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Google Pulls Open Source CoreAVC Project Over DMCA Complaint
rippe77 writes "Google has taken down the open-source project CoreAVC for Linux due to a DMCA complaint. The CoreAVC codec is a commercial high-definition H.264 DirectShow filter for windows provided by CoreCodec Inc.. The CoreAVC for Linux project provided various patches for Linux applications (mplayer, MythTV, xine) to use these DirectShow decoder filters in Linux. The takedown is quite controversial, as the CoreAVC project did not provide any copyrighted material — only the means to use the DirectShow filters in Linux."
(The takedown notice is not yet up at Chilling Effects, but Google's page has a link that will take you there when it is.)
They drop projects faster than Paris Hilton's panties in the face of legal threats. Version control over Freenet or the like would be a good start.
One CPU cycle wasted on digital restrictions management is ONE TOO MANY.
If Google have received a notice then they have no option but to take down the site. Someone needs to file a counter notice, then Google will reinstate them.
Google and SourceForge may be convienent, but US coders should really start to consider hosting in countries that do not have DMCA-esque laws.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
You appear to have missed this sentence:
"If you wish, you may read the DMCA complaint that caused the removal at ChillingEffects.org."
Slagborr
Or post a bittorrent link with the word "banned by DMCA" in the title, ensuring it will NEVER go away and may in fact increase distribution by increasing demand.
It's 1st year economics: scarcity creates demand.
If it will help keep the panties on Paris Hilton, then I'm all for it.
The DMCA is starting to rear one of its real intent. Its use of takedown notices to suppress Linux and other OSS operating systems ability to get advanced technology because if the OSS OSes gain traction they could lose the control they have over multimedia and users could regain fair use rights.
Hopefully, this project made it to the mplayer people in Hungary, or PLF. So it will still be availible.
Pretty simple really. All they had to do was give it a name more like "MPEG-4 AVC for Linux" and they would have been ok. It's really pretty simple, they DONT have the right to use their name in a product that isn't truly related to anything the CoreCodec company.
If i had one dollar for every brain you dont have, i would have $1.
http://www.corecodec.com/forums/index.php?topic=981.msg5695
it looks like coreavc are looking to work with the project to get it all legal and hunky-dorey.
I forgive you for getting it wrong, since there keep being stories about "Canadian DMCA about to pass!!!!1" but as it turns out we've had really weak governments for the past while and thus in fact a full equivalent of the DMCA has yet to pass (unless I've missed something in the past month?). Key word being "yet", but it has never been a priority of the recent minority governments, nor have they quite had the time.
In terms of oppressive new legislation and expansion of corporate rights, Canada tends to lag behind the States just a tad, enough that in Canada people feel smug, all "oh, silly Americans. We would never trample the citizens in *our* country like that". And of course a Canadian from 10 years ago transported to today without having experienced the slowly rising boil would be aghast. But to degrees it's like that in many countries as of late.
I remember sigs. Oh, a simpler time!
Well, yeah, it was open source, and the copies they released with OSS license are likely still freely distributable under the license they released them under.
Using a different license and releasing new code doesn't suddenly make the old one less enforceable, an OSS should be able to use that code as long as the license permitted it, however the DMCA take-down implies they are using code from the closed source version.
Of course as a user of both CoreAVC for windows (the multi threaded h264 codec) and CorePlayer (the mobile phone media player) I hope they are doing this above board, would hate to think my dollars are funding a bunch of tools.
Assuming they are tools and this is all over the name, then this should be a Trademark dispute correct? And isn't the burden of proof on the the plaintiff and not the defendant?
...
From the forum thread at CoreAVC discussing this, the founder of CoreAVC says "Again without going into all the details... this is mostly about reverse engineering without permission under the DMCA... by us giving Alan permission.... problem solved".
Without seeing the coreavc-for-linux code I can't say whether or not he had to reverse engineer anything about CoreAVC to get it working, but it doesn't seem like hooking up a DirectShow filter via a (relatively) standardized API would need anything like that. Since this claim was made under the DMCA, he would have had to be reverse engineering something related to copy protection. Perhaps there is some sort of product activation that had to be hacked around to get the codec working on a non-windows platform?
Seems there was evidence the writer of CoreAVC-for-linux reverse engineered their codec to get his patch working, they have since given him permission to do so, the DMCA take-down has been withdrawn.
A company not only defending their rights honestly, but then when malice is not shown backing off and giving their blessing to an OSS project, back off
...
See! That's what Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer have been telling us all along. This real life example proves it!
You'd think rather than just trying to take down CoreAVC-for-Linux immediately, CoreCodec might try to release a Linux version of the codec first.
~Jarik
First off a quickie status update: The user "BetaBoy" on coreavc forums has stated that CoreAVC has revoked the DCMA notice, and granted the projects lead developer permission to continue the project.
He has also stated that this was not so much about copyright infringement, but reverse engineering the codec without permission.
The DCMA takedown notice (which was just today posted to Chill Effects) references "links to copyrighted code". Yet Betaboy makes reference to this being about "reverse engineering without permission" - not copyright.
As a user of CoreAVC for linux, and a frequent visitor to the google code site, I can attest to the fact that NO CoreAVC code was contained there. It was (and is) a simple DirectShow Filter Host optimized for use with the codec. Thats it.
The bottom line here is this is as clear a case of reverse engineering for interoperability as there ever was (an activity PROTECTED and ALLOWED by the DCMA), and the DCMA take down notice was a perjured statement by not claiming illegal reverse engineering, but instead claiming copyrighted code.
The only good thing in this mess is the company did the right thing and apologised. The downside is they only did so after perjuring themselves, misusing the DCMA, and generally making an ass of themselves.
An overzealous employee? This was sent over the name of the company CEO, claiming to have been sent by him and it was in his name that the "under penalty of perjury" claim was made. Are there really employees there that are empowered to speak with his name, but make these kind of failures of judgment?
This here is what we call a logical fallacy. You propose a comparison between two things that are not alike and ask us to determine which is better. In this case, no comparison exists because CoreAVC is a decoder and x264 is an encoder. Maybe you should read a little bit on what each are? Like what x264 and CoreAVC are?
Now, assuming that you meant to ask "what advantage does CoreAVC hold over other (free) decoders such as FFMPEG?", the answer is as follows:
CoreAVC is much faster in single-threaded operation than FFmpeg, especially in the deblocking routines. It supports interlaced H.264 which FFmpeg did not until recently support. It has much more efficient multi-threaded routines than FFmpeg. All of these matters because 1920x1080i/p H.264 videos such as HDTV broadcasts in some countries as well as Blu-Ray/HD-DVDs are being increasingly common. In order to play these videos using FFmpeg, one would need something like a 3GHz Core 2 Quad whereas a much lower-clocked Core 2 Duo is sufficient with CoreAVC.