Sorenson Countersues Apple

pinqkandi writes "MacCentral is reporting that Sorenson Media is countersuing Apple over a lawsuit Apple initiated in April claiming they have exclusive rights to Sorenson's codec. Sorenson, claiming Apple's lawsuit against them has severly hurt business, is seeking judgement against Apple in compensation. Apple originally brought on their lawsuit when Sorenson teamed up with Macromedia for Flash MX. Looks like good old Steve is back to his old self :-)"

Comments

Steve??

[rampant mac]

"Looks like good old Steve is back to his old self"

You're mistaken... Bill is usually the one getting sued, Steve summons other to cease and desist. :)

Oh boo hoo hoo!

[wowbagger]

For years, Apple and Sorenson have played "Ask you mother" about making a Sorenson decoder available under Linux:

Developer: Sorenson, would you please let us release a binary only, closed version of your decoder for Xanim?

Sorenson: Well, we can't help you - Apple has an exclusive contract with us, so they will have to allow it. Go ask them.

Developer: Apple, would you please let us release a binary only, closed version of your decoder for Xanim?

Apple: Well, it's not ours to release, it belongs to Sorenson. Go ask them.

Now, the two of them are squabbling amonst themselves because Sorenson had the gall to let Macromedia have the decoder.

Boo Hoo Hoo, cry me a river....

Re:Oh boo hoo hoo!

[namespan]

Or when have they ever claimed intellectual property in any other open (*cough* GL *cough*) standard? Or the GPL in general?

MS and Apple are different beasts, and concerned about different things... though they both do stupid things frequently, they both have an element of control-freak culture. The difference is that Apple's is balanced with taste, innovation, and an actual desire to satisfy the consumers in their market. Microsoft's is balanced with.... um.... give me a minute here..... nothing?

Propriety formats are Apple's enemy. Or should be.

[Skyshadow]

You'd think Apple would be a little more anxious to promote open file formats.

Consinder: The only thing that makes platform relevant in modern times (other than number of games available) is the ability of users to interoperate in a networked environment -- to open word processing documents, spreadsheets, presentations, etc. Other than that, people use their computers for largely platform-independant applications (surfing for porn and emailing prison inmates -- or is that just me?).

Given the rise of near-universal networking, you'd think that Apple would see this as their big second change. In fact, given their recent PR, it seems that at least part of the organization "gets" this. And yet, Apple continues to develop and promote decidedly unopen formats like Quicktime, which are definately not friendly to alternative platforms.

Maybe someone needs to drive to Cupertino, take Steve to Denny's and explain the concept of karma over a couple cups of coffee and some cheese sticks. Mmm... Cheese sticks.

I know who will win

[Infonaut]

the lawyers :-)

unresearched

[Snuffub]

"Looks like good old Steve is back to his old self :-)"

exactly what thats supposed to mean is beyond me. There are good reasons to sue people you know. one of them being if your company signs an exclusive deal with another company for a product then that company turns around and sells the product to a competitor.

oh wait! thats what happened in this case.

correct me if I'm wrong...

[bigbigbison]

But wasn't one of the points of Apple's lawsuit to prevent Sorenson from making money that Apple claims Sorenson weren't entitled to?

What constitutes a *new* version of the codec?

[ashebanow]

The central issue seems to be: is the Spark codec a "new" codec, which would not be covered by the exclusive agreement, or a simple renaming of the existing codec to get around the exclusive license?

Re:What constitutes a *new* version of the codec?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ironically, Apple itself has a history of renaming an existing product to get out of a licensing agreement. That is exactly what Steve Jobs did to the Mac clone makers when what was essentially the next rev of Mac OS 7 (it sure wasn't Copland) became "Mac OS 8" and Steve successfully claimed all the existing agreements did not cover the "new" OS.

Re:Propriety formats are Apple's enemy. Or should

[tomierna]

Of course you are being a troll here - QuickTime is the basis for MPEG4's file format.

The Sorenson codec is proprietary, as is the Cinepak codec, one of the suggested Quicktime codecs for use with Xanim.

Oddly enough, Apple's Quicktime 6, also supports some very fine standards, like the officially sanctioned MPEG4 codecs (not the bastardized pre-standards "MS-MPG4"), the MPEG 1 & 2 codecs, and MJPEG.

Open standards are obviously different than open source, but the net effect to interoperability is the same.

Plus, you can't take Steve to Denny's for cheese sticks - he's Vegan.

Re:Propriety formats are Apple's enemy. Or should

[IamTheRealMike]

And yet, Apple continues to develop and promote decidedly unopen formats like Quicktime, which are definately not friendly to alternative platforms.

And unfortunately those platforms are not very friendly back. I'm beginning to think QuickTime is Apples own worse enemy here - given how long they (or Sorensen) have been jerking open source video makers around, I wasn't surprised to read that an old version of Sorenson had been cracked. How long can it be until the latest versions are too? And what will that mean for the lawsuits?

I, by the way, don't know what to think. Surely Sorenson and Apple have rights to their own creations, but on the other Natalie Portman was available only in their proprietary format. That is like a big neon sign to the geek community saying "Come on, crack me!".

If I was going to create a closed codec, I'd make damn sure there were players for pretty much every platform out there. I'd make high quality players for Windows, Linux and maybe the Mac, and then a library for everybody else so people can write their own players if they need to. Otherwise, the moment good content gets encoded using it, by by secrects.

Sorenson's diversifying because...

[enota]

Apple's new golden codec is MPEG-4. True, Sorenson is going to release MPEG-4 encoders soon, all the effort that went into sorenson 3 looks to be wasted. How do you make money off of a codec after apple basically abandons it? Re-tool slightly, and sell it to a competitor that would love to get their hands on a sorenson codec. I can see why they are both pissed. Apple pushes a competitor (MPEG-4) and Sorenson makes up for this by selling their codec to a competitor (Macromedia). In my opinion, Apple is the jerk in this situation. They build up this huge relationship over the years, then they drop Sorenson for MPEG-4 in a second.

Re:Propriety formats are Apple's enemy. Or should

[frankie]

How is the MPEG4 Quicktime based

Sheesh, someone here has been living in a cave for the past couple years, apparently with only a copy of Real Player 8 for company.

• " The QuickTime file format has been used as the basis of the MPEG-4 standard, developed by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO)."
• " [10.9] The MP4 file format is designed to contain the media information of an MPEG-4 presentation in a flexible, extensible format which facilitates interchange, management, editing, and presentation of the media. [...] The design is based on the QuickTime® format from Apple Computer Inc."

But don't take my word for it -- look it up for yourself.

They promote the LOCKED soreson as the encoding format

And here again you are living in the past. Take a look at the Apple Quicktime site right now. You will see a whole lot of promotion of their MPEG-4 cross-compatible codec. Ever since the MPEG-4 project began, Apple has been salivating at the prospects of ditching Sorenson.

Apple used to push in favor of Sorenson, because: (1) it was the best codec, and (2) it was exclusive to QuickTime. Neither of those factors are true any more.