Gentoo Archives: gentoo-dev

From: Jon Lech Johansen <jon@××××××××.net>
To: gentoo-dev@g.o
Subject: Re: [gentoo-dev] avifile ebuild requires divx4linux and win32codecs on x86
Date: Fri, 25 Apr 2003 01:08:31
Message-Id: 20030425030200.A31098@nanocrew.net
In Reply to: Re: [gentoo-dev] avifile ebuild requires divx4linux and win32codecs on x86 by Todd Berman
1 On Thu, Apr 24, 2003 at 02:14:07PM -0400, Todd Berman (tberman@×××××××××.org) wrote:
2 > Honestly, giving the mplayer peoples preoccupation with the legality of
3 > what they are doing, if they are providing the downloading, I have no
4 > doubt it is completely legal.
5
6 >From their discussions in mplayer-dev-eng and mplayer-users, I can only
7 conclude that they are ignorant of copyright law. Here's one example
8 which is relevant to this thread:
9
10 Alexey Morozov (user), <20020610032848.GX8690@××××××××××××.ru>:
11 ... "strictly speaking codecs on mplayerhq.hu are illegal" ... "No, I
12 don't want to say you should remove it immediately, but probably there's
13 a legal problem here"
14
15 A'rpi (dev) response <200206101054.g5AAsXO5010229@××××××××××××××.hu>:
16 "i'm not a lawyer, but teh avifile guys discussed this topic very long,
17 about a year ago, and get the result of it's somehow legal. note that
18 you can get the win32 codecs from m$ without having to accept any
19 license."
20
21 This is most likely what A'rpi is referring to:
22 http://avifile.sourceforge.net/about.htm
23
24 "Many DLLs are available without having to accept any license agreement
25 at all ( DivX ;-), all DirectShow codecs ), what obviously means that
26 any kind of activity with them is acceptable."
27
28 The second part of that avifile statement is patently incorrect.
29 Copyrighted works which do not include a license are still protected by
30 copyright law, and redistributing said works would be copyright
31 infringement.
32
33 I've mailed the legal department at Apple, Microsoft and Real and asked
34 if the mplayer project has distribution licenses for their codecs. I'll
35 inform the list of any response.
36
37 > I know OpenDivx (not sure if this is what divx4linux is based on or not)
38 > had a no binary-distribution license, but src was acceptable. Im hunting
39 > around on the mplayer site right now to try to find a definative answer.
40
41 divx4linux is the binary only codec from divx.com. avifile ebuild
42 shouldn't require it.
43
44 --
45 Jon Lech Johansen
46 jon@××××××××××.org
47 nanocrew.net/blog/
48
49 Stat sua cuique dies, breve et inreparabile tempus
50 omnibus est vitae; sed famam extendere factis,
51 hoc virtutis opus.
52
53 --
54 gentoo-dev@g.o mailing list

Replies

Subject Author
Re: [gentoo-dev] avifile ebuild requires divx4linux and win32codecs on x86 Tony Clark <tclark@×××××.com>