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

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!

[scrod]

Er, yeah they do.

Today I received a polite phone call from a fellow at Microsoft who works in the Windows Media group. He informed me that Microsoft has intellectual property rights on the ASF format and told me that, although I had reverse engineered it, the implementation was still illegal since it infringed on Microsoft patents. I have asked for the specific patent numbers, since I find patenting a file format a bit strange. At his request, and much to my own sadness, I have removed support for ASF in VirtualDub 1.3d, since I cannot risk a legal confrontation. This unfortunately means that I can no longer redistribute versions of VirtualDub older than V1.3d.

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.

Re:unresearched

[gwernol]

"Good old Steve" is in reference to the litigation-happy days when Jobs was CEO of Apple in the 80's, suing Microsoft, Adobe, and everyone else who displeased him.

Unfortunately that's factually incorrect. Apple sued Microsoft in 1988, four years after Steve was kicked out of Apple. In fact he was sued by Apple the year after he left in 1985: see this. So the Apple-Microsoft suit had nothing to do with Mr. Jobs. Whatever his faults he doesn't seem to be particularly litigous.

Mmmm, sounds delicious....

[L. VeGas]

Applesue Sorenson

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: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.

Just the facts, man

[marxmarv]

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?

You didn't read the thread well enough. Someone did in fact crack SVQ3 but refused to release it with their own name on it, and several folks advised them to release it anonymously, ala the RC4-compatible arcfour module. (Oh, that was a fun Usenet thread)

And what will that mean for the lawsuits?

The most curious thing about that whole thread was a marketing manager for Sorenson posting a note that they don't mind the use of their file formats if it's done in an approved fashion or some such rot, and recommended holding off for the next 30-60 days pending certain announcements. I think it was moderated up to 2, so I had to have been really bored to find it.

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.

Yeah, but you're a /. weenie and probably wouldn't create a binary-only codec anyway. Besides SVQ1 wasn't much more than H.323 with a slightly tricky codebook and some obligatory scrambling in an attempt to keep people out.

Otherwise, the moment good content gets encoded using it, by by secrects.

It took something like two years (+/- 50%) for SVQ1 to be cracked, and slightly less time for SVQ3. The QDomain music codec remains imprisoned, and without that no one's going to watch QT trailers on Linux.

-jhp

Re:Video in Flash

[PCM2]

The original suite(sp?) was because Apple was terrified that FlashMX producers would use it it to make video using the Sorenson spark codec. The fear is justified because just about everybody has the Flash plug-in and far fewer have the QuickTime plug-In.

Not really. The way Macromedia people have described it to me, the Spark codec really works best for things like talking heads, webcams and the like. Nobody expects anyone to use Flash to stream first-run feature films. Another big benefit of the Spark codec for Macromedia is that it's TINY ... something like 100K. Keeping the size of the Flash plug-in small is one of their top priorities.

My opinion is that Apple is sometimes just plain dumb. If they had just bothered to include the Spark codec in the QuickTime6 engine then everything would have been fine: Video makers and web developers will not go to the extra lengths of having to embed the video in a Flash movie (Time is money!)

Again, not quite accurate. Flash has much greater market penetration than QuickTime. And it's not as easy to build applications for streaming video with QuickTime as with Flash...

Why is this news?

[werdna]

Apple filed its complaint months ago, suing Sorenson fore breaching an agreement to grant it an exclusive license. Sorenson, now obliged to file its answer after losing preliminary motions, files an Answer with Counterclaims, apparently alleging that the suit has caused them difficulty -- which sounds like an almost certain loser.

What would have been news in a case of this kind would be if Sorenson filed an answer WITHOUT filing a counterclaim.

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.