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Canonical Offers Sale of Proprietary Codecs for Ubuntu
ruphus13 writes "Playing DVDs on Linux that required proprietary codecs has been a source of much pain. Ubuntu (or anyone else, for that matter) is not legally allowed to redistribute these codecs. So, users were left with sub-optimal choices. Convert the multimedia to an open format, acquire new media, or use a codec 'found' on the web, which may be illegal. In its continued effort to have a seamless and slick user experience, Canonical made the hard choice to offer the sale and support for proprietary codecs that users had to actually purchase for Ubuntu. This is not a fight Canonical can fight alone, and they are sure to get some grief for the decision."
The big thing here is not that they're offering them for sale, but that they're streamlining the process of the sale. The codecs have always been available for sale through fluendo's store, canonical is just making the process of sale slightly easier. The only thing I'm concerned about is that users will get the wrong message. New convertees to ubuntu (and there are a lot of them) might think that this whole "linux is free" thing is just a scam. Time will tell.
If they want to make deals with the devil then they could bargain for better proprietary drivers for crap like advanced photo printers and iPods. Does Ubuntu have a decent zero-config wireless utility yet?
Not the fact that Gstreamer doesn't support DVD Menus?
(Which, in all fairness, is fixed, hopefully for the next Ubuntu release: http://blogs.gnome.org/uraeus/2008/08/04/gstreamer-dvd-support/)
Not only does this move make it easier for newbie end-users to adopt Ubuntu, it should make it more palatable to corporate types who are used to paying for products. ("It can't possibly be good if it's free, can it?") Users not wishing to pay can always get these codecs the old fashioned way.
If your only tool is a hammer, every problem becomes a nail.
This is a great step in legitimizing Ubuntu as an alternative OS, however it is a give and take. If Ubuntu is going to suggest people pay for something, they had better get "Compatible with Ubuntu" stamped on every single piece of software they endorse. The fact that the corporate world has forced the issue this far is a very good sign. I hope Canonical knows how to play the game to their benefit now.
A little while back there was a supreme court decision about patent exhaustion. (I think that was the term.) It basically said that if company A licenses a patent to company B, and company B produces a product utilizing the patent and sells the product to company C, C does not need to pay A for the patent.
I wonder if this is a useful defense against "illegal" codecs. I mean, the patent holder license the patent to the media creator and the media creator sells us the product. Shouldn't the patent obligation been handled between the licensor and the media company? Aren't we in fact, entity "C?"
I agree they should definitely box up Ubuntu (Shuttleworth has got the funds) and start selling it right alongside Windows Vista. Even I might buy it just to support more GNU/Linux/FOSS development (Ubuntu is just one facet in the whole thing). $30-$45 is definitely a reasonable price for an OS that is 50x better than Windows and with that, free upgrades (I am assuming). People may not flock immediately, but with word they will.
http://spie.org/x26516.xml
So, if patent exhaustion is more expansive than previously thought.
If we purchase a DVD, should we not have also (included with the purchase) rights to the patent used in the product, i.e. the compression algorithms?
The used the "IP" to produce the product and paid the license to do so. Why should we be further encumbered? It isn't as if we are creating new content with the codecs, we'd use free ones for that.
Any lawyers want to start a class action for EVERYONE that owns a DVD player?
When you buy Windows a tiny fraction of the cost is actually forwarded to vendors from which Microsoft licenses codecs and what not. Since I've already paid for Windows I've also paid for all those patents so why pay again? How often should each person pay for the same codec? Perhaps MPEG-LA wants me to pay them again and again for every piece of MPEG software or hardware or whatever. Maybe MPEG-LA wants me to pay them every time I play an MPEG movie or maybe they should get some $$ every time I take a breath? Seriously, we should gather outside of the MPEG-LA offices and just do a blockade or something.
The patent system is largely protecting the inventor.
Indeed and for me rightfully so.
But patents on Software (formulas you know) are not right.
Some sort of reward for a developer might be appropriate but it has to be tied to the industry.
And in software that means maybe only for 3 or 5 years max.
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
strange, that is the same DVD drive that I use with my linux box. Didnt I already pay for the codec then?
Sometimes the easiest way to give something away "for free" after no one will take it is to put a price on it. It's a little disturbing to see how often this is necessary at yard sales. People ignore the 'free' sign on the little end table that has nothing wrong with it, but the second I put a "25c" sticker on it someone comes along and goes "Is that really only 25 cents!?"
"Most people, I think, don't even know what a rootkit is, so why should they care about it?"
We cannot ship codecs through the distro, as they are not free to redistribute. So we have built a restricted download area that is accessible through the store.
They don't bother to inform users of different legal requirements for non-US countries.
Effectively this means they try to milk users from all over the world for charging for totally unnecessary codex.
This is rather nasty as they are incorporated in the UK, not the US.
Or even better, on their own site they proclaim:Founded in late 2004, Canonical Ltd is a company headquartered in Europe.
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
Is there a separate USB Mass Storage spec for music?
Because as far as I know the iPod treats itself like a HDD, reads from an XML index, and loads files from a directory tree sorted according to a hash algorithm.
So... what is the problem? I thought this was solved years ago?
GPL Deconstructed
DMCA prohibits merely accessing scrambled content (and trafficking in tools that help you do that). It doesn't say anything about saving/copying.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
It can't handle the save system in the DVD version of the visual novel Phantom of Inferno. (But you are right in general; this fact is a bug in its dvd navigation support).
I'm not convinced VLC is actually illegal. I'd like someone to show proof that bundling a proprietary codec in your open source software is actually a violation of the TOS for that codec. I think if it were illegal, Quicktime, RealMedia, or one of the proprietary video player makers would have sued them already.
It's illegal based on some rather dubious patents. At the moment the cost/benefit isn't worth suing over - it's not like videolan have a lot of money, and if their patents were ruled invalid their whole business would collapse. You can bet that if someone started making serious money out of it they would sue, and I believe this has happened before.
The DVD stuff, on the other hand, is clearly illegal in the USA, based on the good ol' DeCSS case. You'll notice that VLC isn't hosted in or distributed from the US.
I am trolling
It's just like what Redhat did in the early days.
Ubuntu has never been about Free Software Purity.
We have Debian for that. I don't see what the big
deal is here. Are you people forgetful or just
haven't been around long enough?
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Illegal? exactly how?
Copyright? No, the code was written from scratch.
Patent? we all love software patents, but I don't think there are any for DVD playback or DVD encryption, they wanted to keep these secret, and patents are public.
Trade secret? There is no secret remaining.
Anti-copy-protection-circumvention legislation (DMCA)?
CSS does not prevent copies. DVD's can be copied without unencryption.
Also, the primary use of libdecss is the same as a commercial DVD player. To play movies. All DVD player software decrypts DVD's to play. Is all DVD playing software illegal, since it can be used to circumvent copy protection?
Or is the general rule that the only legal DVD decryption software that which is approved with the DVD-Video logo? Perhaps it's a trademark issue.
Imagine three people: Bob, Tom, and Joe.
Bob pays $XXXX to see the official DVD-Video spec and CSS spec, and writes DVD player from scratch. Bob decides to give the DVD player away for free. He cannot give away source code, as he agreed to a license when he saw the specification.
Tom also writes a DVD player program. Tom, however uses only specification published on the internet for DVD-Video and CSS decryption. Tom publishes the source code to the player he wrote, and releases as open source.
Joe like open-source as it is more reliable and contains less viruses. Joe uses Toms DVD player to play movies that he bought.
Did any of the three violate any law? If so, which law?