the wrong orifice.
"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."
Bullshit.
This is not about piracy. This is about the content providers using "piracy" as a means to justify threatening and bullying an uninformed public into letting them help themselves to a bigger slice of the pie. They want a system where you pay to see the movie in the theater, you pay to aquire the DVD, you pay if you move to another region because you need to purchase another player to watch movies for sale in that region, you pay for the privledge of watching it on your PC. You pay...and pay...and pay... Hell, they'd probably like us to pay royalties on the memories we have in our heads!
You're using her as bait, Master!
You've got an unauthorized copy of that last movie that you're carrying around with you all the time.
Let me get the ECT rig out and we'll fix that little bit of "piracy" right away- won't hurt...much...and you'll not forget too much of the other stuff.
Strictly speaking, if I give you a copy of "intellectual" property, the potential for profit might have been taken from the owner, but unlike physical property, I've really taken nothing from the owner. The owner can sell the "property" to the next person. Try that with something like fresh fruit. NO, "intellectual" property is nothing more than a legal fiction, like several others, that appear to have at least partially outlived their usefulness as they're not being used in the manners that they were intended.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
In the same sense of "criminals" such as...
John Hancock
Button Gwinnett
Lyman Hall
Geo. Walton
Wm. Hooper
Joseph Hewes
John Penn
Edward Rutledge
Thos. Heyward, Junr.
Thomas Lynch, Junr.
Arthur Middleton
Samuel Chase
Wm. Paca
Thos. Stone
Charles Carroll of Carrollton
George Wythe
Richard Henry Lee
Th. Jefferson
Benja. Harrison
Thos. Nelson, Jr.
Francis Lightfoot Lee
Carter Braxton
Robt. Morris
Benjamin Rush
Benja. Franklin
John Morton
Geo. Clymer
Jas. Smith
Geo. Taylor
James Wilson
Geo. Ross
Caesar Rodney
Geo. Read
Tho. Mckean
Wm. Floyd
Phil. Livingston
Frans. Lewis
Lewis Morris
Richd. Stockton
Jno. Witherspoon
Fras. Hopkinson
John Hart
Abra. Clark
Josiah Bartlett
Wm. Whipple
Saml. Adams
John Adams
Robt. Treat Paine
Elbridge Gerry
Step. Hopkins
William Ellery
Roger Sherman
Samuel Huntington
Wm. Williams
Oliver Wolcott
Matthew Thornton
Those with a keen sense of history will note that these names are the ones that match the signatures on the Declaration of Independance.
That's right. They were "criminals" by the very act that declared our sovereignty from England.
Sometimes laws and rule are dead wrong on so many counts that it is the people's responsibility to remind those that govern that they are as such.
Just because it's a "law" doesn't make it right or that it should even be allowed.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
Whoever thought it was a good idea to name a piece of software with a smiley should be strapped to a chair and forced to watch sitcoms for the rest of their life.
DivX as it stands has poor playback on Macs and at best decent playback on x86 Linux (people using Suns or LinuxPPC machines still have to wait). But there is a much better option, it's called VP3.2 and it was released last Friday (Sep 7) under a modified Mozilla Public License 1.1. Yes folks you read correctly, there is a decent video compression codec that is open source. Quicktime 5, Real Player and Windows Media Player can already read the movie files with the codec installed, and a Linux port is on the way. This codec beats the snot out of DivX in the streaming arena. Playback quality is good, and will get better with more work. Get it at:
http://www.vp3.com
That's right. They were "criminals" by the very act that declared our sovereignty from England.
They knew it, too. Every man who signed that paper, every member the governments who sent them there, and every last soldier and camp follower of the armies that fought for them, were ALL guily of treason to the English Crown.
If they had failed, they would have died for it--which means that what they fought to achieve was worth dying for.
Sometimes laws and rule are dead wrong on so many counts that it is the people's responsibility to remind those that govern that they are as such.
Correct. It is your right and duty to petiton the government for a redress of your greviances, and your option to break through civil disobedience what laws are passed who's punnishment is so grossly overdone that your action would still the hearts of righteous men (and women.)
But don't go forgetting that Ghandi, Washington, and King were all willing, and for a great portion did, suffer the legal consequences of their moral actions.
If you break the DMCCA or this SSSCA, you should be willing to risk suffering the consequences of breaking the laws. If you aren't, then you're not someone with moral high ground--you're just a punk who wants stuff for free.
Just because it's a "law" doesn't make it right or that it should even be allowed.
Not a laws are ethically or religiously correct. A lot of them aren't, even if most of them are. This is done to accomidate the various ethics and religons that rise and fall apart from a government; it's the flip side of the seperation of church and state.
As for "being allowed." We the people elected the lawmakers--every last person with a legal choice for go/no go for any law ever passed--and letting them make laws that conform or contradict our ethics is simply letting them do their jobs.
We should make it clear that we do not think they are doing their jobs correctly when they do things like this--but that doesn't mean that we shouldn't let them do their jobs.
The original story should have said that there are two technologies called DIVX. The first is dead. The people who made the video compression software decided to re-use the name, thereby causing continual confusion.
It is difficult to find a group of people less skilfull in marketing than programmers, I think.
Bush's education improvements were
But don't go forgetting that Ghandi, Washington, and King were all willing, and for a great portion did, suffer the legal consequences of their moral actions.
I don't know where you read about the history of the "Revolutionary Sit-In", but in my history books George Washington led a whole lot of men with guns attempting to kill anyone who tried to enforce those legal consequences.
Just a little perspective, before you get too harsh on those people who are still merely trying to avoid getting caught breaking unconstitutional laws.
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".