Adobe Uses DMCA On Protocol It Promised To Open

An anonymous reader writes "Despite promising in January to open RTMP, Adobe has issued a DMCA take down request for an open source implementation of the protocol. The former SourceForge project page for rtmpdump now reports 'Invalid Project.' rtmpdump has been used in tools such as get_iplayer and get-flash-videos. Adobe is no stranger to the DMCA, having previously used it against Dmitry Sklyarov."

Comments

Copyright law?

[pieterh]

How can a copyright law be used to take down a protocol implementation? What copyrights were infringed? This would normally fall under patent law.

Re:Copyright law?

[Swizec]

"rtmpdump" is so clearly similar to "RTMP" that it infringes on Adobe's copyright of the name.

Re:Copyright law?

[Richard_at_work]

MySQL have in the past (not sure about their current stance on it) said that any application implementing the MySQL client protocol is required to either have a commercial license, or be licensed under the GPL as they consider the protocol itself to be part of MySQL and thus under copyright.

Re:Copyright law?

[tepples]

How can a copyright law be used to take down a protocol implementation?

Ask The Tetris Company. It thinks it owns the exclusive right to make video games that incorporate falling shapes made of four square segments.

Re:Copyright law?

[Anonymous Coward]

How can a copyright law be used to take down a protocol implementation? What copyrights were infringed? This would normally fall under patent law.

The DMCA is broken up into parts. The second part talks about "anti-circumvention". When a person attempts to circumvent a "technical protection measure" this is considered to be a violation of the DMCA.

With that being said, your point is a strong one. Copyright is to protect "creativity", Patents are for "methods and processes". So, can one claim that they wrote creative code to implement the protocol? I would say no. Clearly, the courts would say yes (CSS, Skyloc, etc).

Re:Copyright law?

[baadger]

That would only be a trademark issue, not a copyright infringement.

Re:Copyright law?

[rmcd]

My understanding: Under the DMCA, you can be in trouble for possessing technologies that could be used to circumvent technological protections on copyrighted material So it's not that the technology itself is copyrighted, it's probably that it's part of a copyright protection scheme and thus falls under DMCA.

The EFF's account of the Skylarov case (which is instructive and chilling) is fully documented here.

Re:Copyright law?

[Swizec]

Well that depends on how good your lawyers are. You could defend that it's a body of written text (albeit very short text) and someone copying it is infringing upon your copyright.

Of course since this is the DMCA, you don't actually have to prove they were infringing or anything.

Re:Copyright law?

[Wrath0fb0b]

How can a copyright law be used to take down a protocol implementation? What copyrights were infringed? This would normally fall under patent law.

It's not copyright law, it's the anti-circumvention provision. The reference RTMP implements various restrictions that the content provider can specify, for instance, marking it as streaming only. The open-source version, however, did not implement those restrictions and was, in fact, used in various projects whose entire purpose was to download media marked only as streamed -- get_iPlayer being the most notorious as used to rip BBC content.

Re:Copyright law?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's FUD on their part to sell more licenses. There is not one case-law which agrees with them and plenty that don't. Additionally, there are many interoperability cases and laws (including the DMCA) on our side.

Re:Copyright law?

[L4t3r4lu5]

They should call it rtm-dump.

That'll totally fool them!

Re:Copyright law?

[cruff]

My understanding: Under the DMCA, you can be in trouble for possessing technologies that could be used to circumvent technological protections on copyrighted material.

Let's just hit everyone living with a DMCA take down notice because they have a brain in their head! You never know, that brain might be used as a tool to circumvent a protection mechanism some time.

Re:Copyright law?

[Anonymous Coward]

Um, no, general hatred of what lawyers and money can do in the legal system aside, you can't win a copyright suit over a product name no matter how good your lawyer is.

Now nothing says you can't bring the suit, and if the other guy chooses to settle that's another matter. But inventing flaws in the already-flawed IP system (such as pretending that a name could be interpreted as a copyrightable work when that's been explicitely forbidden since forever)? Come on.

Re:Copyright law?

[mea37]

Well, I believe you're correct, but it doesn't matter unless someone actually stands up to fight the point.

MySQL or Adobe or anyone else can take whatever legal stand they like, no matter how bizarre. They issue a DMCA take-down notice, and there's a process for conteseting it. But even if the notice is completely invalid, if the other guy compiles and doesn't challenge them, then they get all benefit and no cost for their action.

Unless and until trial, it doesn't matter what the law says; it matters who blinks.

Re:Copyright law?

[Dog-Cow]

Well, based on that criterion, we couldn't include everyone. Think about it. This may be a law from which Congress is naturally immune!

Re:Copyright law?

[CarpetShark]

How can a copyright law be used to take down a protocol implementation? What copyrights were infringed? This would normally fall under patent law.

Simple. You threaten someone who's spineless, and they cave. More people need to read:

http://thepiratebay.org/legal.php

Re:Copyright law?

[mbone]

I would assume that

1.) They claim copyright on the spec.
2.) They thus claim that whatever was done to reverse-engineer the spec violated the DMCA.

Re:Copyright law?

[drinkypoo]

Anti-Circumvention falls down if there is substantial non-infringing use.

Re:Copyright law?

[pieterh]

Games (and video games) are explicitly protected by a special kind of design patent. This is what protects the rules and pieces of Monopoly, Scrabble, Risk, and so on. Their look and feel are protected by trademark, and their specific designs by copyright.

Tetris is likewise protected by design patents, trademarks, and copyright.

However only the copyright aspect can fall under the Digital Millenium Copyright Act.

Re:Copyright law?

[91degrees]

It's not about what it could be used for but what it's intended to be used for.

On this basis, this takedown request is bogus but there's no penalty for sending a takedown request if there's a plausible belief that it's legitimate.

Re:Copyright law?

[91degrees]

True, but you can still send a legitimate(ish) takedown request. There's the "penalty of perjury" bit, but unless you can prove beyond reasonable doubt that they knew this was totally non-infringing, there's no case.

Re:Copyright law?

[pieterh]

Are you saying the open source version was taken down for not implementing DRM restrictions, in other words for having missing functionality?

I do understand the point about anti-circumvention but does this extend to obliging that clean re-implementations implement the same restrictions as closed ones?

One would think there is a difference between a tool used to circumvent copyright, and a tool that fails to enforce the copyright rules.

For example, if a DVD player fails to implement a region code, is that culpable under the DMCA? Or if a FOSS PDF reader does not have the code that checks for unprintable documents, a DMCA violation?

I'm trying to get my head around this. If a specification demands certain restrictions, and those are not implemented, then the implementations can be taken down under the DMCA...

So if I make a DRM file system and someone implements a simple compatible version but fails to make the DRM work properly, this is illegal. Thus, anyone opening a MS-Office document with a product that does not respect the DRM rules in there is a criminal.

Re:Copyright law?

[tepples]

Tetris is likewise protected by design patents, trademarks, and copyright.

• Design patent: I couldn't find any. I searched uspto.gov for patents whose assignee is "Elorg" or "Tetris" and 0 results. On the other hand, I found a few patents assigned to Nintendo, such as the cylinder mode of Pokemon Puzzle League.
• Trademark: That's why clones are named differently.
• Copyright: That's why clones use different decorations around the playfield and different textures on the blocks, if they texture the blocks at all.

Re:Copyright law?

[jdoverholt]

but I intend to use my brain to circumvent a protection mechanism.

Re:Copyright law?

[drinkypoo]

Unless you can prove beyond reasonable doubt that they knew there was no substantial non-infringing use, there's no case. Of course, since "reasonable" and "substantial" are both open to question, the real question is, how much money did you bring with you? And how much credit have you got?

Re:Copyright law?

[Midnight Thunder]

Simple. You threaten someone who's spineless, and they cave. More people need to read:

Said spineless person may not have the time or money to fight a team of well paid lawyers with all the time in the world.

Re:Copyright law?

[Sloppy]

No, this can't be it. I think Adobe is saying that the rtmpdump code actually contains Adobe code, and this is merely a "takedown notice," not an actual complaint of a 1201 violation.

If they are alleging that 1201 was violated, then it's total bullshit and they are just counting on the rtmpdump people not being able to afford to defend themselves, because if they can afford defense, Adobe will lose.

Here's why: Adobe is just a protocol inventor and media-tool maker. Such people never really have strong anti-circumvention cases. (Go back to the DeCSS situation: notice it was MPAA that won the court cases, not DVDCCA.)

If Adobe's products are available to the public, then all you have to do is create some content that uses their stuff, then as the copyright holder, distribute your content along with an announcement that you (the copyright holder) explicitly authorize everyone in the universe to bypass any technological measures that limit access to your work. That removes any possibility of 1201 violations. DMCA becomes a non-issue.

(That's also why there will never be any DRM standards, or at least not any DRM standards to which DMCA applies. Copyright holders in general (as opposed to MPAA members or the subset of Adobe customers that Adobe says they wish to "protect") have the power to tear it down if they have any way to apply the DRM to their own content.)

Re:Copyright law?

[Wrath0fb0b]

First, this is an unsettled area of law, so really anything anyone says about it should be taken with a grain of salt the size of a small automobile -- if we knew how the Federal Courts would rule in advance of doing so, we would scarcely need them as an institution.

That said, here's my take. The actual law says (whoa, citing a statute on /.)

[It shall be illegal to] circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work ...

Now, the DRM flags in the official RTMP specification are a technological measure designed to control access to the copyrighted work in question -- specifically, the BBC has the right to say "you can watch this but you can't make a copy"*, which is a power granted to them by their copyright**. Insofar as rtmpDump (or whatever) circumvents that restriction by ignoring the DRM flags in the media, they have violated 12USC1201 et. seq.

One would think there is a difference between a tool used to circumvent copyright, and a tool that fails to enforce the copyright rules.

My reading of the statute is at variance with yours. The statute makes it illegal to circumvent technological measures, which is a breathtakingly broad term. It basically includes anything that controls access.

For example, if a DVD player fails to implement a region code, is that culpable under the DMCA? Or if a FOSS PDF reader does not have the code that checks for unprintable documents, a DMCA violation?

Yes and yes, although the DVD case is much easier since all DVD players have to license the IP and agree to the terms contractually.

I'm trying to get my head around this. If a specification demands certain restrictions, and those are not implemented, then the implementations can be taken down under the DMCA...

So if I make a DRM file system and someone implements a simple compatible version but fails to make the DRM work properly, this is illegal. Thus, anyone opening a MS-Office document with a product that does not respect the DRM rules in there is a criminal.

That was precisely the intent of 12USC120 et. seq. (see ** again) -- to prevent people from implementing versions that circumvent technological measures that control access to the underlying content.

* Yes, I'm well aware of the fact that technologically speaking, such a restriction is impossible to implement. Simply because a right is enforceable does not negate its existence as a right. This is normally understood in the context of traditional property rights -- I have the right to forbid people from littering on my property, but the fact that the wind blows trash around makes that impossible to enforce in practice and yet no one would claim unfettered right to litter onto private property.

** I've tried as much as possible to avoid normative claims for or against the laws in question. This post is a best-effort attempt to describe the state of affairs as they are, not as they should be. I have opinions on how things should be, but it is manifest folly to mix those opinions with a factual question of how things are. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Is-ought_problem.

Re:Copyright law?

[blitzkrieg3]

It's not copyright law, it's the anti-circumvention provision. The reference RTMP implements various restrictions that the content provider can specify, for instance, marking it as streaming only.

Presumably there could still be some open rtmp implemenations that don't allow you to download streaming only content. If that's true, then it's possible that Adobe will make good on their promise to open the protocol to other projects like gnash. As long they make it more than trival to download streaming only content, they are in the clear.

IANAL, and I still find this turn of events disgusting and the DMCA despicable.

Re:Copyright law?

[Jurily]

How can a copyright law be used to take down a protocol implementation?

DMCA against Sourceforge? You know, the one with the mirrors in 13000 different countries. Good luck taking it down.

Re:Copyright law?

[blitzkrieg3]

One would think there is a difference between a tool used to circumvent copyright, and a tool that fails to enforce the copyright rules.

I fail to see a functional difference

For example, if a DVD player fails to implement a region code, is that culpable under the DMCA? Or if a FOSS PDF reader does not have the code that checks for unprintable documents, a DMCA violation?

Yes and yes. Or if a DVD player fails to honor the "no skip" flag for movie trailers.

I'm trying to get my head around this. If a specification demands certain restrictions, and those are not implemented, then the implementations can be taken down under the DMCA...

Correct. In fact, this is the DMCA's sole purpose in life.

Re:Copyright law?

[91degrees]

Is that its primary purpose, and are you importing it, offering it to the public, providing or otherwise trafficing in your brain?

If the answer is yes, there are other parts of copyright that would make you personally liable for infringement.

Re:Copyright law?

[neomunk]

They way you describe it it really sounds like the DMCA can be used to create an Evil Bit standard backed by the full power of legislature...

Re:Copyright law?

[Shagg]

It can't. The open source implementation may or may not count as a circumvention tool, but it clearly is not infringing on Adobe's copyrights, so a DMCA takedown is inappropriate. But, since companies routinely abuse DMCA takedown notices against things that are not under their copyright, and the government looks the other way, they continue to do so.

Re:Copyright law?

[Anonymous Coward]

13000 different countries

I didn't know there were 13 thousand countries. I thought the number was around 200.

Re:Copyright law?

[Anonymous Coward]

But is it circumventing to re-implement something without the controlling mechanism? There's nothing to circumvent since the product didn't ever have the "technological measure" in the first place.

Re:Copyright law?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, this can't be it. I think Adobe is saying that the rtmpdump code actually contains Adobe code, and this is merely a "takedown notice," not an actual complaint of a 1201 violation.

no, if it had adobe code, they would be be sued.

Re:Copyright law?

[PetriBORG]

They way you describe it it really sounds like the DMCA can be used to create an Evil Bit standard backed by the full power of legislature...

That is exactly what the DMCA is for, the creation of the evil bit - see HDTV's magic flag bullshit, or in this case, a stream flag or whatever. Its all really stupid because ultimately displayable content is copyable and thats what they refuse to realize.

Re:Copyright law?

[characterZer0]

Why do they not make the software such that the blocks of code than handle the rights restriction parts of the protocols are nested in an 'if' statement that checks for a BE_EVIL flag? By default the flag would be unset. The flag would be undocumented. But anybody who happened to open a header file and change it before compiling would bypass the rights restrictions.

Re:Copyright law?

[Anonymous Coward]

Now, the DRM flags in the official RTMP specification are a technological measure designed to control access to the copyrighted work in question -- specifically, the BBC has the right to say "you can watch this but you can't make a copy"*, which is a power granted to them by their copyright**.

That's completely untrue. The BBC (and any other copyright owner) is entitled to say you can watch this but can't make a copy unless otherwise permitted by law.

Among the many exceptions to copyright (regularly used by the BBC), is for a bona fide news organization to report the news. There are many other exceptions, such as home recording for personal use, fair use, backups, satire, parody, teaching & education. The fine print varies by jurisdiction.

The trouble with talking about intellectual property is that most people don't know what they are talking about.

Re:Copyright law?

[Wrath0fb0b]

Its all really stupid because ultimately displayable content is copyable and thats what they refuse to realize.

What support do you have for the notion that because you can do something, you should be allowed to do that thing. The whole point of The Law is to restrict what we can but ought not to do -- passing laws that restrict actions that people cannot feasibly do ("It shall be illegal to eat the moon") is pointless. So, while I agree entirely on the technical point (displayable content is, in fact, copyable), I disagree very strenuously with the notion that this point alone proves that consumers ought to be able copy content marked 'display only' (perhaps there are other arguments for such an assertion, of course).

As an example, let me posit this:

What the GPL writers don't realize, of course, is that any program from which the source code is available can be modified and compiled into a closed source program. Because technological measures to prevent such a thing are impossible, I conclude that people that write GPL code are immoral/stupid/evil for insisting on terms that they cannot enforce by technological constraint.

It's a classic is/ought problem -- you start with a factual statement and then derive a normative statement when the two are utterly unconnected.

Re:Copyright law?

[Keeper Of Keys]

RTFM-dump?

Re:Copyright law?

[Wrath0fb0b]

You should be correct is 12USC1201 (et seq) referred to a product but actually, the statutes refers to technological measures. The no-copy-bit in the stream itself is not a product, but definitely a measure.

For the purposes of the DMCA, the measure itself "lives" inside the stream itself, not in the product meant to interpret that stream. A product is conformant if it does not circumvents (aka, respects) that measure and is in violation if it circumvents (aka, does not respect) that measure.

For instance, DeCSS does not circumvent the region-coding of DVD players, it simply implements the CSS algorithm in a way that circumvents the region-coding restriction (which is a "measure that effective controls access to a copyrighted work").

Re:Copyright law?

[dgatwood]

Design patent: even if there were one, it would have expired approximately 10 years ago.

Trademark: even if they are named similarly, the company has to show that the infringing product and mark would cause confusion. The name must also be used in a non-descriptive way (i.e. phrases like "Similar to the game Tetris" are prima facie non-infringing).

Re:Copyright law?

[Wrath0fb0b]

Why do they not make the software such that the blocks of code than handle the rights restriction parts of the protocols are nested in an 'if' statement that checks for a BE_EVIL flag? By default the flag would be unset. The flag would be undocumented. But anybody who happened to open a header file and change it before compiling would bypass the rights restrictions.

Totally unsettled law, but if I may reason by analogy, the FCC allows people to sell kits and instruction on how to build non-conformant devices (jammers and such like), so probably OK. On the other hand, a court might see this as a transparent attempt to circumvent the anti-circumvention (hehehe) provision. In general, the law does not allow you to do something that is functionally equivalent to an illegal act but not covered due to some cosmetic reason.

Of course, any people that

Incidentally, this came up a while back when some folks wanted to make a patch to the Linux kernel and Sun ZFS kernel driver that allows them to be compiled together. Of course, actually compiling them together (technically the link phase) is in violation of license terms and therefore a violation of copyright. Not sure what happened, but I wouldn't be surprised to hear that legal concerns scrapped the project.

Re:Copyright law?

[geminidomino]

How can a copyright law be used to take down a protocol implementation? What copyrights were infringed? This would normally fall under patent law.

Simple. You threaten someone who's spineless, and they cave. More people need to read:

http://thepiratebay.org/legal.php

Yeah, that worked out so well for TPB...

Re:Copyright law?

[Anonymous Coward]

Damn, didn't think it that way.

Okay, another try. So if I release something substantial and encode it such that it works _only_ with DeCSS-based players, it will turn the algorithm from a circumvention device to simply a player of this new format?

Re:Copyright law?

[surmak]

One issue with the DMCA is the way that it is applied to source code. If it was (and maybe it is, if someone could get a reasonable court to hear the case), source code of the following should be perfectly OK:

/* DO not delete the following under the DMCA */
if (flags &DRM_NO_SAVE_BIT) return ERROR;
save();

Re:Copyright law?

[Yaur]

I would guess this is the case. Lots of Adobe's stuff is available online, but requires a license agreement... if the project in question grabbed some of that code and pt it under GPLI could see that being a problem.

Re:Copyright law?

[jonaskoelker]

[It shall be illegal to] circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work ...

[It shall be illegal to] circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work

Now, the DRM flags in the official RTMP specification are a technological measure designed to control access to the copyrighted work in question

How about circumventing technological measures that ineffectively controls access to a work?

Trusting the client can hardly be consider effective unless you control all the clients.

Also, would this make tcpdump a circumvention tool? How about tr and sed (counting rot13 as access control)? How about emacs? It has a mode which assists you breaking substitution ciphers by hand...

Re:Copyright law?

[pieterh]

Here is a comment that maybe explains better:

"Copywriting the game rules, the board design, the card designs, the packaging, maybe a design patent on the board, possibly a utility patent on the game, perhaps a trademark. (Monopoly was an example of a successful game patent)."

I'd assume the game patent expires after 20 years, but can be green-fielded by making changes ever decade or so.

Re:Copyright law?

[Sloppy]

But is it circumventing to re-implement something without the controlling mechanism?

It is circumvention to bypass the access controls (e.g. decrypt) without authorization. And then authorization (theoretically; this is never actually communicated) depends on whether or not the rest of the controlling mechanism is implemented.

If the content copyright holder (and that wouldn't be Adobe, which is why I don't think this is an anti-circumvention situation) likes what you did, they say Yes and you're legal. If they don't like what you did, they say No and you're in violation.

You're not going to find something in the law that clearly explains what technical approaches are legal and what are not. The law doesn't do that; it leaves that to someone else to decide, something I occasionally rant_about/explain, most recently here.

Re:Copyright law?

[CarpetShark]

It's worked out pretty well, considering they're still in business, expect to be in business for another five years while the appeal goes through, have discredited the judge in their case, have launched a new business off the publicity, and have encouraged their supporters to elect people who support them not just at a national level, but at a European level. They're a few guys. Think how far on we'd be now if a few more had taken a similar stance. A critical mass of support for p2p could be reached pretty quickly, if people just stood up to be counted.

Re:Copyright law?

[PetriBORG]

Maybe it is a classic is/ought problem as you put it, but my comment wasn't directed at your factual grandparent comment. A discussion can have more then just fact but also opinions.

In your post you said: this is an unsettled area of law. Since it would be a rather boring discussion without opinion (especially here) I think we can move passed that point eh? Now onto something more interesting...

I disagree very strenuously with the notion that this point alone proves that consumers ought to be able copy content marked 'display only'

To which I would beg the question, why not? The makers of rtmpDump don't seem any different then those of the vcr or camera to me. I don't believe there is any signed agreement by the site and the user to only use the Adobe certified player software and so long as they send the bytes to me they can have no complaint on how I use (display) those bits on my end (as a user). Now with the advent of the DMCA - an atrocious law that should be declared in part or whole as unconstitutional - there is a legal ground for attacking the neo-vcr and to that I say bullocks. With no contractual agreement between any of the parties why the fed. gov. need to get involved with everything? I'm sure the ass hats would like to come after me for my DTV capture devices too, bugger them. I shouldn't even have to utter the words fair use. I welcome the diamond age.

Re:Copyright law?

[mathx314]

Let's say I write a game involving falling shapes with completely different gameplay from Tetris (say, Dr. Mario). Is this infringement? How about a game with gameplay similar to Tetris but five segments? How about a game with different gameplay and the Tetris pieces? How about a game with the same gameplay and shapes, but new graphics, etc? How about a 100% accurate remake of one of the official Tetris games? How about merely redistributing the ROM of the Game Boy version? Clearly some of these are infringement (most notably the last one, which is straight-up theft), while others aren't (a completely new falling-block game, for instance). The others are in a grey area. All it boils down to is that the company with the copyright believes it has more control than you think it should. I'm probably more likely to side with you than the Tetris Company, but they certainly have a right to try to protect against anything they view as a threat, just as you have a right to disagree with them.

Re:Copyright law?

[Anonymous Coward]

Possibly not entirely relevant, but to counter that last quote. If a home user is compiling the source for their own personal use, fair enough. I'd be bat shit crazy to stop them doing something required for their usage of the software...

And, on the other side, I think most people would agree that somebody stripping DRM from content and then distributing it and using it to unfairly make a profit from the work of others should be punished...

So, surely you wouldn't stop someone compiling a program to use it...? Surely you wouldn't try to stop somebody stripping DRM from a file so they can actually play it..... Oh, wait, bugger.

Re:Copyright law?

[Anonymous Coward]

The DMCA is broken...

Well said. I agree completely.

Re:Copyright law?

[Rich0]

I'd think that a lot of this depends on how overt you are about it.

If you had a laundry list of code blocks for stuff that could be disabled and one of them was labeled "disable-save-support" I suspect you'd be OK if the default was that the compliance code was in there by default. If the disable-save-support were the only flag in the file you might have a tougher time of it.

Or, if you want an even grayer example, if you didn't put any IFDEF blocks/etc around the compliance code, but you just put all of it together in a single file where it would be easier to patch you'd probably have almost no problems at all. The code does what it is supposed to and there are no overt instructions on how to disable it. To me that is like a VCR with copy-protection technology where the copy-protect module is easily found inside the case and a simple wiring change would disable it (as opposed to a module embedded in some other vital chip and covered with epoxy). The fact that companies get away with DVD players that simply require some kind of code to bypass region protection indicates that there is a fair amount of leeway. Then again, that is in European countries that might be more sympathetic to region protection if it didn't mean that they had to pay more for a DVD and get it two years after the US market.

Re:Copyright law?

[Frank T. Lofaro Jr.]

1 year in prison can be very damaging to a person mentally and physically, especially if they are not tough and wise to prison life.

Re:Copyright law?

[CarpetShark]

So can having to put up with RIAA-types, telling you you're not allowed to use information, because its special information that can only be written down by their magic writing tools. That way lies insanity.

Re:Copyright law?

[stephanruby]

Tetris is likewise protected by design patents, trademarks, and copyright.

No, that's the thing, Tetris Co is more like SCO than anything else, and that's probably why the parent selected 'Tetris' as an example.

The game Tetris itself is not patented. It can't be. The game was copied/ripped off from a guy in Russia who doesn't even have any kind of relationship with the company claiming now to own the game.

The company that's suing everyone now likes to present itself as the originator, but the only thing it can do in court is try to sue for trademark infringement, or design similarities, to its actual implementation -- which is much tougher to do (especially if you consider the fact that the makers of Tetris-like games are careful enough to avoid calling their game "Tetris" to avoid this issue).

Re:Copyright law?

[Vintermann]

This is incorrect. Monopoly, Scrabble and Risk and so on are mainly protected by trademarks, precisely because while a particular expression of the rules may be copyrighted, the rules themselves need to be patented in order to have protection.

They don't usually bother with patents, because
1. maybe 1/100 of games will succeed enough to warrant it, and you never know which beforehand, and
2. for those 1/100, half will stay popular more than the 20 years of patent protection (Scrabble was patented, it expired)

You can make a game substantially identical to Risk, call it "Global Struggle" or something, and publish it. This will fail miserably, because your customers won't know it's Risk, and you won't be allowed to tell them - in a nutshell why board game companies rely on trademarks more than copyright.

Re:Copyright law?

[Wrath0fb0b]

The makers of rtmpDump don't seem any different then those of the vcr or camera to me.

If you actually read 12USC1201, you'd know that it is illegal to sell a VCR that does not respect the macrovision flag. In the exact same way, there are flags in RTMP media that control access to the underlying content. rtmpDump circumvents those flags.

and so long as they send the bytes to me they can have no complaint on how I use (display) those bits on my end (as a user).

I'm not sure why this is so obvious to everyone as an ethical proposition. If I want to show someone my family vacation photos, I feel like it's quite proper for me to say "look but don't copy" -- same for a draft of a novel I'm writing or a short piece of music I've composed.

Since you have no right in the first place to demand that someone send you a stream of bytes at all, it seems to me quite obvious that you have no right to require that they not attach conditions to those bytes. This reasoning is known in legal circles as a maiore ad minus -- from the stronger unto the weaker. If the BBC can refuse to give you the bytes in at all, they can give you the right to read the bytes but not copy them.

Now with the advent of the DMCA - an atrocious law that should be declared in part or whole as unconstitutional - there is a legal ground for attacking the neo-vcr and to that I say bullocks.

Is the DMCA unconstitutional because it violates a particular provision of the Constitution or just because it's atrocious? People don't like to hear this from lawyers, but the fact is that the Constitution allows many shitty things (it is, after all, manifestly imperfect).

With no contractual agreement between any of the parties why the fed. gov. need to get involved with everything?

They need to get involved because a majority of representatives, duly elected by The People, voted to get them involved.

Re:Copyright law?

[Wrath0fb0b]

Among the many exceptions to copyright (regularly used by the BBC), is for a bona fide news organization to report the news. There are many other exceptions, such as home recording for personal use, fair use, backups, satire, parody, teaching & education. The fine print varies by jurisdiction.

One of the misunderstandings of 'fair use' is that it creates an affirmative right to do the thing in question. It does not. 'Fair use' is an affirmative defense to copyright infringement, it means that if someone sues you for violating their copyright, you can counter by saying "what I did is fair use" -- it functions as an exception to the criminal/civil statute.

What it doesn't do, is create an affirmative obligation on the part of the providers to allow you to make fair use of their works. That is to say, if act X (excerpting for a class) is fair use, they may not sue you for X but they need no help you do X and they may even have technological measures (CSS) that frustrate X.

Yes, it sucks, and yes, this does mean that content providers can use the DMCA + technological measures to frustrate your "right" to fair use. That's the way the law is written, I'd like to have it changed, but for until it gets changed, that's the way it is.

Re:Copyright law?

[Anonymous Coward]

Barak Obama

Re:Copyright law?

[HiThere]

I don't think I trust anything they offered at this point, no matter what they promised. They may not quite be MS, but they're clearly about as honorable.

Of course, this was made clear by the Sklyarov affair, where they first instigated persecution of Sklyarov by the feds, and then denied responsibility. At that point I stopped trusting anything they said. So far this has seemed a wise decision.

Re:Copyright law?

[rtb61]

Well not really FUD. This was obviously a whole marketing tactic targeted at M$ silver light. Adobe wanting to create an atmosphere of goodwill and to keep M$ out made a press announcement they felt would be popular and keep their streaming products in the forefront.

Now as it turned out M$ silver light, turned out to be M$ silverfish, nobody really wants to touch it they just pretty much throw moth balls at it. So Adobe, the greedy little blighters felt they could get away with going back upon their public announcement and try to squeeze as much money out of the protocol as they can.

In this case not only do Adobe leave themselves open to a law suit for any time and effort invested by all other companies and individuals based upon that announcement, they have also created an opening for M$ to squeeze back into that market, now where was that download site for silverfish ;).

Re:Copyright law?

[PetriBORG]

If you actually read 12USC1201, you'd know that it is illegal to sell a VCR that does not respect the macrovision flag. In the exact same way, there are flags in RTMP media that control access to the underlying content. rtmpDump circumvents those flags.

Ah yes this is true and I'd forgotten that, but it was still true for broadcast tv and what is a stream of data if not a broadcast?

[...] I feel like it's quite proper for me to say "look but don't copy" -- same for a draft of a novel I'm writing or a short piece of music I've composed. [...] it seems to me quite obvious that you have no right to require that they not attach conditions to those bytes. This reasoning is known in legal circles as a maiore ad minus -- from the stronger unto the weaker. [...]

And it seems fair to ask look but don't copy, except all a computer does is copy bits all day from one place to another, its just what they do. But I do believe that those systems currently send those bytes without any requirement on my end - which is what I was getting at. There may be an implied requirement but there is not an explicit one that I can see - no login required for Hulu or Youtube content. So while you're right there may be a condition on those bytes, but to my eye the condition seems to be an internet connection. To which you'll say, but the video has a format and that format has a meaning and so we must re-implement macro-vission for the digital age!

And to that I say NO - don't go back to the bad old days. I've got more interesting things to do with that data which I shouldn't have to purchase it 12 times because you can't see past your nose.

Is the DMCA unconstitutional because it violates a particular provision of the Constitution or just because it's atrocious? People don't like to hear this from lawyers, but the fact is that the Constitution allows many shitty things (it is, after all, manifestly imperfect).

You've got a leg up on me here because I personally avoid this crap like the plague usually... But... How about this, the constitution requires that copyright be for a *limited* amount of time, I could argue they are preventing this. Though thats a weak argument I'm out of time at work and my internet is busted at home thanks to Comcast's crappy service.

Re:Copyright law?

[Alsee]

What support do you have for the notion that because you can do something, you should be allowed to do that thing.

People should not be allowed to commit arson, rape, or murder.
The issue, the notion, is that people should have the ability to commit arson, rape, and murder.

That is the insanity going on in this issue. The confusion of crimes vs abilities.

Say someone owns a pile of logs. They are perfectly entitled to post a "flag" on those logs saying "do not burn". They are also perfectly entitled to cover those logs in fire retardant slime making it more difficult to burn those logs. The insanity going on here is the notion that the "do not burn" flag on those signs will actually prevent those logs from being burned, the insanity is the notion that the flag actually has any effect on whether or not it is legal to burn them, the insanity is the notion that speech explaining how to "circumvent" that slime should be criminal, the notion that having the ability to "circumvent" slime should be criminal, the insanity is the notion that the act of "circumventing" the slime to burn the logs should be criminal.

I disagree very strenuously with the notion that this point alone proves that consumers ought to be able copy content marked 'display only'

I most strenuously disagree with you there.

No, I should not burn your logs. That is arson.

Yes, I should have the ability to burn logs with a "do not burn" flag on them.
Yes, I should have the ability to burn logs with fire retardant slime on them.
Yes, I should have the free speech to explain how to "circumvent" fire retardant slime.

You own your logs, you can put flags on them, you can put slime on them, and you can then go ahead and burn them if you like. They are your logs and it is not a crime for you to burn them. It is not a crime for you to ignore those flags, it is not a crime for you to "circumvent" the fire retardant slime.

You can also sell those slimed & do-not-burn-flagged logs.
Once I buy that log, it is not arson for me to burn the particular log I bought.
Just because you sold it with a "do not burn" flag, does not mean it becomes arson for me to burn it.
Just because you sold it with fire retardant slime on it, does not make it a crime for me to burn it.

Someone can publish a book or a movie with a "do not copy" flag. Yes it is illegal for someone to make infringing copies. However it is not copyright infringement for a student to copy sentences out for a school book report, it is not copyright infringement for someone to make a backup copy of software, it is not copyright infringement for someone to format shift copy music to play on a different device, it is not copyright infringement for someone to copy a movie to edit out violent or sexual scenes for private performance to their children. Just because a movie is flagged "do not copy" does not make it copyright infringement for someone to engage in copying.

No, people should not commit infringement.
Yes, people should have the ability to "copy content marked 'display only'".

Someone can publish a book or music or movie in piglatin in an effort to make it more difficult to copy. Yes, they have publish it in funky super-scrambled-piglatin to make it more difficult to copy. That's all DRM is - a somewhat more complex version of piglatin scrambling up the content.

No, people should not infringe that piglatin scrambled content.
Yes, people should have the freedom of speech to explain how piglatin works.
Yes, people should have the freedom of speech to explain how to descramble piglatin.
Yes, people should have the ability to descramble that piglatin.
Yes, people should have the ability to copy that content.
Copying does not equal infringement.
People should not infringe, but yes they should go right ahead and copy when it isn't infringement.

The intent of DRM-scrambling is to prevent copyright infringement. What

Re:Copyright law?

[cdrguru]

With a DVD player it is really quite simple. In order to not violate the DVD Forum patents, you have to license the technology from them. In order to license the technology, you pay a big fee and agree to their terms. Their terms include how a DVD player is supposed to function according to the specifications of a DVD movie.

If you violate the agreement, you are in breech of contract and they can sue to for patent infringement. If you make a DVD player without licensing the technology from DVD Forum, they can come after you for violating their patent. So you either agree to do it their way or you do not do it at all.

Macrovision has pretty much same setup for DVD players - you are required to set the "Macrovision" flag on DVDs or you are in violation of their patent. If you set the flag without licensing their patent, you are in violation. This is what finally got 321 Studios and forced them to cease operations.

Re:Copyright law?

[Dachannien]

The problem there is that your remedy at law for someone violating the anti-circumvention provision is to sue them. Takedown notices don't apply, and an ISP complying with a takedown notice makes no difference in their culpability for hosting the circumvention tools.

Re:Copyright law?

[GumphMaster]

I think the far more interesting question is, "Who has the right of redress?" in the case of alleged circumvention.

Is the presence of an actual work subject to both copyright and technical restrictions required for this clause to be active? It would certainly seem so because the measure, "must effectively control access to a work", implying that a work must be present. If so, then Adobe, as the originator of a method for applying "technological measures", but without any protected copyrighted material involved in an actual infringement, is not in a strong position. The BBC (to use your example) would be the organisation that could seek redress if, and when, "technological measures" are actually used to circumvent such a measure.

Re:Copyright law?

[int19h]

It's ironic how the law system in "the land of the free" is all about money.

In reference to "if the other guy compiles and doesn't challenge them", I think you meant complies. Compilation is fun too though:

gcc -funroll-loops

Re:Copyright law?

[rusl]

I intend to copy and that is a main function of my brain. That is how thinking and ideas work. There is no such thing as "original" ideas, only well hidden sources. Creativity comes from combining existing ideas not re-inventing the wheel.

Re:Copyright law?

[mysidia]

That was precisely the intent of 12USC120 et. seq. (see ** again) -- to prevent people from implementing versions that circumvent technological measures that control access to the underlying content.

No... you forget 1201(c)(3)...

(3) Nothing in this section shall require that the design of, or design and selection of parts and components for, a consumer electronics, telecommunications, or computing product provide for a response to any particular technological measure, so long as such part or component, or the product in which such part or component is integrated, does not otherwise fall within the prohibitions of subsection (a)(2) or (b)(1).

It is not intended to enforce that third-party implementations of protocols or products that interoperate are required to implement protections.

(2)(a) has 2 sets of conditions that have to be met for something to be a "circumvention" device:

(A) is primarily designed or produced for the purpose of circumventing a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title;
(B) has only limited commercially significant purpose or use other than to circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title; or
(C) is marketed by that person or another acting in concert with that person with that person's knowledge for use in circumventing a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title.

In the case of RTMPDUMP (A) is not the case, really; (B) is definitely not the case, and (C) is possible but unlikely.

Re:Copyright law?

[badkarmadayaccount]

Ahhh... Hate to brake it to you, but that isn't a valid option, you need a double dash in front of a multiple letter one. Also, no argument?
And frankly, I don't see a point in this unrolling of loops, that's just a special case of compile-time evaluation of a self-recursive function. If only C wasn't assembly on macros... XD

Re:Copyright law?

[Anonymous Coward]

Creativity comes from combining existing ideas not re-inventing the wheel.

And those existing ideas? Where did they come from?

Re:Copyright law?

[rusl]

The Ocean of ideas that people play with every day. Combining and seperating constantly in a soup. Where does our language come from? You can have a theory or even a religion exclaiming your idea of the origin of ideas - but prosecuting others who have a different notion of history is wrong.

I'm not saying that re-mixing ideas is more creative than creating original works. I'm saying that both are the same act in essence, it's just a question of degree and method and none is better, only in certain circumstances.

Same seven notes and some slag poet's quotes
Stick them together with glue
You can mix a fine cocktail from memories
And pretend what you're drinking is new
But there's nothing that's new under heaven
(Chorus)
There's nothing that hasn't been done
Pour me another double cliche
You can't write a song that's never been sung
Everyone's stealing from someone
Burglars get burgled as well
There's nothing that's new under heaven
There's nothing unique over hell
There's nothing that's new under heaven
(Repeat chorus)
You can't write a song that's never been sung
You can't write a song that's never been sung

Re:Copyright law?

[91degrees]

I'm not sure what your point is? Are you arguing that your brain should be banned because an extremely tenuous interpretation of the DMCA would list it as a device that is able to copy?

You're aware that the DMCA doesn't actually ban devices themselves, and that in law, brains are generally not considered devices aren't you?

Or are you arguing that because some stories have aspects of other stories, wholesale copying should be permitted without any recognition for the original author who may have done considerably more work than the remixer?

Re:Copyright law?

[Rysc]

I'm not sure why this is so obvious to everyone as an ethical proposition. If I want to show someone my family vacation photos, I feel like it's quite proper for me to say "look but don't copy" -- same for a draft of a novel I'm writing or a short piece of music I've composed.

Since you have no right in the first place to demand that someone send you a stream of bytes at all, it seems to me quite obvious that you have no right to require that they not attach conditions to those bytes. This reasoning is known in legal circles as a maiore ad minus -- from the stronger unto the weaker. If the BBC can refuse to give you the bytes in at all, they can give you the right to read the bytes but not copy them.

The difference is that with a digital item the BBC is already giving me a copy. If you give me a copy of a manuscript to a book you've written you might say "Give it back when you're finished." You might also say "Don't publish this." Fine. But you still gave me a copy. Can you say "Don't keep this in a safe"? Can you say "Store only in a filing cabinete"? Can you say "Destroy after reading"? Can you say "Show this to no one else"? These questions are directly comparable to the digital case.

If you stream bytes to me, you gave me a copy. I have a copy. You can say "Store only in RAM", perhaps, or "Destroy after reading", but you can't say "Don't copy"--you already gave me a copy.

Copyright ought not to control when and how I can consume the copy I buy. If I buy your book, can you stipulate that I may only read it in the evening? Once the BBC sells me a copy of their work I ought to be able to view it when I want, independent of whether I have a currently active internet connection. If they want me to view it only immediately they ought to make me sign a contract to that effect. Either way, if I do not do as they wish that ought to be (legally) my problem, not the problem of any tool-maker. Gunsmiths aren't prosecuted for murder when a hand gun they sold shoots someone, neither should circumvention tool authors be prosecuted when tools they made are used for their intended purposes.

Though I do have some problems with copyright as such, I have more problems with the uneven way in which it is 'enforced' when it comes to digital works. Why should the rules be so much more strict for digital than non-digital?

Re:Copyright law?

[Rysc]

I'd mod you plus one million if I could, but today I have no mod points.

Very well put.

Re:Copyright law?

[rusl]

No, I'm saying two things. First was a joke, well actually just chiming in on jdoverholt's joke. That was about brains.

The other is that there is no such thing as an original author/artist/creator. That title just confers more ownership over something either:

A because you actually have done the most work - such as writing a book (that is based on stories you remix from those around you) or

B a legal title confering royalty rights which may or may not have anything to do with how much work you put in.

For instance copyright title can be bought and sold.

Or more relevant, we have lots of artists, as in my example of a pop star who provides only the name and maybe a few lame vocal lines (and the real work is the arrangement, music, editing, fixing the popstar's mistakes, writing the song, etc) who may get total copyright legal title for not very much work... in such a case a remix artist (pirate) does a lot of work and might bring out the really unique creative work (like the hooks in a song) combine that with historical songs that the new pop song draws from -- providing a much more artistically valuable product and history lesson in one package all, lots more work than the copyright holder puts in and all for a lot less pay.

It's also a philosophical stance, irrespective of any examples in the modern piracy debate. Do you believe in original authorship? It touches on the idea of free will to some degree.

Personally I like the idea of free will but I think it comes in the creative moments when we take ownership of the ideas we get from others (the copious knowledge around us that we copy) and then, using that ownership as license to create, we add our own little spin or remix that makes something shine that didn't before.

How much programming is original ideas? Most of it is repetition of simple things, gruntwork, fixing errors... not as fun as that rare case when you really get to solve a new type of problem. I do agree that this work should be valued and paid but the bit about owning the idea to keep it from others is very offensive and contrary to human creativity and (I dare say it) thought mechanisms.

Re:Copyright law?

[djurban]

which is not true at least in europe, as the protocol itself as an idea can not be copyrighted, instead what they are copyrighting is the way it was released/documented i.e. in code or in docs. any of these ways is copyrighted. the licence clause that the protocol itself is copyrighted is obviously invalid.

in short, if you take code from mysql client implementation than you must adhere to the copyright - if you learn how the protocol works and write your own implementation of it, you are not constrained by the copyright.

so much for europe, for the states, well I guess it won't take long until corporation will be allowed to issue we-want-to-rape-your-girlfriend DMCA notice.

Re:Copyright law?

[metacell]

One of the misunderstandings of 'fair use' is that it creates an affirmative right to do the thing in question. It does not. 'Fair use' is an affirmative defense to copyright infringement, it means that if someone sues you for violating their copyright, you can counter by saying "what I did is fair use" -- it functions as an exception to the criminal/civil statute.

Aha, that's different from how it works here in Sweden. Our copyright law simply states that it applies to a number of areas, with a number of exceptions, and anything covered by the exceptions, like making copies for personal use, is simply not illegal. I'm not sure how it works in other European countries.

There's still no obligation on the part of the copyright holders to make it possible for the consumer to exercise those rights, though. They are free to implement whatever copy protection they want. We have even been forced (by the European Union) to implement a law against circumvention similar to the provisions in the DMCA. Fortunately, it looks like it's still legal to circumvent protection that prevents the consumer from enjoying their music or movie on the player of their choice (like a standard MP3 player or a computer with Linux).

Re:Copyright law?

[metacell]

Being in a prison is never a good experience, but Swedish prisons are far more humane and less dangerous than American ones. The attitude to criminals is very different here.

Re:Copyright law?

[metacell]

Claiming copyright on a specification is insane - you can claim copyright on the specific text you have written to describe the specification, but not the specification itself. Specifications may be covered by patents.

Re:Copyright law?

[geminidomino]

Don't get me wrong. I'm rooting for TPB guys all the way. My point was just that all their repeating of "This isn't the US, your laws don't apply here" didn't keep them shielded when our corporate masters spread the money around to their turf.

I personally hope the appeal knocks this shit away, but I don't have that sort of faith in humanity anymore.

Ah, Open Screen

[BadAnalogyGuy]

Next time, before you open source developers get a hardon for the latest "Open" thing, read the fine print.

Just because something says "open" doesn't mean it is so. And just because some press release says "giving developers access", it doesn't mean they are giving it to you.

Why don't they do what they say, say what they mean?

Re:Ah, Open Screen

[jellomizer]

The problem people think Open Source they think GNU. It is not the case. GNU isn't the only Open Source (besides what the GNU people wants you to believe). They all really try to balance Original Developers freedom vs. End User/Supplemental Developer Freedom, based on the values of the licence creators depends where on the scale they are. Open Source Software can be Look but don't touch to Public Domain.

Re:Ah, Open Screen

[larry bagina]

The word "open" had established meanings before open source -- OpenGroup, X/Open, Open Software Foundation, etc. GNU doesn't use the word open, preferring FREE (which has it's own multiple-usage problems). I think "liberty" is less ambiguous.

Re:Ah, Open Screen

[loufoque]

Open-source has a very strict definition from OSI.
It is actually *more* restrictive than free software, unlike what most people believe.

Open-source implies free software, but free software doesn't imply open-source.

Re:Ah, Open Screen

[JStegmaier]

GNU isn't the only Open Source (besides what the GNU people wants you to believe)

Are you a trolling or just ignorant? Why "Free Software" is better than "Open Source"

Re:Ah, Open Screen

[Virak]

Open Source Software can be Look but don't touch

No, it can't. From the OSD:

3. Derived Works

The license must allow modifications and derived works, and must allow them to be distributed under the same terms as the license of the original software.

So much for being open-source friendly...

[javacowboy]

These kinds of shenanigans will turn off the open source community for good. Their half-hearted attempt to court the community by open sourcing their Flex toolkit, while leaving the underlying Flash runtime closed, will do them no good.

Here's hoping JavaFX takes off and open sources the remaining proprietary extensions and the open source community has an RIA framework to rally around.

Re:So much for being open-source friendly...

[binarylarry]

JavaFX could great. But Sun has thus far missed a very, very important reason Flash is popular:

It needs an easy to use, artist friendly IDE tool

Targeting programmers exclusively with a programming language is half the reason why applets have failed to catch on.

The plugins for art are a joke really.

Re:So much for being open-source friendly...

[mea37]

Maybe so, but this isn't new behavior on Adobe's part.

They make a big deal of publishing the PDF spec, but (at least as of five years ago) they publisehd only enough information in the spec that you can write a good PDF reader. They leave out details that you would need to make their reader respond correctly to optimizations like linearized PDF (which you really need to do lengthly web-delivered documents "right") in documents you create, and when you call them on it they say they don't support development of applications that write PDF.

In other words, it's "open" enough to encourage broader use of the format, while maintaining lock-in as the only suitable producer of content in that format.

Re:So much for being open-source friendly...

[EsbenMoseHansen]

These kinds of shenanigans will turn off the open source community for good. Their half-hearted attempt to court the community by open sourcing their Flex toolkit, while leaving the underlying Flash runtime closed, will do them no good.

Here's hoping JavaFX takes off and open sources the remaining proprietary extensions and the open source community has an RIA framework to rally around.

For my money, SVG is (currently) the real hope for a flash killer. It is open, it has momentum, it is original and better in many ways. Plus, it isn't limited to a beginner's language.

On the down side, it *is* XML :/

Re:So much for being open-source friendly...

[demachina]

The interesting thing here is this instantly elevated the fame of rtmpdump and the tools to rip Flash streams. Many more people will now have increased awareness of there existence, go out of there way to cache copies of them, distribute it all over the planet, etc. This is the forbidden fruit dilemma. By trying to stamp out the fire Adobe just turned it in to a wild fire. It also just highlights how completely not open "Open" Screen is.

The /. community really needs to band together and push harder with the help of Apple and Google hopefully to eliminate Adobe's near monopoly on web video. It is totally wrong for one company to have a monopoly on this now critical web infrastructure. I could care less about Flash doing ads and stupid 2D games, but it absolutely needs to be wiped off the face of the earth as the defacto web video player, because Adobe is going to A) abuse their increasing monopoly in web video B) totally fail in providing Flash plugins for embedded devices that have browser plugins now, netbooks, phones, TV's etc. FlashLite is just a joke and Open Screen is no where to be seen a full year after they announced it, it was pure vaporware.

Re:So much for being open-source friendly...

[foniksonik]

What SVG needs is a compiler that will convert the XML to something much more optimized.

Re:So much for being open-source friendly...

[Quantumstate]

But conversely the flash IDE is horrible for coding. It feels like it was designed for graphic design with a bit of coding support stuck in afterwards. In the default setup the text editing area is too small and the debugger is terrible. It is hard to make it throw an error. Back when I tried it a couple of years ago it would not error when I tried accessing a property of an object which did not exist. I just moved to the open source compiler (mtasc) and a decent external text editor for all of the code.

Re:So much for being open-source friendly...

[Hurricane78]

Uuumm... Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought PDF already was an open standard long ago, and Adobe just had one of a ton of readers out there. So The only things could be strange and stupid extensions, like JavaScript, etc.

Re:So much for being open-source friendly...

[mikerz]

AS3 was a big improvement on this, you are describing AS2 issues. If you want to use the Flash IDE for programming just don't put your code on keyframes. It's still the best way to manage stage assets with code, though some people like to use Flash IDE & Flex Builder in Eclipse simultaneously

Re:So much for being open-source friendly...

[mea37]

"Correct me if I'm wrong"

Ok. You're wrong. PDF is an Adobe proprietary format. There are other readers because (as I noted above) they publish enough spec to let you write readers. Acrobat Reader is the canonical reader implementation, and other Acrobat products are the canonical software for writing PDF.

Because there are other readers, and because those readers presumably don't know whatever magic incantation makes Acrobat Reader recognize linearization (which is a not an extension but rather is a core part of the spec), you could write PDF-producing software that might work 100% well with those other readers. But in the corporate world, that's not good enough; when a business publishes something as PDF, it needs to work wtih Acrobat.

Re:So much for being open-source friendly...

[VGPowerlord]

So, wait, you're saying that ISO 32000-1:2008 isn't the complete spec?

Re:So much for being open-source friendly...

[BitZtream]

It has it, they call it gzip. Nice standardized binary blob for you, that fortunately still can reproduce the full version.

Sure it has to be expanded to full text so most processing engines can deal with it, but thats trivial and it doesn't have to be stored in RAM, just turned into whatever the apps internal format needs to be, typically a DOM tree.

Why exactly does it need to be 'shrunk' to something else? It already is essentially 'byte code' by its nature.

You need to specify some reason why it needs to be 'optimized' other than 'it needs to be optimized'.

Re:So much for being open-source friendly...

[spitzak]

The wikipedia page says the GPL "pdfopt" program can do this linearization.

Re:So much for being open-source friendly...

[mea37]

Ok, one more time for the people in the cheap seats:

Unless they have improved the detail of the spec considerably in the past 5 years, you can write a program that produces documents that conform fully to the spec, yet which Acrobat Reader will not treat properly. Hence the de facto definition of PDF as understood by most of the business world (interoperability with Acrobat) is a subset of the "standard" definition in the published spec. According to my conversations with their tech support, this is by design, as they only want you to use the spec to write PDF reader applications.

Does that mean the ISO document is not the complete spec? Define "complete spec".

Re:So much for being open-source friendly...

[mea37]

A lot of tools can "do" linearization. That's not the question. The question is, once you've "done" linearization, and you browse to the resulting file, will the Adobe plug-in handle page-on-demand requests properly? In other words, if I jump straight to page 1,000 will I immediately download the byte range for page 1,000 (the correct behavior linearization was designed to support), or will I have to wait while pages 1 through 999 download first?

With files produced in Acrobat, it works fine. With files produced by anything but Adobe tools, I've never seen the reader behave "correctly". At best it downloads all pages in order and is nice enough to display any page it's gotten to. As of 5 years ago, Adobe would not help with this matter, because they did not want tools other than their own authoring PDF. This is not speculation - it is what they told us. Nor were any of the "experts" we could find outside Adobe knowledgable enough to solve the problem at the time.

So does pdfopt actually work 100% properly? I don't know, if I get a chance to test it I will. Maybe the spec is in better shape today than 5 years ago, or maybe someone figured out the secret and/or got lucky.

None of which has anything to do with the point: Adobe's fast-and-loose understanding of "open" is very, very old news.

Re:So much for being open-source friendly...

[Anonymous Coward]

Ok, you're wrong. What part of "formerly a proprietary format, PDF was officially released as an open standard on July 1, 2008" don't you understand? Oh, maybe the clock on your computer was wrong and you thought it was May 22, 2008.

Re:So much for being open-source friendly...

[Anonymous Coward]

You are functionally wrong. The "PDF standard" as published lacks critical information and is functionally defective.

Re:So much for being open-source friendly...

[spitzak]

Okay I understand now.

Yes Adobe is probably (intentionally or not) detecting whether the file was written by their own software and only speeding up the linearization in that case.

I'm guessing that other PDF readers can be faster with these linear files, and speed up on both Adobe's output and the output of these other tools? Or is it more like nobody else has figured out how to take advantage of linearized files to speed themselves up?

Re:So much for being open-source friendly...

[badkarmadayaccount]

No, what SVG needs is a descent I[Development]/[Authoring]E, integrated with a nice[r than JavaScript] language and API/library collection. Adobe is one of those "complete solutions" companies, at least when it comes to Flash.

Re:So much for being open-source friendly...

[Anonymous Coward]

Huh?

From wikipedia:

Formerly a proprietary format, PDF was officially released as an open standard on July 1, 2008, and published by the International Organization for Standardization as ISO 32000-1:2008.[2]

Will we get to see the request?

[drinkypoo]

I want to see the request so I can find out whether sourceforge was justified in "complying". Did they just knee-jerk? If so, I imagine (and hope) that a lot of developers will be leaving for someplace less likely to terminate their hosting over nonsense. Until/unless we see the request we won't know about that part, all we'll know is what we already knew, that Adobe is evil. Their response to piracy has been to steadily increase the amount of DRM, which of course gets broken almost immediately every time they "improve" it, so they're only harming their customers. So stupid, so very stupid.

Re:Will we get to see the request?

[stonewallred]

Adobe products are not free as in like beer? I thought they put all those photoshop/acrobat/publisher/etc torrents up as advertising.

Re:Will we get to see the request?

[Misch]

I want to see the request so I can find out whether sourceforge was justified in "complying". Did they just knee-jerk?

I wouldn't classify it as "knee-jerk", but it's essentially what the law calls for. Read up on the "Safe Harbor" provisions of the DMCA. Basically, it is "shoot first and ask questions later".

Re:Will we get to see the request?

[LaminatorX]

Under the law, SourceForge is compelled to honor the request to remove the user's content unless and until the takedown letter is contested by the user. If the user contests the notice (basically sending a formal letter stating "Nuh-uh"), SourceForge can put the content back up. If Adobe then proceeds to litigation or files a criminal complaint, a judge might order SourceForge to pull the content, or not.

This is of course my layman's understanding of the law, not legal advice.

Re:Will we get to see the request?

[asdfndsagse]

your should also realize that sourceforge is the owner of slashdot. This potential CoI should have been stated in the lead. Sourceforge does not want to give up its immunity, however it should at least make note that the takedown was due to the DMCA, rather than just saying "Invalid project"

http://sourceforge.net/projects/rtmpdump/

Re:Will we get to see the request?

[Anonymous Coward]

really. you expect a free isp to hire a lawyer and stand in front of you?

I'm a hosting ISP and if there's a problem with one my (paying) customers' enemies, I tell them good luck and get out of the way. Not my problem.

Re:Will we get to see the request?

[scribblej]

As a third-party, Sourceforge is pretty much legally required to "knee-jerk." If the authors want to file a counter-complaint then that is their job, not SourceForge's.

red5

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.osflash.org/red5

Seriously, a very good implementation of the non-encrypted protocols complete with samples. And notice that packages like dimdim uses red5 for flash videoconferencing.

Plus for Theora

[should_be_linear]

I tought Theora is useless on the web, given Flash is becoming open, but now I think standard way of video streaming (based on Theora) is *definetly* needed. I don't understand why project was deleted from SF? I mean, DMCA is used only in USA, so I, plus couple of other people, don't give a flying fuck about that. Why we follow least common denominator way of doing things, like accepting software patents, DMCA-shit ... whats next, integrating Chinese internet filters (thats valid law, just like DMCA) right into Kernel? How about reverse approach: making special (crippled) editions of software projects for countries with screwed up laws.

Re:Plus for Theora

[sopssa]

SourceForge is based and hosted in USA, so they have to follow USA laws.

Re:Plus for Theora

[MrMr]

DMCA is used only in USA
Must be thanks to the best legal system money can buy.
As an old Adobe hater I try to avoid their stuff, but I downloaded a source tarball for good measure anyway.

Re:Plus for Theora

[tepples]

I don't understand why project was deleted from SF? I mean, DMCA is used only in USA

SourceForge, Inc. is headquartered in Mountain View, California, USA.

so I, plus couple of other people, don't give a flying fuck about that.

Then host your projects in your own country, not on a U.S. server.

Re:Plus for Theora

[FishWithAHammer]

now I think standard way of video streaming (based on Theora) is *definetly* needed

You clearly don't think very well. Theora is shit. (Vorbis, on the other hand, is very nice.) When you have an alternative that is actually competitive, then you can talk about what standards are "definetly" needed.

Re:Plus for Theora

[pavon]

Even if flash opened up completely, all the codecs it uses for video are still proprietary, and Adobe has no leverage to change that even if they wanted to. So at best opening up Flash removes the need for SVG and the new HTML 5 webapp features. It doesn't change the need for an open video codec at all.

Re:Plus for Theora

[msimm]

How about reverse approach: making special (crippled) editions of software projects for countries with screwed up laws.

As a US citizen I have to say there's a brilliance in this suggestion. People don't like being limited, but they particularly don't like limitations when they're aware of them. Kind of like the encryption export laws we had for a while, where a US citizen could feel content/smug believing that they had access to the better encryption (which I'm sure is absolute hogwash, but every war is for the hearts and minds).

Re:Plus for Theora

[Draek]

Enjoy.

Re:Plus for Theora

[FishWithAHammer]

Oh, please. Even that summary acknowledges that PSNR has always been overly generous toward Theora and that they tested a grand total of one clip.

Theora is big, relatively ugly, and has a habit of introducing artifacting. No, thank you.

Anyone know where to find rtmpdump 1.6?

[jdb2]

You get get the rtmpdump v1.5a source here, although this is not the latest version. AFAIK v1.6 was the last version to be released but it seems to have disappeared from the Web, even on non-sourceforge-affiliated sites.

jdb2

Re:Anyone know where to find rtmpdump 1.6?

[jdb2]

You get get the

"You can get the" that is. ;)

Re:Anyone know where to find rtmpdump 1.6?

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.megashare.com/935955

Re:Anyone know where to find rtmpdump 1.6?

[CaptSolo]

http://www.megashare.com/935955

That's a great find, thanks.

Re:Anyone know where to find rtmpdump 1.6?

[lkcl]

http://lkcl.net/rtmp

torrent also available.

Re:Anyone know where to find rtmpdump 1.6?

[ChrisMaple]

Good grief, it's source code. You can look at it to see if there's anything wrong.

Re:Anyone know where to find rtmpdump 1.6?

[Anonymous Coward]

You can get all the rtmpdump source and binaries for Windows, MacOSX and Linux in this zip file. I managed to get these before they got taken down.
rtmpdump-all-versions-Source-and-binaries-Linux_MacOSX_Windows_v1.3d-v1.6.zip

Not surprising. It was in the license

[Anonymous Coward]

Is this really that surprising? Adobe's press release when they announced the RTMP spec even says, "To benefit customers who want to protect their content, the open RTMP specification will not include Adobeâ(TM)s unique secure RTMP measures, nor will the license that accompanies the specification allow developers to circumvent such measures."

So wasn't the takedown notice sent because they circumvented what the license said they couldn't?

Re:Not surprising. It was in the license

[Anonymous Coward]

license != law, so why was a law used to enforce something that isn't a law?

Re:Not surprising. It was in the license

[Anonymous Coward]

Wait a second. Is that really saying that the open specification does not include the security measures that are required in order to not violate the license of the specification?

"You may have this cookie. But if you eat it, we'll sue you."

Re:Not surprising. It was in the license

[durjakebe]

As I understand it, it's saying that the open specification makes no claim that using the specification will allow you to access content provider X's content. It also says you are free to use the DRM parts of the spec to protect your own content, and that others cannot reverse engineer or otherwise circumvent it.

Adobe's broken, Fox it

[Anonymous Coward]

We need a better alternative to Adobe PDF Reader on Windows if this is how Adobe behaves.
Adobe PDF is only popular beacause it is an open standard.

Re:Adobe's broken, Fox it

[Anonymous Coward]

This has nothing to do with PDF. Adobe also makes Photoshop, why don't you comment on that too?

Re:Adobe's broken, Fox it

[Anonymous Coward]

No, that's grand. I use GIMP.

Re:Adobe's broken, Fox it

[Anonymous Coward]

Which is dog shit compared to Photoshop.

Inaccurate summary

[erroneus]

"Adobe is no stranger to the DMCA..." That part is true. But the rest isn't true enough. It would be more accurate to say "...because they helped write it and pay for its implementation."

Ah, Open Your Wallet

[Nick Driver]

That's what they want "open" to actually mean.

where is DMCA valid?

[RiotingPacifist]

Can somebody they just setup pirateforge in Sweden to host these projects?

Re:where is DMCA valid?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sweden has had its own DMCA since 2005.

Re:where is DMCA valid?

[metacell]

Yes, but it isn't by far as bad as the american one. It only outlaws circumvention of "pure" copy protections; it's still legal to circument protections that prevent you from playing content on, say, Linux or your favourite MP3 player.

The Swedish counterpart to the DMCA doesn't allow the courts to issue shutdown orders, either. Pirate Bay went down temporarily because their computers were seized as evidence, but it went up again very quickly.

And the lesson is...

[mea37]

Regardless of the legal merits (or lack thereof) of their claims, and regardless of the general sleeze factor, there's really one lesson we should all learn if we didn't know it already:

A corporation, legal euphamisms aside, is not a person. You can't rely on its sense of honor, even if you think it believed it was making a true promise. You can't rely on it to have a single, consistent mind on any given issue. In short, a "promise" from a corporation means zero (perhaps less if the "promise" was in a press release). Licenses and contracts (in verifiable form - i.e. written and signed) can mean something, but without one you have no shield from liability if the company decides it didn't really promise what you think it promised.

Re:And the lesson is...

[Wrath0fb0b]

A corporation, legal euphamisms aside, is not a person. You can't rely on its sense of honor, even if you think it believed it was making a true promise. You can't rely on it to have a single, consistent mind on any given issue. In short, a "promise" from a corporation means zero (perhaps less if the "promise" was in a press release).

The same is true for people. People lie, they renege and they do dishonorable things. You can't rely on them not to change their mind or to keep their promises.

Licenses and contracts (in verifiable form - i.e. written and signed) can mean something, but without one you have no shield from liability if the company decides it didn't really promise what you think it promised.

(1) Not quite right as a legal matter -- see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estoppel#Promissory_estoppel, at least in common-law countries like the US.

(2) Also true of people.

Maybe I'm just a cynic, but I've seen just as nasty and noble behavior from individuals and corporations alike.

Re:And the lesson is...

[mea37]

I agree that you're being cynical, but you partially have a point.

What I should have said is, you can never rely on a corporation to stick to a promise. There are people I trust; there are not corporations I trust in that sense. Corporate inconsistency isn't like a person "changing his mind"; a corporation can hold two contradictory views concurrently in a way most people cannot, because it is not a single person with a single mind.

As for promissary estoppel... against a corporation? I do wish you luck with that, but I don't hold out much hope.

Re:And the lesson is...

[Wrath0fb0b]

What I should have said is, you can never rely on a corporation to stick to a promise. There are people I trust; there are not corporations I trust in that sense. Corporate inconsistency isn't like a person "changing his mind"; a corporation can hold two contradictory views concurrently in a way most people cannot, because it is not a single person with a single mind.

There are corporations that I trust to varying degrees. I let Google host all my personal mail, calendar and contact information (I have a mirror) even knowing that they could read it all and use it to reset my bank, credit card and etrade account password and basically wreck my life. There are corporations that I trust because I know the principals.

And there are many people I know that hold two contradictory views at the same time -- I do myself! I am Large, I contain Multitudes (Walt Whitman).

As for promissary estoppel... against a corporation? I do wish you luck with that, but I don't hold out much hope.

I have successfully asserted that a dental surgeon that told me that a particular operation was covered by my insurance was then barred by promissory estoppel from charging me for it. In the end, we settled for me paying him what I would have paid as a deductible. One anecdote doesn't make data, but promissory estoppel is alive an well in common law countries.

Re:And the lesson is...

[mea37]

"And there are many people I know that hold two contradictory views at the same time -- I do myself"

When writing for a comment format, I keep my text concise, so you would do well to pay attention to each word's function.

I didn't say that a person can't hold contradictory views. I said a corporation can hold contradictory views in a way most people cannot. If you hold contradictory views in the same sense that a corporation can, you should seek professional help.

Re:And the lesson is...

[Daniel Dvorkin]

The same is true for people. People lie, they renege and they do dishonorable things. You can't rely on them not to change their mind or to keep their promises.

With people you can make individual judgements. You know Alice tends to keep her word and Bob doesn't, so when Alice tells you she'll do something, you can count on it getting done, while if Bob says the same thing, you assume it won't. Sure, Alice might fall down every once in a while and Bob might occasionally exceed your expectations, but you've got a track record to bet on in both cases.

With corporations, you don't have this. A particular corporation might always have been honest and upright before, but all it takes is one employee, one anonymous suit, to make an amoral decision, and all of a sudden anyone who counted on the corporation to do what it said it was going to do is having a really bad day. You'll never know who that suit was; all you'll know about is the effect of the decision. And there's not a damned thing you can do about it, because they have armies of lawyers to back their MBAs up. Which they will do, even if many of the people who work for the corporation, individually, know that what the corporation is doing is wrong.

I wish the project would post Adobe's letter

[Anonymous Coward]

Adobe has got to be somehow complaining that they actually are a copyright holder of the code itself, i.e. that rtmpdump is a derived work or contains some code written by Adobe. Nothing else makes sense, unless the takedown notice was just intended as intimidation, like Apple's fraudulent looks-like-a-dmca-notice-but-isn't letter to people who try to talk to iPods.

copyright != patent

[Anonymous Coward]

It's funny how you answer a question about copyright law with a link to a site that talks about patents.

Do you have anything, you know, *useful* to add to this discussion, or are you only interested in demonstrating your lack of reading comprehension?

Get It While It's Hot

[blitzkrieg3]

sf.net may have taken it down, but the other sites are still up and running. Here are some download links:

get-flash-videos
index of rtpdump-1.3a, including source rpms
download page for getiplayer
linux/unix tarball

Re:Get It While It's Hot

[Anonymous Coward]

Source at:

ftp://ftp.usa.openbsd.org/pub/OpenBSD/distfiles/rtmpdump-v1.5.tar.gz

Can't find 1.6 tho.

Re:Get It While It's Hot

[blitzkrieg3]

awesome, good find.

Re:Get It While It's Hot

[base3]

Thank you, Good Sir. Grabbed.

Re:Get It While It's Hot

[Anonymous Coward]

get-iplayer is not under danger, though.

Most probably it is rtmpdump (due to them implementing RTMPE protocol recently) and it is difficult if possible at all to get the source of its latest version (they say there was v1.6).

Would be great if someone could point to the source of v1.6 (version 1.5a can be found in some places on the net)

Re:Get It While It's Hot

[base3]

Thanks, grabbed this as well.

Re:Get It While It's Hot

[Anonymous Coward]

Source for v1.6 can be found here:

http://www.megashare.com/935955

Re:Get It While It's Hot

[Anonymous Coward]

1.6:
http://www.megashare.com/935955

just about as good as 1.5[a] but fixes a timestamp handling bug

patentarcade.com != all patents all the time

[tepples]

It's funny how you answer a question about copyright law with a link to a site that talks about patents.

The site talks about patents. The same site also talks about copyrights. Did you click the link, or did you just read the domain name and assume that the site talks only about patents and not about copyrights?

chillingeffects?

[asdfndsagse]

The project is down here google cache still up.

Does sourceforge (slashdot's partner site) publish DMCA requests to chilling effects. Allow, I am highly disappointed that it just says "Invalid project" instead of saying that it was removed per the DMCA. Learn something from google sourceforge!

Open?

[FrostedWheat]

So it's open, as in a mouse trap... ?

Re:Open?

[Anonymous Coward]

Open as in the hole that Adobe is digging for themselves. They don't have a single irreplaceable product. The only reason they still exist is that no one finds them too annoying yet.

Re:Open?

[Anonymous Coward]

Turn the crank, snap the plank,
Kick the boot, down the shoot,
Rub-a-dub-dub, into the tub,
Flip the man, into the pan,
The trap is set, down comes the net!

I probably got the middle part wrong.

alternate sf.net

[Anonymous Coward]

That's a brilliant idea :)

Remind of sites that host articles that are taken off wikipedia. Also makes one think of WikiLeaks, as a site which hosts content that some may want to see removed.

Further evidence that Adobe is Evil

[ElmoGonzo]

As if any was needed. The splash screen took over input while waiting an eon for the plugin to load should have been a capital offense from the outset.

Re:Further evidence that Adobe is Evil

[josath]

Huh? I think you have Adobe and Sun confused. Flash is the one that loads instantly, Java is the one that locks up your entire browser for 5-10 seconds with the Java splashscreen while you wait for the JVM to load.

Re:Further evidence that Adobe is Evil

[Pop69]

Not flash or java, acrobat, the other one that caps out your cpu to show you a startup screen loading plugins

Re:Further evidence that Adobe is Evil

[Frenchman113]

I believe he is referring to the old Adobe PDF Reader plugin (new ones are not as evil).

the Dominate/Manipulate Consumer Act:

[Anonymous Coward]

I would just like to say that the Dominate/Manipulate COnsumer Act is a conspiracy against users and developers of open/free software. It was no doubt bought and paid for by corporations and groups like the MPAA. That is why I call this the land of digital oppression. I can't even watch my own freaking DVDs.

Unimportant (was:Copyright law?)

[Lead Butthead]

The important thing is Adobe has more lawyers than you, and can bankrupt you from legal bills alone.

Not entirely correct

[Anonymous Coward]

You're not entirely correct. You may be right for the banner advertisements and perhaps even for the browser games, although creating most those involves significant programming in itself so I doubt that. But Flash is used nowadays mostly for things like YouTube, and it is used because it provides streaming in-browser video in a format that cannot be ripped by the average user. It's that simple.

Backup of rtmpdump-1.6

[Anonymous Coward]

For those looking, this is the most recent release of rtmpdump (1.6): http://www.megashare.com/935955

You can also find 1.5a here: http://www.easy-share.com/1905295810/rtmpdump-v1.5a.tar_1.gz (http://www.badongo.com/file/15056784)

They have just replaced rtmpdump support in a new version with flvstreamer, but it has no RTMPE support. This encrypted RTMP support is new in rtmpdump 1.5 and is probably what got them DMCA'd in the first place. You can find 1.3 and 1.4 on a couple sites but those versions do not have the critical RTMPE support.

Now I am furious

[hubert.lepicki]

What these stupid guys at Adobe think they are doing? Well, I refuse since now to embed any flash video on any site. Go to hell and burn there, bastards.

Fuck DMCA, because..

[Anonymous Coward]

Ignore DMCA, host the project in another country free of sucks stupid laws!

torrent of rtmpdump 1.6 available

[lkcl]

a copy of rtmpdump 1.6 is available here:
http://lkcl.net/rtmp

also a torrent has been made available at the same location.

get_iplayer has been removed because it encourages people to download copyrighted material. i'm interested in ensuring that implementations of RTMP and understanding of this protocol are available.

Re:torrent of rtmpdump 1.6 available

[hyc]

Except, downloading copyrighted material isn't inherently wrong, by any definition, let alone illegal.

I was using an earlier version of get_iplayer's hulu support to catch up on TV shows that I'd missed recently. I'm also a cable TV subscriber - I've already paid for the right to receive and view these programs in my home. I've never signed any agreement that dictated how / in what form I can receive those programs, or whether I can record them or watch them later or not. They have my license fee, so now they should shut up and let me watch the material I already paid for.

Downloading for the purpose of unlicensed distribution - that's a separate matter. But that's not what I'm doing, and just trying to discourage people from downloading is misguided.

No worries mate

[msimm]

Oracle will get you right sorted! They've got a legacy to live up to you know.

Usage problem: copyright vs copywrite

[tepples]

Copywriting the game rules

I stopped reading at word one. The verb "to copywrite" means "to write promotional text", not "to secure copyright in". In Berne Convention member states, anything copywritten is automatically copyrighted, but confusing the two words is still a good indicator that one has not thoroughly read the copyright statute (Title 17, United States Code). Even if George H. Morgan is a professional engineer and a patent agent, that doesn't automatically make him knowledgeable in copyright law. Besides, a publication from the Copyright Office explains that per 17 USC 102(b), copyrighting a game's manual protects only the expression of the rules in the manual, not the method of operation embodied in the manual.

the board design, the card designs, the packaging

Aspects of the board design dictated by the game rules, such as that there are 40 spaces around the outside of a square, are uncopyrightable per the doctrines of merger and scenes a faire. Anything else, such as the background around the playfield, gets changed in clones.

I'd assume the game patent expires after 20 years, but can be green-fielded by making changes ever decade or so.

It would have expired in 2005 had Pajitnov and Elorg applied for one in 1985. But as I said, a search of USPTO's database turns up nothing assigned to Elorg or Tetris Holding.

Re:Usage problem: copyright vs copywrite

[pieterh]

"Copywriting" indeed... I should have caught that.

So Tetris are using copyright law, like Apple did in their look and feel lawsuit (which they lost as you surely know), rather than patent law, which is what firms would probably use today.

Re:Usage problem: copyright vs copywrite

[Crayon Kid]

No dude, it just means some people confuse "right" with "write", because they sound the same. Silly mistake to make, sure, but neither an attempt to overthrow the Berne Convention, nor a signal for the hunt to begin for the skin of their ears.

Speaking of which, are there "WYSIWYG" languages, where there's a clear one-to-one match between written and spoken words?

Re:Usage problem: copyright vs copywrite

[tepples]

Speaking of which, are there "WYSIWYG" languages, where there's a clear one-to-one match between written and spoken words?

Spanish comes close; Korean comes closer.

Re:Usage problem: copyright vs copywrite

[metacell]

Speaking of which, are there "WYSIWYG" languages, where there's a clear one-to-one match between written and spoken words?

There certainly are. It's sometimes called "phonetic spelling". Finnish is one of the languages which has it, and It even goes as far as using double letters for long sounds and single letters for short sounds. (A long 'a' sound is spelled 'aa', for example.) Finns also make sure to adapt all loanwords to their own spelling rules.

English has unusually complicated spelling, due to loaning a very large number of words from French, Latin and other languages without standardizing their spellings.

German doesn't have a one-to-one correspondence between letters and sounds, but the same sounds are always spelled the same way. For example, the "eu" combination in German words like "Deutsch" is always pronounced like the "oi" in the English word "coin", and vice versa.

Non respect vs circumvention, 17 USC 1201 (k)

[Frank T. Lofaro Jr.]

OK if that is true why did the DMCA add a provision mandating Macrovision be respected by VCRs? 17 USC 1201(k)

If one's circuitry is by its nature not disrupted by Macrovision, it must be deliberately crippled so it will be.

That would be redundant if your interpretation is correct, since not implementing protection would be circumventing it.

Congress including 1201 (k) specifically indicates that they felt it necessary to specifically mandate that a certain system for protection be made to work.

That would seem to indicate that they felt that non-circumvention does not mean a product is required to implement protection (otherwise, no need for 1201 (k) since not respecting Macrovision would already by illegal).

Legislative intent goes a long way in the courts, so simply ignoring a do-no-copy flag might not be ruled illegal, until Congress passes an equivalent to 1201 (k) which covers such a system, however, a program which unsets that flag would be illegal.

Of course, the court could rule illogically, and you could have a mult-million dollar judgement against you and/or a multi-year prison sentence...

17 USC 102(b): No copr. on methods of operation

[tepples]

None of this is legal advice; it's just my impression of the exclusive rights in falling block games:

Let's say I write a game involving falling shapes with completely different gameplay from Tetris (say, Dr. Mario). Is this infringement?

The Tetris Company claims exclusive rights to "trade dress" over nine elements of the game. One is the use of tetrominoes (spelled "Tetriminos" by The Tetris Company) as game pieces; the other eight are present in Dr. Mario Online Rx, developed by Arika and published by Nintendo with no mention of Tetris in the opening credit screen. But then, Nintendo has a patent on the rules of Dr. Mario; Tetris doesn't have one on the rules of Tetris.

How about a game with different gameplay and the Tetris pieces?

One example of such a game would be Tetris 2 also called Tetris Flash, published by Nintendo under license from Elorg (now part of Tetris Holding). The Dr. Mario patent appears to read on Tetris 2. Another would be Zoda's Revenge: StarTropics II published by Nintendo, which has tetromino-shaped "tetrads" as artifacts to be collected much like the Dragon Balls of the anime series Dragon Ball. A third is Blockout also called Geom Cube published by Technos, which uses tetracubes (most of which are tetrominoes extruded by one unit) to be packed into 3x3 or 5x5 cell planes.

How about a game with the same gameplay and shapes, but new graphics, etc?

This is the situation of most clones, such as KSirtet and Gnometris, and this is the situation under legal dispute. But I think 17 USC 102(b) makes the gameplay uncopyrightable as a "process" and "method of operation".

How about a 100% accurate remake of one of the official Tetris games?

Some clones are reskinnable to resemble a classic Tetris game almost to the pixel, though the author doesn't distribute such infringing skins.

The guy in Russia works for Tetri-SCO-mpany now

[tepples]

Tetris Co is more like SCO than anything else

In fact, you can't spell The TetriS COmpany without SCO.

The game was copied/ripped off from a guy in Russia who doesn't even have any kind of relationship with the company claiming now to own the game.

The guy in Russia who invented Tetris was Alexey Pajitnov. An interview with Henk Rogers explains that Pajitnov and Rogers make up two-thirds of a committee in The Tetris Company that maintains the design document that defines modern Tetris.

(especially if you consider the fact that the makers of Tetris-like games are careful enough to avoid calling their game "Tetris" to avoid this issue)

But could a lawyer connect Tetris to tetanus to Lockjaw?

Blatantly wrong.

[Frenchman113]

Flash supports three video formats:

H.264, VP6, H.263 (Sorenson).

H.264 and H.263 are the more commonly used formats and are in fact fully open. In fact, you can download the full H.264/MPEGAVC specification from MPEG's website.

Re:Blatantly wrong.

[pavon]

Yeah, you can read them. And if you implement the codec they sue your ass. That isn't open.

rtmpdump v1.6 source

[Anonymous Coward]

I did some searching...

http://www.megashare.com/935955
http://rapidshare.com/files/236101278/rtmpdump-v1.6.tar.gz.html
http://www.zshare.net/download/60383665c01408f5/
http://www.easy-share.com/1905319794/rtmpdump-v1.6.tar.gz
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=629UB1NJ
http://www.badongo.com/file/15081481
http://www.2shared.com/file/5902504/f5708f31/rtmpdump-v16tar.html
http://netload.in/dateio0z1VIO2eo/rtmpdump-v1.6.tar.gz.htm
http://www.load.to/uKKvOziTOP/rtmpdump-v1.6.tar.gz
http://www16.zippyshare.com/v/24994156/file.html

Gnashing of teeth over patents

[tepples]

H.264 and H.263 are the more commonly used formats and are in fact fully open.

Fully open isn't enough. Free software such as Gnash can't implement fully open standards unless they are also royalty-free.

Work, pay

[rusl]

Often the artists doing the "pirate" remixes are doing more work, and citing their sources more honestly, than the people they are supposedly copying from. For example Pop music is always derivative and I think we can all agree there is a lot of it that is made via more money and hype than anything else... And that "Original" work is often ghostwritten by underpaid artists... versus hardworking volunteer artists who bring to light the merit of the real hidden creative work for instance sampling some pop star alongside work it is derivative of such that the public can appreciate the art rather than the pop-star who would otherwise get the credit.

Is it a matter of "Allows" or "Does"?

[Zygamorph]

I wonder what would happen if you implemented the software so that whether it obeyed the various DRM related flags was a matter of either execution flags or a settings file. You would be distributing software and settings that obey the "rules", if those pesky users want to change the settings to do something else then that's their problem.

Re:Is it a matter of "Allows" or "Does"?

[shentino]

Sadly if you throw enough lawyers at the devs it becomes a moot point when they settle and/or back down.