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MPlayer Alleges KISS Technology Violating GPL
bfree writes "Not for the first time, the people at MPlayer think they have found their code being distributed binary only, this time in at least one of KISS Techologies products. In their traditional quiet style the full story is now the first piece of news on their homepage including string comparisons between the player ROM and MPlayer. The 'evidence' presented relates to subtitle identification, where the KISS ROM includes the same list, in order, of subtitle formats as MPlayer (including their own format mpsub) and MPlayer's patterns for each of the formats are also there identically."
If anyone is wondering where the link with the actual accusation is, it is on the main page of Mplayer's website.
well it appears on their website that they offer the source for download here
Mplayer is one of those apps I just can't live without on my machine. It handles just about anything and everything that I've thrown at it. I use it as my default mp3/movie player. And Quicktime movies are not a problem for Linux anymore.
/home/sgant/music/playlist -shuffle" and I've got hours and hours of back to back music. When I want something a little more structured, I have different playlists.
I quickly made a list of all of my 10+ gigs of mp3/m4a files just using find and grep...touched it up a bit in vim and then use "aterm -e mplayer -playlist
Yeah, I probably could do this with xmms...but why?
Give Mplayer it's due. It's a fine piece of software and they deserve all the recognition they get.
"Music is everybody's possession. It's only publishers who think that people own it." - John Lennon.
Well, if they stole MPlayer's code, they get Ogg support without having to be cool and open-minded. :)
Jason.
Sometime in the near future, the GPL is going to be tested in court. This is a Good Thing, though, because I'm not sure that the Open Source movement can continue its momentum without an absolute guarantee by the courts that the work of developers will not be open to being "stolen" by proprietary software companies.
However, there is the possibility that the GPL is struck down as being untenable. In that case, one of two outcomes exists:
1. All formerly GPL software reverts to merely being copyrighted by the author, who can then do what he wants (close the source, BSD style license, etc.).
2. All formerly GPL software is considered public domain. There is a massive "land grab" as companies snap up the sources out there for use in their closed proprietary products.
IANAL. I want to make that clear. I do believe that the GPL is valid, legal, and will stand up in court. I just hope the court system agrees with me.
Blogging Weight Loss, Distance Education, and more at verlin.com
While KISS Technologies offers some source code, that does not include the GPL'ed code the MPlayer site claims was taken from their code: A case-insensitive grep of the KISS-supplied source code for the string "MPSub" finds no matches.
Their fax number is busy... Either they took the ringer off, or other people have the same idea.
Bowie J. Poag
unauthorised distribution maybe, hacked no.
.wma), real (.rm, .ra) and an apple (if they played hardball with sorensen) for quicktime around just to see the videos that are released on the net today ? i dont care about some eulas i havent read if i can watch these on a system that doesnt connect to the net everytime i play a video.
ffmpeg is the replacement for all divx codecs based on the hacked microsoft dlls so thats fine.
and on the distribution bit, did it ever occur to you that you would have to keep a windows box for windows media (.avi,
From Mplayers homepage: Kiss Technology failed to answer our inquiry for their source files (which they are obligated to provide), so this news entry is posted.
ok the issue is about code that reads subtitles. other comments here already pointed out that (at least some of the) source is available at the KISS website
besides possible GPL violation what i find disturbing is that apparently no credit was given to the mplayer developers.
one of the main motivations of working on something for free is being appreciated and acknowledged for the work you do. kill the motivation, and you kill the incentive to release for free. it's a gift, right?
i dont care about some eulas
then why should Mplayer expect anyone else to ?
they are distributing other peoples work for free illegally and then complain when someone else does the same ? haha gimme a break,
iam sure quite a few companies would like to address their copyright concerns to the Mplayer team
Um. Not to be difficult or anything, but the last bit of the news article states...
Every single one of their patterns match ours! This is not coincidence. This is stealing GPL code into a proprietary product! Kiss Technology failed to answer our inquiry for their source files (which they are obligated to provide), so this news entry is posted.
Sure looks like they asked for the source to me.
-- El Sacarino tiene gusto de la chocha
I don't suppose... could Keyser Soze be one of the MPlayer developers?
In accordance with the GPL, the source for KISS DP-508 is available upon
request, for a nominal fee to cover media and shipping costs.*
.
.
.
* = The source code will be provided to you as a series of large, neon-lit
marquee letters shipped individually in wooden packing crates. Currently,
the world's supply of neon gas limits our ability to ship large quantities
of source code. The current expected wait time is 32 years, plus or minus
6 months, depending upon the condition of labor relations in countries with
substantial noble gas exports.
For more information, please inject crystal meth directly into your eyeballs,
and light yourself on fire while listening to the following song:
http://www.ibiblio.org/propaganda/pogo/easteregg.
Thats the version of the GPL I prefer, personally.
Bowie J. Poag
> I own one of their players (The DP-450). I love it, simply love it.
I had the same player, and returned it. Hate to spoil, but
- it mutes the audio on AVIs with WMA audio encoding (DIVX AUDIO)
- it freezes on most SVCD discs I tried, usually after fast-forwarding
- it freezes on some older DIVX AVIs, usually within the first 20 seconds
- it turns into a slideshow on DIVX3 with lots of stuff moving, like eg in
Matrix when the world turns into green hex numbers, or explosions with
particles flying around
- it doesn't play MP3 discs headless (to replace CD player in stereo)
Other than that, it's a great product. I'd love to check their products again in a year or so.
Start reading here
groklawThe Internet's nature is peer to peer - 20050301_cs_profs.pdf
How long until someones acknowledgement is denied and work is stolen by a large company who can hide behind the DMCA? An Open Source project could be "appropriated" by Sony or Microsoft who then releases it as their own project. If the source is unavailable, could you determine the origin deffinatively without reverse engineering?
Could this be true, or am I missinterrupting the DMCA (shudder, I hate that thing)?
The cancel button is your friend. Do not hesitate to use it.
How, exactly?
Really, I'm being serious.
Again, I ask, with all honesty, just how do products like these benefit the OS community; because frankly the way I see it, what's happening here is nothing more than greedy sons-of-bitches who are exploiting the hard works of others.
So, not only they don't comply, they don't even kiss ass. Pretty damning if you ask me!
It's a copyright violation.
The GPL is not a contract you agree to before using or obtaining source... it is a license that permits you to do things other than those allowed by copryight law alone.
If they are using MPlayer's code without license, that's copyright violation, and all that entails.
They can either come to an agreement with the copyright holders, or cite the GPL as their permission, if they had followed it.
Sadly, dirty hippies with bad breath can't stand up to the teradactyl fighting power that is KISS. They have guitars, man. They're great, they saved Santa, man! (See The Family Guy episode 203.)
Desperation is a stinky cologne
I don't understand why they say it's a GPL Violation. The source is offered as a download on the kiss website.s
http://www.kiss-technology.com/?p=hot_news&v=user
The GPL states that you only have to provide the sources along with the distibution. The distibution is in this case embedded in their player, so the only thing they would have to answer to is a demand from a verified owner of the player.
If you ask me the evidence is a bit thin. They are offering a full rom update (btw what os is it?) and all they find on them is a couple of strings in a binary? You'd expect the whole player to be in there, not just some subtitle stuff.
Oh well, their server recieves a slashdotting and their pr-person(subhuman) gets scalded. Then they release the code and all will be good again...
This space is intentionally staring blankly at you
Just curious about this, but has anybody ever been sued for a GPL violation?
AFAIK, it's never gone to court.
If nobody ever gets in any trouble for using GPL code in a closed project, then isn't it reasonable to assume that it'll happen more often?
I'd have to assume it'd be a gamble for both sides... would you really want to be the first company to test out the GPL? And even if you won, is that really the kind of PR you want?
And who is supposed to hire the lawyers on behalf of a free project? And don't tell me FSF will just handle everybody's legal troubles pro-bono...
I believe they will, if you sign over the copyright:
"...only the copyright holders are empowered to act against violations. The FSF acts on all GPL violations reported on FSF copyrighted code, and we offer assistance to any other copyright holder who wishes to do the same."
And failing that, don't forget that a lot of companies have significant interest in GPL'd software (think IBM, Novell, etc). If the GPL really ever came into question, I imagine you'd see more than a few significant financial contributions from third parties.
Thats not the way to do it. The KISS folks have been one of the people who seem to have got the Linux DVD player thing right with regard to the source modules. Secondly the mplayer people need to find out who that code came from - the kiss player if I remember rightly is based on a kit from Sigma designs.
.. ranting and raving isn't how you solve problems because you make it hard for an accidental offender to correct a problem without losing face, which sometimes means they'll try and tough it out rather than sort it out.
So firstly its quite possibly not their fault
Secondly its quite possible they are all still on their christmas holiday
Someone at mplayer might want to look at the other sigma based players firmware files.
And finally
There are lots of GPL infringements that get sorted out politely. Mostly involving large companies who regardless of what people like Microsoft may claim about Open v Closed most definitely DO NOT do any checking on what their contractors shipped them. They get sorted because the company can add a footnote to the manuals or put the tar source files up on the support page without embarrasment.
While that's unfortunate for you, the end customer, it's just too bad. If they're not playing by the rules and they're stealing peoples' code, then the problem is that they were crooks, not that they used free software. Wouldn't be much different from Microsoft stealing Sun code.
Perhaps it's a dawning age when businesses will be afraid to use proprietary software for fear that the company integrated GPL'ed source into their binaries without giving poper credit and/or providing the sources? Imagine, all the manadrones going from "Open Source is untrustworthy, we might get sued" or other such nonsense to "Proprietary systems are untrustworthy, they might get sued and we'd lose support".
Ahhhh.... sweet sweet vindication... maybe.
Alito: A vote for Alito is a punch in the eye to put that bitch back in her place!
Sounds like they need to upgrade to the latest version of mplayer!
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
So, you are saying we should tolerate GPL copyright violations so that you can get updates to your ROMs from sleazy companies? I don't think so. As long as software copyrights are the law of the land, GNU has the same rights to enforce them as everybody else.
If KISS doesn't want to deal with the GPL, they can always license Windows XP/Embedded for their players and you can pay for it. And you can bet that Microsoft will enforce their licenses.
The DMCA prohibits reverse engineering for the purpose of circumventing copy protection devices. Analyzing binaries for detecting copyright infringement is not something prohibited by the DMCA.
they're still in the same position to sell that same hardware (and perhaps services) regarless of whether some other organization is violating a GPL stipulation
If the GPL is questioned in a serious lawsuit, it'll be more than just "some other organization violating the GPL". You'd essentially be proving (or disproving) the legal validity of the GPL.
I suppose it depends on what happens to previously-GPL'd code if the GPL is ruled unenforceable. I really know nothing about it, but I've heard speculation that all GPL'd code could revert back to being "just plain copyrighted" by the author if the GPL was stricken down. I understand that to mean that unless the author chose to re-release it under a different, valid, free license, you'd have no legal right to continue using it at all.
Their interest in GPL is limited to the extent that it can help them sell hardware
IBM was just an example, but I'd imagine it'd be pretty hard to sell hardware if you're not legally entitled to use the code.
don't Mplayer distribute hacked unauthorised divX,mpg4 and quicktime and realaudio .dlls for win32 ?
No, they don't. You're probably thinking of the Penguin Liberation Front codec pack, which is not part of mplayer itself.
You can compile mplayer entirely from source with DivX, mpeg4 and Quicktime support. This support comes from GPL'd source code, not from hacked binaries.
The GPL is a LICENSE not a contract.
Statutory damages can be tremendous, I believe $150,000 per violation if wilful.
The other penalty is that KISS will have to stop distribution altogether if they lose in court. That basically puts them out of business.
GPL protection has nothing to do with using or modifying, only with distribution.
You barely have anything right. You need to read more groklaw.
Infuriate left and right
Not entirely true. Read the GPL FAQ:
Q. I want to distribute binaries without accompanying sources. Can I provide source code by FTP instead of by mail order?
A. You're supposed to provide the source code by mail-order on a physical medium, if someone orders it. You are welcome to offer people a way to copy the corresponding source code by FTP, in addition to the mail-order option, but FTP access to the source is not sufficient to satisfy section 3 of the GPL.
When a user orders the source, you have to make sure to get the source to that user. If a particular user can conveniently get the source from you by anonymous FTP, fine--that does the job. But not every user can do such a download. The rest of the users are just as entitled to get the source code from you, which means you must be prepared to send it to them by post.
If the FTP access is convenient enough, perhaps no one will choose to mail-order a copy. If so, you will never have to ship one. But you cannot assume that.
Of course, it's easiest to just send the source with the binary in the first place.
So as long as no one requests a physical copy of the source, you're right, sticking it on your site for them is good enough. The 24MB source zip file would be a little tough on dialup users, so there could be a case where they're required to provide the source on CD or whatever.
In any event, I just downloaded said file and here's what it contains (edited for lameness):
Archive: GPL.zip
Length Name
751701 busybox.tar.gz
24236327 uClinux-2.4.17.tar.gz
24988028 2 files
So unless they're offering the mplayer source separately, they're probably in violation of the GPL anyway.
This isn't about whether or not the MPlayer guys are socially adept, it's about whether or not KiSS Tech is violating their license.
Even assholes have rights, no matter how much other assholes might dislike them.
No matter how many of my rights are taken away, somehow I still don't feel safe. -Frigid Monkey
Maybe but it is distributed on and by the mplayer site, just click on "downloads".
You can compile mplayer entirely from source with DivX, mpeg4 and Quicktime support.
Yes. But they still distribute those binary codecs in clear violation of the law.
The FSF opposes on principle most licensing schemes other than the GPL (and legally equivalent variations). They don't wan't dual-licensed products (a la MySQL), etc. You are correct that as a result many developers don't like working on GNU projects. But quite a few do - the FSF is largely about a revolution in how software is licensed in general. In the FSF's vision of the world, there is no such thing as closed-source software. The way they propose to create this new world is by making GPL-based software which is better than anything offered in closed-source.
The FSF is definitely about activism. Not all programmers are activists, but the FSF believes that the GPL gives them an edge that no proprietary development firm can beat - the fact that even if only a minority of GPL software users give back, they still receive more than proprietary vendors do from their community.
I'm not bashing those who disagree with the FSF - as I said the FSF is definitely an activist group. But they obviously have been successful despite their requirements regarding copyright assignment. GCC is probably the most widely used compiler there is...
Because MPlayer never pretends to have written the source for all the dll's they're including. Everyone using them knows where they're from.
KISS, on the other hand, is allegedly using MPlayer source without releasing the sources to their modifications, and in essence are claiming the software as their own. This is a violation of the license MPlayer is released under.
This is quite different from repackaging and redistributing files that were freely available on the net.
Actually, the award is not necessarily based on the copyright holder's actual damages. According to 17 USC 504 (a), "an infringer of copyright is liable for either... the copyright owner's actual damages and any additional profits of the infringer, as provided by subsection (b); or statutory damages, as provided by subsection (c)." The emphasis on the additional profits language is mine, but it's important: the copyright holder is entitled to any additional profits the infringer made through use of the infringing material.
Even in cases where it's difficult to prove damages or additional profits from the infringing material, the copyright holder is entitled to statutory damages. See 17 USC 504 (c). That's $30,000 for infringement in general, and $150,000 if it's willful infringement. An infringer who uses language like "KISS off" or an infringer finding themselves back in court for doing it again will probably be facing the $150,000 number. Paying the judgement does not entitle you to future use of the copyrighted work.
Sort of. I'll say "yes" but qualify. You can't sue somebody for violating the GPL. It's not a contract. It's a license. If they don't agree to the license then it has no legal weight.
The impressive part about the GPL is that if they don't agree to the GPL then copyright law springs into effect. Copyright law can kick them in the teeth a lot harder than the GPL ever could.
So you don't really sue for a GPL violation. You sue for copyright infringement. You offer the GPL as an escape mechanism. If the guilty party accepts the GPL then they avoid the lawsuit. If they don't accept the GPL then... well... simply put, they lose in court.
There have been several examples of companies being sued for copyright infringement of GPLed software. I think they've all ended in settlement so far. So effectively the courts have been used to enforce the GPL. A recent example was MySQL vs NuSphere as reported on Slashdot.