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Apple Sues Sorenson Over QuickTime Codec
ScooterComputer writes "According to Bloomberg and a bunch of others, Apple is suing Sorenson over their licensing a codec to Macromedia for Flash MX, for 'developing, marketing, or licensing any version of the compression software used in QuickTime to competitors.' For years we have seen finger pointing going on between Apple and Sorenson as to WHY the Sorenson codec can't make it to the Linux platform... and things usually end with Apple saying it is Sorenson's fault. Well, I'd say Apple lied. So, can we all just start putting big pressure on Apple again to release QuickTime for Linux?"
(Reminder to Apple users to visit Slashdot's Apple section for more Apple-related news.)
Obviously, some expert is going to have to sit down for the court and determine if the product for QuickTime and the product for Macromedia really are different. But if they're not, Apple has a totally valid lawsuit. A (legal and reasonable) contract is a contract. Apple agreed to pay $4.5 Million based on getting exclusive use of the (very, very good) software. If someone else can use it, that seriously dilutes its value to Apple, and there's no reason for them to have paid so much for it.
Sorensen pointed at Apple and Apple in turn pointed at Sorensen. From the sound of things both parties are at "fault". The line from Sorensen has always been that their contract with Apple wouldn't allow them to do it, yet when Macromedia comes by they suddenly feel that they provide the CODEC to them. The only difference that I can see is that Macromedia could provide some financial incentive to violate their contract whereas Linux, or any party selling Linux operating systems couldn't.
Chris Kuivenhoven is a thief, beware
One thing has become very clear in the Linux world over the last couple of years since the dot com bubble burst. Open Source/Free Software is here to stay, and half-way proprietary solutions won't be accepted by the wider community.
For example, Macromedia have been supplying a Linux Flash client for years, yet it has failed to validify the Flash format as an open standard. It has become a "necessary evil" for sites that feel the need to look 'interactive', but has had minimal market penetration beyond that.
I don't think that releasing a binary-only QuickTime codec would solve any real problems: Firstly, it wouldn't be distributed with some of the most popular distributions like Debian and Mandrake for philosophical reasons as well as technical reasons -- without source code, there's no way to know that the codec will still work in 2 years or that it'll be made available for new architectures, or that bugs will be promptly fixed. NVidia's proprietary graphics drivers for XFree86 have, for example, backfired in many ways. Far from soliciting support from the community, their consistent failure to release specifications for their hardware has irked and frustrated the wider Linux community (not just the Free Software zealots) to the extent that the Tainting monitor had to be added to the kernel just to track bug reports from users of buggy proprietary kernel modules.
I'd say that the future lies with open video codecs like VP3 from On2 Technologies, who've announced that they'll be working with the community to ensure that their next release is LGPL'd and their patents made available in the public domain. This is the kind of codec that should become the de-facto standard on the Web -- not some binary-only QuickTime Sorenson codec that was withheld for years and released begrudgingly. A few years ago, Linux users were quick to praise and embrace vendors of proprietary software who supported Linux, but now, I think the community is big enough to look at the bigger picture and support open standards like VP3 and Ogg that will ensure a more accessible and independent future for Web content in the future.
Being a new Mac user, I have become increasingly aware that most online media content, wheather streaming or downloadable is now in WM or RM format. This is unfortunate for us OS X users because Windows Media Player is crap and Real Player is non existant (unless using OS 9). You would think anything that would make QuickTime technology more widely distributed would be beneficial to Apple. Apparently they don't really care what happens to QT considering QuickTime 6 is way over due.
I feel dirty for doing it, but I use the crossover plugin to view quicktime movies (as well as windows media crap). In my experience, it has worked extremely well, and the installation is a snap!
python -c "x='python -c %sx=%s; print x%%(chr(34),repr(x),chr(34))%s'; print x%(chr(34),repr(x),chr(34))"
Also, it doesn't answer the question as to why 99.99% of all other desktop software makers (Macromedia being a slightly on-topic example) don't release for Linux, since they have no OS monopoly to protect.
The sad fact is there's no money to be made in the Linux desktop market. Linux user's don't buy desktop apps, they don't buy games... They might buy highend workstation software like 3D modellers, but this has less to do with the "Linux community" than it does with animation houses trying to cut costs by going with a free (as in beer, they could care less about the other supposed benefits) operating system.
For most software, any money a developer spends creating and supporting a Linux version of their software is money that is pissed away, never to be recouped. That's no way to run a business.
That's like saying 100% of the Mercedes market is a monopoly, because nobody else makes Mercedes automobiles except Mercedes.
mark
If you want to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe. -- Carl Sagan
Hm. Last I checked, Quicktime and Flash occupied rather different niches in the "things move on your screen" realm of the world. Quicktime is a movie and, to a lesser extent, audio format. Flash is a vector-graphics animation and interaction product that just happens to have support for raster graphics, sounds, and now movies. Even with movie support in Flash, I wouldn't use it to /play/ movies....
This flies in the face of science.
Actually, Real does.
"Prefiero morir de pie que vivir siempre arrodillado!"
There once was a heckler from Thread #30
Whose comments were usually wordy
You're karma whorin' he cried
With japanese poems he lied
To fight haiku with haiku is just playing dirty
Sheesh. You'd be hard pressed to find more sensationalistic headlines in the Weekly World News.
Anyway, here's what's likely the case: Apple developed Quicktime. Sorenson developed Codec. Apple asked Sorenson if they could include their codec in the next QT release (which would have been 4.0, I believe). And had them sign a little piece of paper. Likewise, Sorenson had their own little pieces of paper for Apple to sign.
The default Sorenson codec in Quicktime Pro compresses like ass- you get small files, but the color shits out. If you want it to NOT shit out, you have to pay Sorenson a chunk of cash for a media key to plug into its little panel in the QT setup controls. Pain in the ass, but it doesn't prevent you from viewing "properly" encoded "pro" files- like the Star Wars trailers.
Since you don't have to pay to play Sorenson files, and you do have to pay to encode them properly... and 99% of the productivity apps that produce video run on MacOS and Windows (re: NOT Linux)... what incentive does Sorenson have to port the codec? The likelihood of securing any form of revenue stream on a Linux port of Quicktime is pretty shitty, at best.
So Sorenson has their own legal BS with Apple, and Apple likely has a different legal BS going on with Sorenson. Probably something along the lines of "exclusive". Which explains why Apple is pissed at them. I can't blame them at all- Macromedia has been even more sluggish about porting to OS X than Adobe has, and the fact that FlashMX includes the ability to run video may be something of an issue of "percieved competition".
With CodeWeaver's CrossOver Plugin, you can run Quicktime 5 and Windows Media Player 6.4 under Linux. Now it isn't free but you can purchase it for $24.95.
Check Out http://www.codeweavers.com/home/
I recently attended a FlashMX presentation from Macromedia and left amazed that Sorenson was bundled within the application itself. Essentially all your website users need is the Flash 6 plug-in to be able to view Sorenson-encoded movies in a Flash file. Only after seeing the lawsuit did I realize how harmful this could be to Apple's QuickTime technology. I hope for Apple's sake that they have a good exclusive contract in place...
My company is looking to use FlashMX's video capabilities *specifically* because then users won't have to download the QuickTime plug-in as well. This attitude could seriously be a detriment to Apple's already-struggling fight against Real and Windows Media Player. Even if the quality is better, this is just another reason to not download their plug-in.
For example, Macromedia have been supplying a Linux Flash client for years, yet it has failed to validify the Flash format as an open standard.
By "Flash format," I assume you mean SWF (not FLA). SWF version 4 has a publicly available specification. (Read More...) Do you consider a format not "valid[...] as an open standard" because it hasn't been submitted to an international standards body?
Will I retire or break 10K?
I always enjoy any QuickTime article on Slashdot because it invariably turns into some big debate on why Apple is deliberately keeping Sorenson from licensing the codec to Linux developers, blah, blah, blah.
First off, Apple claims to have an exclusive license to what are commonly known as the Sorenson and Sorenson 3 codecs. Even if Apple decided to waive their exclusive right to this codec, who in the Linux world could afford the licensing fee that would have to be paid to Sorenson? Mark Podlipec? I doubt he has the (undoubtedly) thousands of dollars the license would cost.
As to the vast market available for a native Linux version of the QT player, that's relatively unimportant to Apple. They make their money on the production tools. So, for a platform to be attractive to Apple, it's one that production houses would be using day to day to produce content.
For now, there is no real content creation platform on Linux (and I'm not talking about digital animation or rendering).
* As is generally the case, my opinions do not reflect those of my employer.
Apple to my knowledge has never bad-mouthed X Windows; in fact the Unix ad you mention shows XDarwin running. And Apple has opened up far more of their source than they are required to. Yes, they're only releasing some of the code they've spent millions of dollars writing, rather than all of it. That hardly makes them the enemy.
How to solve most of our problems: 1.Lots of nuclear plants. 2.Cure aging.
Every time you play a stupid Flash animation ...
... God kills a kitten.
i am a soviet space shuttle
Sorenson Video 3.1 (the current version) gives approximately the same results as the best MPEG1 encoders at around ONE THIRD the data rate. Sorenson Video 3.1 also has a sharper colour subsampling regime, and therefore portrays colour detail better at any given frame size. At higher data rates (say, over 1Mbit/sec) MPEG1 will close the gap somewhat as Sorenson Video's higher CPU load makes high rate files rather difficult to decode. Horses for courses, as ever with video encoding. But, make no mistake, SV 3.1 is an excellent state of the art codec whereas MPEG1 is a decade-plus old trail blazer, and the lingua franca of desktop video.
That was classic intercourse!
In all honesty, video CODECs should be closed source (but I don't think they should be licenced like ht MPEG 4 stuff is going). If you open source a video CODEC, you run the big risk of hundreds of variations on the same format, which can cause muchos confusion.
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
Absolutely.
In my opinion there will NEVER be a 'standard' internet video stream format until there is a free-as-in-speech codec available for all platforms.
Until then, the potential capabilities of streaming internet video will continue to be unrealized.
MS and QT are too closed, and the Real server is way too expensive.
It is not rocket science anymore.
--Jeff++
ipv6 is my vpn
And of course, if you are so worried about it, you can offer to help them.
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
Why downloading a overbloated system that kills CPU usage and hogs down the system (on PC that is) like media player 7 and above does, if you could have it in a tightly optimized and efficient distributed way? I say: go macromedia.
Flash is everywhere, like it or not, and they do a good job at porting the plugin to a lot of platforms (even if it's not EVERYWHERE yet) Like it or not, if you surf the web a lot, you hit flash content, the plugin is small, you don't need a 5MB download and install and useless clugging down just to view one file once in a while.
Most of the people on windows are downloading quicktime to almost exclusively view movies encoded with that sorenson coded, mainly because most of all of the other codecs supplied by apple sucks (exept the dv).
I mean, most of them are about the quality of microsoft AVI RLE encoding (aside from the mjpeg and mpeg and dv and anythign high bandwidth that isn't impressive over the net). I do a lot of video editing, I did codec research and analysis a few years ago, made codec-buster files and evaluated most of them with their strong and weak points, if apple would want quicktime to take off and become useful on something other than a Mac, they would have to bring in big guns. Sorenson is nice but it's not even close to DIVX in quality and performance (try playing a quicktime movie at 1280x960 for example, and feel the jerking and all). Why download a 20megs movie preview if you can fit it in 5 megs with about the same quality? that's an extra 4:1 compression (I'm talking roughly here and not considering the time of encoding and all).
Usually if I want to distribute a movie on PC with the maximum quality at lowest bitrate possible, I think DIVX. If I want to distribute cross-platform, with no hassles, MPEG comes to mind. there are VERY good mpeg encoders and if you know what you are doing and how mpeg works, you can output VERY nice results taking minimal bandwidth and competing directly with realvideo (well for anything above 80x80 like most people like encoding in RV). The BIG problem with mpeg movies, is the people encoding them. They hack a cable signal to their tv tuner and encode without knowing what an I-frame is and where they could cut off or optimize the bandwidth usage. The result? most mpeg movies on the net sucks and gives a bad name to mpeg.
I think most people that have basic video codec knowledge here aren't impressed by sorenson, especially when leeching a 20+ meg movie trailer for the resolution it gives, at these file size we're used to double of that resolution with about the same quality when using PC codecs like mpeg-4 based.
Yeah quicktime 6 will have mpeg-4 I know, good for them, but too late, DIVX got the crown there, plus it's EFFICIENT, I can watch HDTV video on my athlon with that beast.
--- Metamoderating abusive downgraders since my 300th post.
I really doubt it's an active conspiracy on Apple's part - the software business is at best a shaky balancing act: R&D vs. ROI.
The return on porting or allowing Quicktime to be ported to Linux would be nil - there aren't enough Linux users who would be willing to BUY the QT player to make it pan out on the R&D end.
Second, the goodwill generated would be short-term at best, since the most vocal Linux users don't want anything to do with commercial software. It's hard to justify providing a product to someone for free when the loudest barking dogs are barking at you.
Then again, it could be a conspiracy - but Apple is under no obligation to provide ANY tools to Linux users, since that could hurt their own bottom line with OSX.
When it comes down to it, Linux on the desktop has yet to prove that it can generate a long-term sustainable business model, except in a few limited instances. Things are going well on the server side, but the desktop is headed in so many directions, it's impossible to tell who's on top and therefore deserves the largest chunk of development money.
To celebrate the occasion of my 1000th post, I will post no more forever on Slashdot. Goodbye.
Actually, both MPEG-1 and Sorenson Video 3 use Y'CrCb (aka YUV) 4:2:0 color, where there is one color sample for each 2x2 block of pixels.
The older Sorenson Video 1 & 2 used YUV-9, which has one color sample for each 4x4 block of pixels. This isn't nearly enough, and caused quality problems.
My video compression blog
Folks,
For those curious about the details of the technologies in question, here goes. FWIW, I was a beta tester for both codecs, have taught classes with them, and cover them both extensively in my forthcoming book.
Sorenson currently sells two different codecs, Sorenson Video 3.1 Pro, and Spark Pro, both bundled with versions of their Squeeze encoding tool.
Sorenson Video 3.1 Pro is an advanced version of an encoder/decoder built into QuickTime. It's an excellent codec, with good compression efficiency, a B-frame mode that dramatically improves QuickTime streaming, and many other groovy features. All versions of Sorenson Video are QuickTime only.
Sorenson has also had a MPEG-4 codec in beta for forever (I did the first public demo of it back at QuickTime Live 2000). MPEG-4 is a superset of "baseline" H.263 (an older standard codec, designed for video conferencing), and any MPEG-4 decoder is required to also play back baseline H.263. Sorenson's MPEG-4 encoder includes a baseline H.263 encoder as well, so you can use the codec to make files compatible with H.263 decoders as well (like the Java Media Framework).
The Spark codec, which Sorenson licensed to Macromedia, and Spark Pro, the advanced encoder version included in Sorenson's Squeeze for Flash MX encoding tool, are derived from H.263, based on Sorenson's work with the MPEG-4 codec. Spark Pro is enormously better than the plain Spark incoder built into Flash - that one doesn't even let you specify a data rate.
I haven't read Apple's complaint, but I'd guess that they're alleging that parts of Sorenson Video were used to develop the Sorenson MPEG-4 codec, and which in turn wound up in Spark, which was licensed to Macromedia. I have no idea if this actually happened, or whether or not it would be permitted under their contract if it did.
Both codecs do have a number of features in common, like a configurable threshold for automatic keyframe insertion, an optional image smoothing (deblocking) filter on decode, and 2-pass VBR encoding.
Anyway, knowing as much as I do about these codecs, I feel completely unqualified to have an opinion on the legal merits of this case.
Hope this helped clarify things slightly.
My video compression blog
No. The codec in Flash is Spark, which is derived from H.263. It's very different from Sorenson Video 3, and their decoders are radically different.
Among other things, Spark was designed for the decoder to be fast (even on StrongARM and other non-desktop processors), small, and portable. Sorenson Video 3 was designed for high compression efficiency. Sorenson Video 3 looks a lot better than Spark at moderate data rates because it didn't have to make the same tradeoffs. However, Flash MX will play in all kinds of places that QuickTime won't.
My video compression blog
Apple had a skin removed because the effect resembled an _internal research theme_??? This carries things a bit far.
The story is much larger than that. Back in the early 90s all the talk was about Copland, some of which would eventually become Mac OS 8. One of the technologies Apple was previewing was the Appearance Manager, which was intended to make OS-level look-n-feel themes available for the user.
(Incidentally, as far as I know, Apple was the first company to talk big about a customizable user interface. I am NOT certain, by any means, but I heard about Apple's Appearance Manager plans long before I ever heard of Windows Explorer themes, or Winamp skins, or any of that other stuff.)
Apple obviously spent some time working on appearance themes; there are three that I remember seeing in Apple marketing materials and prerelease documentation and all that: Gizmo, Hi-Tech, and Drawing Board. The pencil-sketch theme that the great grandparent referred to was based on Drawing Board.
Along the way, a couple of things happened. First of all, the Copland project simply went Tango Uniform. Enough things went bad that the project as a whole was cancelled, although some of the technology made it into Mac OS 8 and 8. One of the things on that list was the Appearance Manager, and appearance themes.
At the last minute, the themes were pulled. I don't have any inside info, but here's my speculation: Apple's reputation was founded on the consistency and user-friendliness of their OS. They spent years and years-- and tons of money, to be sure-- developing a great user interface. Themes would have made it possible-- nay, even easy-- for third parties to throw away all of that hard work, and to make the Mac OS ugly or difficult to use. It just didn't make sense. For the hardcore user out there who was into customization, there was still Kaleidoscope.
So, for whatever reason, built-in appearance themes never made it out the door in an OS release. But they did make it out the door in tons of marketing info and developer documentation. And the Gizmo, Hi-Tech, and Drawing Board themes were all over that documentation in dozens and dozens of screen shots.
Apple still owns Gizmo, Hi-Tech, and Drawing Board. The fact that those appearances were never included in a released product doesn't mean Apple should necessarily give up their exclusive rights to those ideas. We've talked about it before; if Apple doesn't protect their trademarks (of which the Mac desktop-- even an unreleased desktop-- is one), US law dictates that they lose the exclusive right to those trademarks.
So given the facts, Apple did the only thing that made sense: they asked the developers, politely, to go get their own ideas and quit stealing Apple's. And the developers of these various themes have, thus far, complied with that request. Who knows? Maybe if one of those guys found a lawyer willing to work on contingency, the courts would end up revising what a company can and can't protect as its own. But so far that hasn't happened.
Apple's still fairly hung up about form over function.
That's too much of an oversimplification. Apple's hung up on the overall user experience. See, a Mac is capable of more or less the same stuff as a PC with Windows, or one with Linux. There's not much that a PC can do that a Mac simply can't, or vice versa. Apple's focus is on one thing: let's make using our computers as easy and pleasant as possible. Let's take the common tasks and streamline them to the point where people enjoy using our computers. That's why we get things like iTunes and iPhoto and iMovie released for free. They're basically included in the price of your Mac, because Apple believes that most people will eventually be interested in messing around with digital music, pictures, or movies. So they tried to make it as easy as possible.
The appearance thing is the same deal: overall user experience. I suspect that Apple did the math and decided that customizable appearance themes would detract from the user experience more than they could add to it. So they canned the idea.
I still don't see a problem with the way Apple does business. Sorry.
This story's now off of the main page, so I don't know if anyone will see it, but here goes:
I actually got a decent reply from the PR department at Sorenson in response to my question - I had asked them about what was preventing them from making even a binary-only decoder module available for something besides Windows/Mac...
The answer was interesting - as expected, the exclusivity agreements with Apple prevented them from making it available at all unless Apple wanted it done. Interestingly enough, though, the I was ALSO told that The exclusivity agreement in question expired last month (which may have something to do with the timing of Apple's lawsuit?) and that they are in negotiation with Apple about renewal, and if Apple doesn't renew, they'll be able to make the codec available, at least for licensing if nothing else.
I've got to give Sorenson this much credit, at least: their reply was prompt, polite, and informative, which gives me some hope for their future...
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