FFmpeg Developer Files DMCA Against Rockchip After Two-Year Wait for License Fix (x.com) 49
GitHub has disabled Rockchip's Media Process Platform repository after an FFmpeg developer filed a DMCA takedown notice, nearly two years after the open-source project first publicly accused the Chinese chipmaker of license violations. The notice, filed December 18, claims Rockchip copied thousands of lines of code from FFmpeg's libavcodec library -- including decoders for H.265, AV1, and VP9 formats -- stripped the original copyright notices, falsely claimed authorship and redistributed the code under Apache's permissive license rather than the original LGPL.
FFmpeg first called out Rockchip in February 2024 for "blatantly copy and pasting FFmpeg code" into its driver, but the chipmaker's last response suggested no intention to resolve the matter. The DMCA notice requests either removal of the infringing files or restoration of proper attribution and an LGPL-compatible license.
FFmpeg first called out Rockchip in February 2024 for "blatantly copy and pasting FFmpeg code" into its driver, but the chipmaker's last response suggested no intention to resolve the matter. The DMCA notice requests either removal of the infringing files or restoration of proper attribution and an LGPL-compatible license.
Re:Ah, the beauty of distributed repos (Score:5, Insightful)
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In case you somehow misunderstood me, I meant that RockChip will be up and running again soon. They won't care that they lost access to their repo system. Minor inconvenience.
Re:Ah, the beauty of distributed repos (Score:4, Interesting)
They wont' have an interruption, since they never used an account only to recover the code. They were using an account for issue reporting or pull requests to upstream their adaptations they need for ffmpeg-rockchip https://github.com/nyanmisaka/... [github.com] Now they lost developer access and ffmpeg devs are likely to ignore any bug reports related to the rockchip platform. It's still a minor inconvenience, but it's what ffmpeg can do. If you don't play ball with the others, you can go play alone in your corner.
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It's certainly a cue for me to stop using a Rockchip-based SBC for my home theater system. It's unfortunate (although not surprising) that a Chinese company has taken such a blatant path to ignoring the community that provided it with the means to build its business.
If only other companies would pick up the torch.
Seeya.
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If only other companies would pick up the torch.
The company you're looking for is Mediatek.
Re:Ah, the beauty of distributed repos (Score:4, Insightful)
Unfortunately for the developer, the way git is is designed, every developer holds a copy of the entire source in their local master branch, and the pipelines are codified. All RockChip have to do is take the latest available copy at hand, push to a new repo provider, do some extra devops on top of it to adjust the secrets and permissions in the pipeline and it's business as ususal within 24 hours
Fortunately for the developer, anyone shipping hardware with the infringing software is legally "hosting" it and can be forced to stop shipping it unless they want to pay major fines for every copt.
Re: Ah, the beauty of distributed repos (Score:2)
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Thatâ(TM)s the theory. In practice it will take a decade of litigation - which likely needs a pro bono sponsor on the OSS side - and the end result will be completely meaningless to the market by then.
Not that itâ(TM)s very meaningful now. Sure RK is a âoelegitâ silicon designer. But the vast majority of their silicon ends up in shanzai products that pay homage to no IP jurisdiction.
About half of Rockchip's sales are directly outside of China, but about 80% of all their products eventually end up in an end product that is shipped outside of China. Rockchip's product are common in a wide variety of OEM products. A lot of sales go to Chinese companies that build systems for export. Any action by the US would dramatically impact Rockchip.
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I'll say it again: Most of RK's silicon ends up in shanzai products that pay homage to no IP jurisdiction. Would there be an effect if the US boycotted them in some way?
It's easy to understand. A lot, actually most, of those Chinese products are exported. Many are OEM for American and other non-Chinese companies. Some are OEMd for other Chinese companies that then export outside of China. None of this should be a surprise for a Chinese economy that is so extremely dependant on exports.
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Re:Oh Please (Score:5, Insightful)
How is this any different than people on here bragging about stealing movies, software, or games?
Normal people downloading warez and movies aren't repackaging them into a product or presenting them as a work they created themselves. They're just entertaining themselves.
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What's different is that those people aren't stupid enough to integrate all those pirated movies, software, or games into a product they sell (thus making the product a target for lawsuits), it's something they do privately in their homes (preferably behind a no-log VPN when doing it).
This argument is used to argue that copyright infringement (com
Re:Oh Please (Score:4, Informative)
How is this any different than people on here bragging about stealing movies, software, or games? Nothing was taken, right? The original is still in place, right?
Pirating and redistributing as your own are two very different things.
Re:Oh Please (Score:5, Insightful)
This is why open source still isn't taken seriously.
.... stripped the original copyright notices, falsely claimed authorship and redistributed the code under Apache's permissive license rather than the original LGPL
And the amount of money lost by the "FFmpeg developer" is exactly zero. Or, include all copyright notices and distribute under the LGPL as demanded. And the amount of money gained by the "FFmpeg developer" is exactly zero.
Well, yes and no. The issue is that by distributing it with the wrong license, commercial hardware developers might think that it is actually a library that they can realistically use in their products, then use it, become dependent on it, and then find out that they're violating the license in some way. At that point, you have a very ugly lawsuit.
Re:Oh Please (Score:5, Informative)
This is why open source still isn't taken seriously.
.... stripped the original copyright notices, falsely claimed authorship and redistributed the code under Apache's permissive license rather than the original LGPL
And the amount of money lost by the "FFmpeg developer" is exactly zero. Or, include all copyright notices and distribute under the LGPL as demanded. And the amount of money gained by the "FFmpeg developer" is exactly zero. Technically, the "FFmpeg developer" is correct. But this really is just bitching for the sake of being a whiny bitch.
Passing other people's work off as your own is dishonest. It does not always have to be about money, some people care about principles too. That some people does not include you is irrelevant.
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But stealing movies, software, and movies if prefectly fine, right? Because . . . principles.
Depends. The case in the OP is copyright infringement for commercial use, which is typically considered more serious than personal use. Copyright infringement for personal use is usually a civil matter, whereas copyright infringement for commercial use can be criminal.
Furthermore, in some jurisdictions downloading movies and music for personal use is actually completely legal.
Re:Oh Please (Score:4, Funny)
It does not always have to be about money, some people care about principles too.
But stealing movies, software, and movies if prefectly fine, right? Because . . . principles.
The MAFIAA are not the appropriate people to rep for principles. That one is kind of a wash.
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I have no idea why are you conflating people who care about open source principles and ethics with people who download pirated movies. Prove that these groups are the same or at least that they have a significant overlap before trolling the forum.
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Yep. It's also why I never share my projects projects in public repos. Doing so it's just a way of letting someone else steal your work for free.
Re:Oh Please (Score:4, Insightful)
And what you people don't understand is that the FFmpeg developers aren't doing it for the money, they are doing it for the code. The currency that matters here isn't dollars or euros, but lines of code. Ffmpeg developers expect to be "paid" in lines of code by the Rockchip people, who are legally forced to contribute back any changes they've made to the code in source form. Changing the license to a permissive license prevents that. If the Rockchip people think this isn't serious, they should stop using ffmpeg and buy a proprietary codec pack to use in their products.
tl;dr: Copyright is what it is legally, it doesn't prescribe the terms under which the developer/creator has to permit redistribution of their work.
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No they are not, please read the GPL again and don't spread misinformation about how open source licenses works. Rockship doesn't have to contribute jack sh** (irrelavant of the fact that they changed the license, which is blatant violation of GPL).
Re:Oh Please (Score:4, Informative)
..who are legally forced to contribute back any changes they've made to the code in source form.
No they are not, please read the GPL again and don't spread misinformation about how open source licenses works. Rockship doesn't have to contribute jack sh** (irrelavant of the fact that they changed the license, which is blatant violation of GPL).
"However, any developer who modifies an LGPL-covered component is required to make their modified version available under the same LGPL license."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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..who are legally forced to contribute back any changes they've made to the code in source form.
No they are not, please read the GPL again and don't spread misinformation about how open source licenses works. Rockship doesn't have to contribute jack sh** (irrelavant of the fact that they changed the license, which is blatant violation of GPL).
"However, any developer who modifies an LGPL-covered component is required to make their modified version available under the same LGPL license."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Still no. They are required to make their modified version available under the same LGPL license to the people they distribute their product to
If you use it for internal purposes to your company, you are not required to do anything.
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Still no. They are required to make their modified version available under the same LGPL license to the people they distribute their product to
Kind of. They can remedy their violation by simply ceasing distribution of the binaries. But they also can't stop anyone they gave the sources to from distributing them to anyone else (because the GPL doesn't allow you to place additional conditions on redistribution... someone should really remind Redhate of this BTW) so the GP was essentially correct. They are only required to provide the changes (actually, the full sources including the changes) to anyone they want to give binaries to, but that's still g
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Still no. They are required to make their modified version available under the same LGPL license to the people they distribute their product to
If you use it for internal purposes to your company, you are not required to do anything.
Please stop digging. Rockchip is a SOC vendor, the Rockchip media processing platform is included in devices sold commercially all over the world.
https://opensource.rock-chips.... [rock-chips.com]
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GPL vs DMCA (Score:3)
That means anyone hosting the infringing material can be sued (including for example GitHub) and will therefore remove the material instantly, and you can still demand up to $150,000 for every infringing copy shipped to third parties.
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Re: GPL vs DMCA (Score:2)
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GitHub is a US entity. They are the ones taking Rockchip down.
moderation abuse (Score:2)
Why are half the comments -1 ?
Do the execs at rock chip acknowledge they'd sell more product if they upstreamed changes to Linux and other projects? Instead of volunteers decompiling their stuff to reverse engineer drivers.
Are they hiding backdoors or just embarrassed to show their code?
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I count 6 that are either -1, 0 but not A/C, and/or "1:[negative moderation]". Sounds like a couple of people with mod points decided to spend them modding things down instead of up.
I'm not seeing signs of bad-faith moderation here (at least from what I can see - I have no insider access). I don't necessarily agree with the down-mods, but I'm not seeing signs of bad faith.