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Broadcast 2000 Removed From Public Access
VRteach writes: "I see that the developers of the fine multimedia software, Broadcast 2000, have removed their main product from public access. Their web site cites a worry of potential liability." The site says that "the distribution of Broadcast 2000 enhanced to unacceptable levels the risk of an individual experiencing significant financial damage due to the extremely expensive nature of high end video production and the high risk inherent in professional video business marketing." It also says they plan to keep issuing "minor works" for now, and as liability issues are resolved to again release major programs.
Where is the liability in writing free software that just happens to do what the ultra expensive video equipment and services does?
Competition and underdogs come from tyrannical control of a market. What are the cost breaks across this market, and where do the huge expenses add up from?
- billn
I think he was just upset because the program works great with itself, but it almost totally incompatible with everything else on the planet.
The program was a neat concept, but I was unable to get it working once over the past few years of playing with it. I have 100% compatible hardware for capture.
Liability, why does avery lee still distribute one of the most popular video edditing programs under GLP still then? http://www.virtualdub.org/
I don't understand, and I'm personally very skeptical of this excuse to stop development and pull the program.
how is is that Microsoft's shrinkwrap waivers of ANY liability hold water compared to equally strong-worded waivers for open source software? why isn't Microsoft getting dragged into this compensation frenzy when their products, arguably, lose/damage more data than any other single entity (outside of the government).
This is one of the least understandable stories I have seen on here. I guess it is up to us to speculate what the hell that article means. There is definitely something we aren't being told here. To say they are remvoving the software because it is an expensive industry to be in (for their customers) does not make a lot of sense.
As near as I can tell it boils down to this: They fear being sued by a customer that lost a lot of money because of their software. Sounds like a smoke screen to me.
Do not taunt Happy Fun Ball(TM)
Am I mistaken, or wasn't Broadcast 2000 GPL'ed? If so, why all the hubabaloo? So he doesn't want to do development anymore, I don't blame him. But anyone who is interested can always pick up where he left off.
It sounds more like "this software could be used for a mission-critical operation, and if our software breaks, someone might sue us." They have the standard "no warranties" disclaimer, but they're saying that such a warning doesn't seem to carry much weight in today's lawyer-happy society.
"the distribution of Broadcast 2000 enhanced to unacceptable levels the risk of an individual experiencing significant financial damage due to the extremely expensive nature of high end video production and the high risk inherent in professional video business marketing"
Can someone dumb this down a little for me please.
Basically they are saying that by distributing Broadcast 2000, there was an increased amount of risk for someone to do something stupid and mess up their expensive equipment (and sue the software company for their own mistake). It's pure logic...the more people using something, the more likely someone is to do something stupid.
This is the number one rule of computing at its best: CYA, no one else will.
Celebrate Steak and a Blowjob Day!
"the distribution of Broadcast 2000 enhanced to unacceptable levels the risk of an individual experiencing significant financial damage due to the extremely expensive nature of high end video production and the high risk inherent in professional video business marketing."
This means: "We have fewer lawers than Avid, Adobe, and Macromedia. In the current business climate, the company with the largest number of lawers wins, no matter what the law says. We are closing the project because we would like to have enough money to eat net week."
gov't of the corp., by the corp., and for the corp.
"Yes.. no matter what the culture, folk dancing is stupid." -MST3K
Generally, the warranty provisions with which a software maker must be concerned are these three:
Generally, the 2 implied warranties can be disclaimed by reciting the magic disclaimer words. (NOTE: I AM a lawyer and this is NOT legal advice to ANYONE - thus I am not reprinting the magic words here so no one can rely on any supposed "advice" they may claim I am giving.)
What I suspect is happening here (and this is close to pure conjecture) is that the company is spooked by recent lawsuits (i.e. - Napster, DeCSS, Felton, et al.) and decided that it would take the safe route rather than be accused of providing a tool to infringe copyrights in authored works.
Of course this is my opinion alone and is based on current events in the legal world combined with the statements on the Broadcast 2000 website. I may be completely wrong about this. Only the people at Broadcast 2000 can say for sure.
Laws affecting technology will always be bad until enough techies become lawyers.
And where's the other players in all this? Between the Video Toaster and Personal Animation Recorder this kind of stuff was done ten years ago on Amiga. Not to mention (as already was) the Mac-based Avid. another poster mentioned the similarity between B2K and an Adobe product: why would they be afraid of Adobe? If anything, Adobe is a relative newcomer to the field, not an innovator.
There's got to be better reasons.
It looka like Tucows still has it.
Warning! Keep Out of Eyes! Wash Out with Water! Don't Drink Soap! Dilute! Dilute!
http://rpmfind.net//linux/RPM/sourceforge/heroines /bcast-2000b_va-1.i386.html
It's not a d/l mirror, but my SuSE 7.2 Pro CD's have it. So I guess that won't go away anytime soon.
Those who would give up liberty in exchange for security and DRM should switch to Microsoft Palladium!
It's similar to someone refusing to post any more legal opinions on Slashdot because they don't think IANAL will protect them if someone actually takes their legal advice, and loses money/realizes damages because of it.
This is bad news, if it's an accurate assesment because one of the key benefits of the GPL is a release from liability. If you just put something in the public domain then someone can still sue you if using it damages them, but if they use it under the terms of the GPL there's no explicit or implied warranty. So, let's just hope these guys are wrong!
It's beyond me how essentially what is the exercise of free speech can incur a liability of warranty, especially with explicit notices disclaiming all liability for any and all damage and/or loss incurred through the use of the software.
Of course, getting in trouble with commercial organizations because you are encroaching on their "intellectual property rights" seems to be a near daily event these days, but warranty liabilities?
Will scientists be sued next for disclosing scientific principles, algorithms and processes for breach of warranty if some experiment backfires? I must conclude that the precident of suing people for releasing their source code into the public domain could have a chilling effect on the open source community, perhaps starting with HeroineWarrior.com.
Closing down B2000 represents a significant blow to the Linux-based Video Editing segment. As I recall, commercial organizations were bundling B2000 in a turnkey video editing hardware solution. I guess they'll be looking for alternatives, none of which are as mature or advanced as B2000.
IANAL, but IMHO free (speech) software should be handled rather like free advice. Take it for what it's worth.
My car gets 40 rods to the hogshead, and that's the way I likes it!
Hmmm code fork?
Yeah... why not? The GPL saves the right for *anyone* to fork the code. There is always a more fearless group out there willing to take up controversial code.
So if someone still has the tarball...
It's time for Broad-Kast XP!
"Yes.. no matter what the culture, folk dancing is stupid." -MST3K
We need to fight this battle, here and now, and hopefully, this copyright issue thing is just a pendulum, and it will slowly start to swing the other way. My opinion is that it has to. The media companies have pushed copyright about as far as it can go. I think the way the current legal climate is now, the VCR and the photocopier would never have been produced at all.
What we need is to quit passing laws that protect a business model. There is no inherent right to profit.
-------------------------------------------------
And it will cost them money whether they win or lose.
Anyone can sue anyone else for anything at any time. All that's needed is a lawyer who will take the case on contingency. Then it doesn't matter whether the suit has any merit at all, because the defendant will still be out the cost of a lawyer just to get the suit thrown out, and the plaintiff has zero risk in many cases. (Fortunately, some states have frivolous lawsuit laws that provide some protection from totally bogus suits)
I think I'll sue them now. I've always wanted to make an expensive video production, and they've taken away my ability to do that - along with all of the money I would have made from the project.
Of course IANAL but IAMANAL
You never really know how close to the edge you can go until you fall off.
It sounds more like "this software could be used for a mission-critical operation, and if our software breaks, someone might sue us." They have the standard "no warranties" disclaimer, but they're saying that such a warning doesn't seem to carry much weight in today's lawyer-happy society.
Interesting hypothesis. But, I have to imagine that there are a lot of other free software projects which are at least as vulnerable. Pick any language like Perl or Python for that matter. Besides, it's hard to imagine someone (sane) using Broadcast 2000 in their medical life support system, or web-based passenger jet liner remote piloting system, or nuclear power plant cooling system:) So it's hard for me to swallow that explanation. Even if it were so, would it not be possible for someone like FSF or EFF to help them draft a more iron-clad disclaimer of warranty or fitness for any purpose?
I think it's a lot more likely that they got a stern letter from some lawyers retained by parties with large financial interests that are in imminent danger of loss if continued development of Broadcast 2000 proceeds apace.
Exactly who that might be is another matter, but I'm sure there are some likely candidates.
"Provided by the management for your protection."
They are still distributing Cinelerra (see their sourceforge page, linked from their main site), and it seems to be very much along the same lines as Broadcast. If they were so worried, why keep distributing Cinelerra?
d =9 4322&forum_id=42723
Here:
http://sourceforge.net/forum/forum.php?thread_i
they mention makine Cinelerra a commercial program, but the message itself looks like it was either a joke or written by someone high at the time. Cinelerra is GPLed, by the way.
From their docs (manual.ps in the Cinerella distro):
"In mid 2000 designs for a Broadcast 2000 replacement were drafted. The Broadcast name was officially retired from the series and the software would now be called Cinelerra."
We've already seen several organizations win lawsuits against GPL/warranty free
software writers because of damage that software caused to the organization. Several
involved the RIAA vs mp3/p2p software writers. Several involved the MPAA vs media
player authors. You might say that warranty exemption has become quite
meaningless in today's economy.
The first and third sentences appear to deal with liability to someone who used the software and lost time/money/product because of it. But the soecnd sentence sounds much more like copyright/DMCA issues, with RIAA vs. p2p sounding suspiciously like the Naptster suit. What is the deal here anyhow? If it's IP issues, warranty exemption is the wrong way to go. If it's warranty issues, what in the world do MPAA/RIAA/p2p issues have to do with it? When something makes this little sense, there's something fishy going on. These folks aren't saying everything they know.
"that's not encryption - it's a new perl script that I'm working on..." - from some Matrix parody
From the page describing one of their utilities, called FIREHOSE (it stripes network data accross different NICs as a means of increasing bandwidth):
The FIREHOSE package contains a simple library allowing any application wishing to stream data across striped networks to do so with just a few function calls. Also included is a file transfer utility and a pipe utility. Pipe gigabytes of uncompressed video, CD-R images, scientific data, tar archives, and porn all with the greatest of ease.
"We've already seen several organizations win lawsuits against GPL/warranty free software writers because of damage that software caused to the organization."
Does anyone know what they are talking about? They mention some RIAA stuff and mp3 people, but I can't think of a case where people doing ordinary end user stuff went and sued. The RIAA is trying to keep their death grip on their industry, and ditto MPAA. Broadcast 2000 wasn't using DeCSS, to the best of my knowledge, and anyone who uses free software knows (or had better figure out) that they have no right to sue the writers! That's like bringing me your computer, me saying very clearly I'll be happy to try and fix it at no cost but I can't guarantee anything, and then you suing me because I couldn't make it work and you lost too much time while I was trying! At this rate no one will be willing to help anyone do anything ever for fear of being sued! Free software is a gift to the world. If you want to use something where you have the right to sue someone, you'd better find a commercial company and pay them some money. Insurance companies don't give out free insurance - you pay them to assume the risk that you are going to get large sums of money from them in the future. These people seem to be treating free software like free insurance. I doubt the law will accept that. If so, I wouldn't be surprised if the technical people desert this country and move somewhere where people don't try and use generosity as a way to blame people and force them to pay for their generosity with cash. Talk about screwed up...
"I object to doing things that computers can do." -- Olin Shivers, lispers.org
``Would she still like me if I was one of the guys who follow the camels around to pick up after them, or a lawyer, or something?'' - King Xerxes (a zucchini) from the VeggieTales version of Esther
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
For at least a century, these same businesses or their forebears have been funding (one way or another) the development of increasingly business-centric wars. American businesses essentially funded the Bolshevik revolution, and without the prolonged and earnest intervention of some Wall Street big names like Farben, Ford and General Electric, Adolph Hitler's Third Reich wouldn't have got as far as the taxiway.
If world wars are a routine achievement, what hope do you think mere copyright has in comparison?
With a century of momentum and billions of dollars behind them, how are you or I going to stop them?
Our `inalienable rights' may as well be alien rights in the face of such blatant and powerful violations of them.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
I met the the developer, Adam Williams. Met him at NAB last year. He's had a lot of problems developing Broadcast and this article sort of describes it:
2 45 .html
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/archive/19
I met the writer too. A real mean bastard who got me into a lot of trouble.
Adam is a nice guy who needs all the support he can get.
The reason that the developers dropped this project may have been given by a developer from Heroine Virtual at the sourceforge forum link. The problem looks to be one of financing the project:
With this in mind you should realize what is involved in ensuring the software you use doesn't have to be paid for. The only reason you can use any software at all is because the developers are able to pay for it through day jobs which today don't exist. The GPL requires software to be paid for by the developer before it can be released to the public.
#2 Writing large applications is an undesirable hobby for anyone not interested or able to make a career out of software.
What a dilemma. Great goddamned software, and no way to even provide a micropayment for it??? All someone would have to do is threaten to sue these guys to break their bank. I guess I'm being offtopic but I can see why they took their toys and went home.
The Death Penalty: Killing people to show others that killing people is wrong.
I haven't used it lately but when XCDRoast used to be a Tk frontend to gcombust it displayed this really ridiculous disclaimer when executed. I'm paraphrasing but it went something like this:
I understand that this software will probably erase my hard drive, kill my pets, make California sink into the Pacific Ocean and the Earth to crash into the sun.
I think a good approach to any bonehead that would sue a Free/Open project is take the ridiculous disclaimer to the ridiculous extreme:
I understand I got this for free and have no expectation that it is fit for any purpose whatsover.
I understand that terrible things are likely to happen if persist in running this software such as permanent damage to system components and loss of data.
I understand that this sequence of prompts is going to look GREAT in court should I be obtuse enough to sue anybody anyway.
I understand that there is no way in hell that I accidentally agreed to this.
If I sue in spite of all of this, then I agree that contents of this dialog are admission that I'm bringing a frivolous lawsuit.
If I'm still obtuse enough to sue then I agree that I'm too stupid to waste a court's time and am a vexatious litigant.
Any version of this software lacking the click through disclaimers is not the responsibility of this Project. For that matter neither is this one.
There should be no option to disable the disclaimers. That's the price of getting to edit video or otherwise operate a computer for free.