Slashdot Log In
CoreCodec Apologizes For CoreAVC Takedown
Posted by
kdawson
on Tue May 06, 2008 04:29 AM
from the sorry-for-the-tactical-nuke dept.
from the sorry-for-the-tactical-nuke dept.
I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "In a follow-up to the previous story, CoreCodec has apologized for the incorrect DMCA Takedown notice that took the CoreAVC project offline. There's also a public statement by co-founder Dan Marlin saying in part, 'I'd like to publicly apologize to Alan [CoreAVC project lead] for the disconnect between him and us as well as the disruption to the project as there was no ill will intended and we were already working on a resolution with him before this went public.' They've also created a new policy for sending out DMCA Takedown notices, so that they won't misuse them in the future."
Related Stories
[+]
Google Pulls Open Source CoreAVC Project Over DMCA Complaint 207 comments
rippe77 writes "Google has taken down the open-source project CoreAVC for Linux due to a DMCA complaint. The CoreAVC codec is a commercial high-definition H.264 DirectShow filter for windows provided by CoreCodec Inc.. The CoreAVC for Linux project provided various patches for Linux applications (mplayer, MythTV, xine) to use these DirectShow decoder filters in Linux. The takedown is quite controversial, as the CoreAVC project did not provide any copyrighted material — only the means to use the DirectShow filters in Linux."
(The takedown notice is not yet up at Chilling Effects, but Google's page has a link that will take you there when it is.)
Submission: CoreCodec Appologizes for CoreAVC Takedown by Anonymous Coward
This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
Full
Abbreviated
Hidden
Loading... please wait.
Will the Google project resume now? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Will the Google project resume now? (Score:5, Insightful)
IIRC, it's down to the project owner to then turn around and say "There's nothing the matter with it, you shouldn't have been served the takedown notice". Google is only a middleman here.
Parent
Re:Will the Google project resume now? (Score:5, Insightful)
This whole drama seems manufactured to get attention for another *yawn* codec.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes. If your restaraunt is in the newspaper because someone died from salmonella poisoning and six more people are in the hospital, expect people to stay away in droves.
When someone in the press catches wind of your tryst with your secretary, expect to lose the next election. (Oops, this is slashdot; "loose" the next election - on an unsuspecting public)
Or you could just ask OJ Simpson [uncyclopedia.org] how that film career is going.
BTW, as everyone with a grandma knows there IS such
Re:Will the Google project resume now? (Score:5, Informative)
After that, it's up to the courts, if either party wants to take it that far.
Parent
Re:Will the Google project resume now? (Score:5, Informative)
One such is: http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/Terrorism/form-letter.html [cmu.edu] or here: http://www.ucmo.edu/dmca/counter.html [ucmo.edu]
People unfortunately probably go to lawyers first, a little bit of knowledge goes a long way.
However, DMCA misuse is something that can be sued for and withdrawing the already DMCA'd request doesn't lift that vulnerability in court...there is a provision for DMCA misuse.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Will the Google project resume now? (Score:4, Informative)
Site owners can sue too. That is, unless when you sign up for hosting you agree that your site can be taken down for any reason.
Brilliantly worded bit of kit there. It's like an anti-terrorism law that states "If you don't make a citizen's arrest, and it turns out that random Arabic/Mexican/Just-Not-White-Enough chap really is evil, you're liable for anything he does cause you COULD have stopped him."
Absolutely stupid idea, but hey, it's ""Intellectual Property" Law", leave your brain at the door.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
The process is a good one, and it removes the need to make a judgment about
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Umm, I'm pretty sure it's because that's how the DMCA is written. I believe they are obligated under the law to respect a DMCA take down notice. This is a good example of how flawed the DMCA is - it puts the burden of proof on the accused. Of course, in order for a DMCA take down notice to be valid it has to be signed "under penalty of perjury" so if you do file a
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Why does a takedown notice get more respect than the site owner? Because a person sending such a notice seems more sue-happy than the site owner?
Because that's the law. Yes, it's stupid. It's a stupid law.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
If you don't feel like doing all of that, you could always pick a host not in the US or a small host that will ask you to act on/respond to tak
Uhrrr.. (Score:5, Informative)
Ah, CoreAVC (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Ah, CoreAVC (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
CoreCodec really does treat their customers like shit. It's rather obvious at times that they want to license out their technology rather than sell it directly to consumers, meanwhile no one of note has been licensing their stuff. They're competent coders, don't get me wrong, CoreAVC has amazingly low CPU usage, but they're completely unable to run a business that deals with consumers. I have little doubt that that this is both a "sorry we got caught" and "we're genuinely sorry" situation; the former becaus
Damage Control (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm impressed.
Granted, after reading the comments and hearing about crappy activation for a codec, I'm not sure, but other companies should take note -- when you make a dick move, do the following steps, in order:
1: STOP what you're doing.
2: Apologize.
Most companies never manage step 1. But if you're going to stop anyway, admitting that you were wrong will buy you a lot of goodwill.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Damage Control (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Mod parent up (Score:3, Informative)
But in case you are wondering, click on the link about Dan Marlin's response and read part of the thread where he (BetaBoy) responds to his customers.
Judge for yourself what kind of person he is...
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
1. The DMCA take down notice only referenced a single law in the United States Code - Specifically Title 17 Section 512; the safe harbor take down clause.
Re:Damage Control (Score:4, Insightful)
If you don't know if it does or not, you're taking a 50-50 chance on it being perjury or not.
In and of itself, that's something that'd get you in trouble in a Court if it was anything other than this stupid crap, which shouldn't be around in the first place.
Before the DMCA, you had to file an infringement case, go before a Judge in a hearing on the matter, and get an injunction to get the same effect. With the DMCA, they don't have to bother with that. With the DMCA, they only have to send takedown letters to the appropriate parties to get a result. There's no Judge in the middle, determining whether they, in fact, have a case or not- they don't even have to face any music for being wrong and doing it frivolously unless the person they do it to is flush with cash and pursues the counter hard. With the old way, you had to go to the trouble of filing a suit- and if you got it wrong, there was decent chances of the lawyer and the plaintiff being sanctioned for the sillybuggers we see these days.
There's a reason the stuff was the way it was before the DMCA. Congress was foolishly led to believe that the rights holders with standing needed a "quicker" way of fixing things and to treat ways of circumventing "protections" as criminal acts.
Parent
Why would you want CoreAVC on the Free Desktop? (Score:5, Insightful)
For decoding, ffmpeg (Which has a code base used throughout a tonne of the Free Software world) already has a decent decoder, and for encoding we have x264 (Developed by the folks behind VLC)...
I know that CoreAVC claims to be super optimised, but is it really that much better? I have always assumed that they were just milking those Windows users that didn't know of ffdshow [sourceforge.net].
Re:Why would you want CoreAVC on the Free Desktop? (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Would Freax have worked better? (Score:2)
Re:Why would you want CoreAVC on the Free Desktop? (Score:5, Informative)
The ffmpeg decoder is awesome, it is a reference quality codec, it renders EVERY frame as good as it possibly can... which is not really how you want video, you want a usable frame rate FIRST.
As a customer of CoreCodec (both the windows h.264 multi threaded codec AND the symbian media player) I am glad its all sorted.
Parent
Re:Why would you want CoreAVC on the Free Desktop? (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
sometimes decent is not good enough (Score:3, Informative)
When i play HD movies, VLC works perfectly on my Windows, Mplayer playback is jerky.
I prefer not to boot into Windows, but sometimes i have to.
One word: Speed (Score:3, Informative)
DMCA working as intended (Score:5, Informative)
1. If you post material online, someone can send a DMCA notice and have it instantly taken down. They must though state that legally and in good faith they have strong reason to believe they are copyright owners.
2. If you challenge it, you send a DMCA counternotice and the material is put back up. You must though state that legally and in good faith you either are the copyrightholder or its in public domain. By doing this you also have to reveal your name. Obviously if you are not willing to reveal your name, you can't counternotice.
(the only potential misuse I could see is if people have a good reason to post anonymously, like whistleblowers - anyone know of any use like that? Obviously this would however confirm that any material taken down is not falsified or the company could not claim copyright)
3. If both parties are in good faith, then obviously let the lawsuits commence. If one of the party was not in good faith - well, they can be smacked down very hard quite easily. It looks like CoreCodec just discovered they were not actually in good faith and are doing damage control.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
The only thing I'm not sure about is this quote from Martin:
I don't really believe that is the case. It was my understanding that DMCA prohibited any reverse engineering, but IANAL.
Lucid, but incorrect. (Score:3, Funny)
-1 Astroturfing?
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Wow, a lucid post from an AC. I hope it's modded accordingly. The only thing I'm not sure about is this quote from Martin:
I don't really believe that is the case. It was my understanding that DMCA prohibited any reverse engineering, but IANAL.
Yes, the DMCA allows reverse engineering as a very narrow exception to the anti-circumvention provisions (see http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/openlaw/DVD/1201.html#f [harvard.edu]).
However, I think it only applies to reverse engineering of a "technological measure" used to enforce copy protection. The DMCA doesn't single-handedly outlaw reverse engineering.
Credit where credit is due. (Score:5, Insightful)
Scientology critics?
If one of the party was not in good faith - well, they can be smacked down very hard quite easily.
Inconceivable!
It looks like CoreCodec just discovered they were not actually in good faith and are doing damage control.
I think that's what they said, yes. Their message is basically "we fucked up, sorry, we're making sure we can't fuck up that way again".
Voluntarily admitting they fucked up when they fuck up, let alone bothering to figure out how they can avoid fucking up again, is unfortunately rare enough for organizations that it's actually impressive to see one do it without having to be dragged through a lawsuit first. I don't think you're giving them enough credit.
Parent
Re:DMCA working as intended (Score:4, Insightful)
The DMCA wasn't intended to be used for this situation. It just gets used that way.
There was no copyright being broken.
There was no circumvention of protection measures.
However, it was used to pull down a site and a project for a time- for no other reason than a company stating that either were going on.
Sure, it's working as it's intended- but it's not what should be allowed. You shouldn't have the ability to willy-nilly do things like this and then maybe, just maybe, face the music of your actions after the fact after you've screwed up like this. Other things in the civil space typically require an injunction which takes time and usually requires more actual effort on the part of the party asking for it to get things to stop. With the DMCA, you don't need any of that crap- not even a Judge to determine if you're even full of crap or not. With the DMCA, you get to send a legal looking, nasty letter filed with a court and sent to the people in question, stating under of penalty of perjury that this is so and that they have to remove it or face possibly being held actionable along with the "infringing party". If you're wrong with the old way, you could face sanctions amongst other things- with the DMCA, it's really cheap in comparison.
Sure, it's working as "intended"- but the problem is, that "as intended" is the very problem everyone's up in arms about. There's less legal consequences for a screwup of this nature. There's less consequences for someone going around and doing it for things like printer cartridges where the company's trying to use it to keep people from refilling the expensive ink on them- and to keep buying the wasteful expensive ink cartridges. The DMCA's busted.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
No, not "strong reason to believe". By sending the takedown they are stating under penalty of perjury that they are the copyright holders. Read the letter [chillingeffects.org], he says he personally downloaded the file(s) in question and verified that his copyright was being infringed. This is, however, impossible as he ha
Which is it? (Score:5, Insightful)
Perjury (Score:4, Interesting)
This is why you should need a court order (Score:3, Interesting)
Sending a request to do so is another matter, but forced removal should be handled by court. Otherwise you are guilty until proven innocent.
This doesn't make any sense (Score:5, Informative)
So according to this, the CEO has legally stated that his company downloaded the software and confirmed the violation. But today, he says it was just an overzealous legal department, and no such download happened. In that case, he signed a letter making legal statements that he knew were false.
If I ran this project, I would not be satisfied by an apology posted in a forum. They sent a legal statement and that requires a legal reply. I would continue as the DMCA stipulates, stating that the project does not infringe. I think I'd also be looking for a few lawyers to get fired. And the CEO needs to be quaking in his boots with the fact that his signature is on a legal notice that is a complete lie.
Why so harsh? They apologized, right? Because these stories happen all the time and I'm sick of companies getting away with it. If you send a legally binding letter with your signature on it, forcing someone to take down their web site, invoking a legal process - then you damn well better be sure that you were in the right. If we let this go, then the procedure becomes:
1. Company sends take down notice
2. Alleged infringer has to prove that they aren't infringing
3. Company allows them to put the project back up
That's not fair. That means any corporation can take down any site, any time, anywhere, with no fear of legal reprisal. That's not how the DMCA works and we need to stop them from using it that way. The DMCA is not carte-blanche to shut down web sites.
Re:This doesn't make any sense (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
I say attack the DMCA (Score:3, Insightful)