[SOLVED] Media players licenses

work · 2012-04-20 18:23:27

I noticed some issues about software patents in general (e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MPlayer#Legal_issues and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VLC_media_player#Legality) concerning media players.
Can you suggest me a way to avoid those issues? Are gstreamer-based players free from those troubles?
Thank you

Last edited by work (2012-04-20 19:54:11)

Gusar · 2012-04-20 18:31:58

My honest advice would be: Ignore those issues.

If you really care about that stuff, then yeah, gstreamer is the way. But note that the only formats you can use are vp8, theora and vorbis. *Everything* else has patent issues.

work · 2012-04-20 19:15:59

I suppose that this can be a problem for Linux in general. I never heard about it before.

Gusar · 2012-04-20 19:31:46

Oh, there's lots of that all over the place. For example, do you have mesa installed? Well, the Arch mesa package has patented tech activated.

work · 2012-04-20 19:54:00

Gusar wrote:

Oh, there's lots of that all over the place. For example, do you have mesa installed? Well, the Arch mesa package has patented tech activated.

What a minefield!
Thank you for your answer, I will meditate on this topic

skottish · 2012-04-20 20:39:17

Gusar wrote:

My honest advice would be: Ignore those issues.

Agreed.

I'll give an example of why ignoring this is helpful. I bought an internal Blu-Ray drive mainly so that I could get larger physical copies of my data, but I thought that it would be cool to check out a few movies. I got a gift card for my birthday and picked up a couple of movies from a local retailer. I couldn't play either. What? I legally paid for the hardware and I legally paid for the movies at full price from the retailters that I used. I did exactly what a Windows or Mac user would do, and yet I can't use my purchases for watching legal content?

It turns out that if the designer of any player doesn't get charged as well, that things aren't going to work out for honest people using that player some times. So, when you legally buy a movie, expect that it will only teach you about all of the other licensing fees that were assumed that someone would pay. Do you ever wonder how the film industry in America had gotten so powerful that when the end user is still doing the right thing that penalties would still incur?

*** The American patent system is severely broken. If one needs any proof, understand that almost the entire human G-Nome is patented. Someone needs a gene sequence to cure a disease? It could cost them in the order of millions of dollars. These laws will need be broken at the grass root level. ***

ConnorBehan · 2012-04-20 22:34:39

I am pretty sure the use of patented technology needs to be commercial to be considered an infringement. So a lawsuit against some one who used VLC, mplayer or ffmpeg to enjoy a movie privately should be thrown out. However, that won't stop the corporations from trying... and sometimes succeeding because the courts are corrupt.

I for one, am very happy to be using a distribution that takes a sane approach to this issue (ignoring it). I think we don't see this more often because companies like Canonical - even though they don't charge for Ubuntu - can certainly be said to make money from it indirectly, and a precedent for whether or not this is commercial has yet to be set.

x33a · 2012-04-21 08:42:14

skottish wrote:

I bought an internal Blu-Ray drive mainly so that I could get larger physical copies of my data, but I thought that it would be cool to check out a few movies. I got a gift card for my birthday and picked up a couple of movies from a local retailer. I couldn't play either. What? I legally paid for the hardware and I legally paid for the movies at full price from the retailters that I used.

I read this all the time. Not just with movies, or music, but with games and many more things. These companies are forcing people to reach for the "dark side", to be able to use content without headaches. License issues and DRM is driving even loyal (paying) customers away, and yet these companies blame everything on piracy.

Arch Linux

#1 2012-04-20 18:23:27

[SOLVED] Media players licenses

#2 2012-04-20 18:31:58

Re: [SOLVED] Media players licenses

#3 2012-04-20 19:15:59

Re: [SOLVED] Media players licenses

#4 2012-04-20 19:31:46

Re: [SOLVED] Media players licenses

#5 2012-04-20 19:54:00

Re: [SOLVED] Media players licenses

#6 2012-04-20 20:39:17

Re: [SOLVED] Media players licenses

#7 2012-04-20 22:34:39

Re: [SOLVED] Media players licenses

#8 2012-04-21 08:42:14

Re: [SOLVED] Media players licenses

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