CoreCodec Apologizes For CoreAVC Takedown 185
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."
Will the Google project resume now? (Score:3, Insightful)
Ah, CoreAVC (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Will the Google project resume now? (Score:3, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Damage Control (Score:3, Insightful)
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:Damage Control (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Which is it? (Score:5, 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.
Re:Will the Google project resume now? (Score:5, Insightful)
This whole drama seems manufactured to get attention for another *yawn* codec.
Kudos to them (Score:1, Insightful)
I say well done chaps.
You fucked up. You know it. You're not too proud and arrogant to say so.
If only companies like Sony BMG had the good manners and humility.
Re:Ah, CoreAVC (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 because they really don't want anyone jeopardizing future products, and the latter because once again no one was thinking when they enacted this.
I can only hope someone that actually knows how to interact with customers buys out the whole damn company, they're not getting any better on their own.
Re:Will the Google project resume now? (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 a thing as a free lunch and modey does indeed grow on trees (ask a lumberjack or an orchard owner).
The "old sayings" only hold up in a limited set of circumstances. The "free lunch", for example, only means that when a supplier offers lunch, watch your wallet carefully.
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.
Re:Damage Control (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Re:This doesn't make any sense (Score:4, Insightful)
I say attack the DMCA (Score:3, Insightful)
In this case, we have a company that made a mistake. Yes, you are correct that they swore to something that couldn't have been true, by their own *later* admission, but they did quickly correct the mistake. I think that means something. They also then proceeded to work with the guy who maintains CoreAVC-for-linux to increase it's capability/compatibility, and they are talking about releasing official builds (gStreamer Plug-in, library, etc) for Linux.
I know there are those among us who believe all proprietary software is unethical/evil, and they are entitled to their opinions, but I really don't think there is any *real* benefit to be gained here from crucifying a company that, overall, appears to want a friendly relationship OpenSource/Free Software developers and users. I say save your ire for the idiots in Congress who sponsored and voted for the DMCA, and for companies that maliciously abuse the DMCA and don't repent.
Re:Damage Control (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.