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Old 29th March 2006, 22:20   #61  |  Link
temporance
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Quote:
Originally Posted by On2Tech
We have previously and continue to be supporters of the open source community and have made significant contributions to open source video technology. As a public company, however, we feel that it is important to protect our intellectual property from abuse and to take all steps necessary to protect that property.

We therefore cannot support the unauthorized release of code that we believe has been illegally obtained or obtained in contravention of our licensing terms. We respect the hard work of the open source community and honor that work by observing contributors' copyrights and chosen licensing terms. In return, we expect the community to show the same respect to our works.

On2Tech
My reading of this statement is that the code was stolen or leaked and found its way onto the Internet. If this is the case its release represents a copyright violation.

Aside from the possibility that the code could be used by MPEG patent holders to prove accidental patent infringement, I can't think of any reason why it is in On2's interests not to have this in the public domain. There is nothing mind-blowing in the algorithms used.

Now, if someone was to write a VP6 decoder from scratch without copying anything from the leaked code, the copyright problem goes away. We would then have an open-source implementation that can't be censored by On2's lawyers.

IMHO & IANAL
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Old 29th March 2006, 22:42   #62  |  Link
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Quote:
Originally Posted by temporance
Now, if someone was to write a VP6 decoder from scratch without copying anything from the leaked code, the copyright problem goes away.
t's impossible to write legal vp62 decoder without bitstream specification avaluable - (AFAIK there are no public bitstream specification avaluable )
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Old 29th March 2006, 23:50   #63  |  Link
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Quote:
Originally Posted by dimzon
t's impossible to write legal vp62 decoder without bitstream specification avaluable - (AFAIK there are no public bitstream specification avaluable )
Not impossible. Someone could have used the leaked code to write a new decoder. Or they could use the leaked code to write a bitstream spec that could then be used to write a clean and legal decoder. Copyright law only protects against copying and plagarism. The actual information is now public domain.
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Old 30th March 2006, 00:01   #64  |  Link
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Quote:
Originally Posted by temporance
Or they could use the leaked code to write a bitstream spec
It will be illegal too bcz original information is obtained by illegal way and such bitstream specification is derivated work of it.. And don't forget - On2 has patent on VP62 bitstream, isn't it?

As I said before it's impossible to get LGPL-ed decoder until On2 will publish VP62 bitstream specification...

So forget about VP62 and move to Theora/ASP/AVC/Snow/Dirac
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Old 30th March 2006, 09:12   #65  |  Link
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@dimzon: I think you're underestimating the reverse-engineering skills of ffmpeg developers. They are fully capable of creating a vp6 decoder without looking at the leaked code and without having the official bitstream spec.
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Old 30th March 2006, 12:35   #66  |  Link
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i assume on2 would know for sure if its code from themselves that has been released without approval.

therefore reading on2s statements i assume more that its reverse engineered, and on2 isnt sure whether its illegal to release code reverse engineering their format and therefore they cant make 100% clear statements

another possibility would be that they know that the code released is their own code, but they dont want to say it publically because it would give their competitors the info that its on2's code (which they now dont know for sure...)

Quote:
Originally Posted by dimzon
Theora is just VP32 from On2
no, its not the same
check the specs, or at least my theora sticky, which both list the differences before guessing
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Old 30th March 2006, 13:12   #67  |  Link
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Quote:
Originally Posted by bond
i assume on2 would know for sure if its code from themselves that has been released without approval.
Yes, but the vagueness and slow turnaround time could be down to their lawyers.

Quote:
therefore reading on2s statements i assume more that its reverse engineered, and on2 isnt sure whether its illegal to release code reverse engineering their format and therefore they cant make 100% clear statements
It certainly did not look like reverse-engineered code, more like "laundered" corporate code. If this is the case, it may have taken them a while to prove to their lawyers that it was copied.

IMHO a decoder written without copying anything of VP6 is not illegal. It does not matter whether it was created through reverse engineering, from a spec or by learning from leaked source. The act of reverse engineering is probably a breach of On2's license, but that wouldn't make the resultant code illegal especially if the reverse engineer did not agree to that license. A person who leaks source is guilty of at least copyright infringement and possibly contract violation, if they have a contract with On2.

My point is that even if reverse engineering and/or a leak help someone to write and release a clean decoder implementation, On2 can really only use a very weak (it's source code, not a working product) patent infringement case to get the code pulled. Assuming they have patents covering VP6 decoding, which they may not. IANAL.

Quote:
another possibility would be that they know that the code released is their own code, but they dont want to say it publically because it would give their competitors the info that its on2's code (which they now dont know for sure...)
Good point. But the genie's out of the bag now, whether or not the decoder code is actually On2's own, competitors (and open source devs ) can deduce the precise algorithms of VP6.

Last edited by temporance; 30th March 2006 at 13:14.
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Old 30th March 2006, 13:14   #68  |  Link
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Gusar
@dimzon: I think you're underestimating the reverse-engineering skills of ffmpeg developers. They are fully capable of creating a vp6 decoder without looking at the leaked code and without having the official bitstream spec.
Gusar,
IMHO&IANAL it wouldn't matter if ffmpeg devs looked at the leaked code so long as they didn't copy it.
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Old 30th March 2006, 14:15   #69  |  Link
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Quote:
Originally Posted by temporance
Gusar,
IMHO&IANAL it wouldn't matter if ffmpeg devs looked at the leaked code so long as they didn't copy it.
Yes, the Chinese wall approach could work here maybe. One person reads the code and writes an open spec, then another person writes new code based on that spec.
Though considering how sue happy everyone is nowadays, even this could be problematic. It's probably safer to stay away from that code (assuming it really is stolen/leaked) and implement a decoder with pure reverse engineering.

But the point I wanted to make is that dimzon said it's impossible to write a decoder without On2 releasing the bitstream spec. This is simply not true. It only takes a skilled developer and - most important - lots of time. And the ffmpeg devs definitely have the required skills.
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Old 30th March 2006, 16:06   #70  |  Link
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Quote:
Originally Posted by temporance
My reading of this statement is that the code was stolen or leaked and found its way onto the Internet.
He implied a lot, but said nothing ... quite intentionally. There is a term for the kind of statement On2Tech gave, FUD.

On2Tech, it would have been more gracefull to simply give a no comment for the moment IMO.
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Old 30th March 2006, 17:01   #71  |  Link
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Gusar
But the point I wanted to make is that dimzon said it's impossible to write a decoder without On2 releasing the bitstream spec. This is simply not true. It only takes a skilled developer and - most important - lots of time. And the ffmpeg devs definitely have the required skills.
You can't write decoder without bitstream spec. You can obtain bitstream spec via such ways:
  • published bitstream spec from format developer (on2)
  • perform reverse-enginearing (it's illegal and prohibited by On2 licence)
  • steal bitstream or decoder souce (it's illegal too)
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Old 30th March 2006, 17:48   #72  |  Link
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can anyone show me the link to the laws (american, european...) making reverse engineering illegal?
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Old 30th March 2006, 18:07   #73  |  Link
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Quote:
Originally Posted by bond
can anyone show me the link to the laws (american, european...) making reverse engineering illegal?
I believe vp62 licence is the same:
Quote:
Originally Posted by On2 VP7 Personal Edition End User License Agreement
<skiped>
You may NOT:
<skiped>
3. reverse engineer, de-compile, disassemble, modify, port, optimize, integrate, translate, make any attempt to discover the source code or resources of the Software or create derivative works based on the Software;
<skiped>
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Old 30th March 2006, 18:24   #74  |  Link
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In some European countries licenses don't have much legal weight. So if the law allows reverse-engineering, then nothing in a license can change that.
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Old 30th March 2006, 18:40   #75  |  Link
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Originally Posted by clsid
In some European countries licenses don't have much legal weight. So if the law allows reverse-engineering, then nothing in a license can change that.
So obtained decoder will be legal only in this countries....
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Old 30th March 2006, 18:54   #76  |  Link
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who needs to care about a license you have never signed? i heavily doubt this has any value
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Old 31st March 2006, 14:32   #77  |  Link
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even the DMCA has a reverse engineering excemption for interoperability reasons.. judges just never read it (or don't understand, are paid not to understand.. just goes to show we need people with knowledge of the law and technology in courts.. they even teach copyright and patent law at engineering colleges today so why should it be any different from those on the other side of the bench?)
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Old 1st April 2006, 19:32   #78  |  Link
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clsid >> In some European countries licenses don't have much legal weight.
I'm not sure much but IMHO Russian laws says that license is much legal than law.
dimzon > obtained decoder will be legal only in this countries
I don't think so. If user of reverse-engineering-specs-based codec has no business with original codec then he owes nothing to original copyright owner, is he?
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Old 4th April 2006, 20:21   #79  |  Link
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Quote:
Originally Posted by dimzon
You can't write decoder without bitstream spec. You can obtain bitstream spec via such ways:
  • published bitstream spec from format developer (on2)
  • perform reverse-enginearing (it's illegal and prohibited by On2 licence)
  • steal bitstream or decoder souce (it's illegal too)
reverse-engineering in the USA is only illegal if it is to circumvent a copy control-device, reverse engineering for compatibility is protected. You don't need to agree to On2's license to download vp6 bitstreams, only to get the encoder and decoder.

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So obtained decoder will be legal only in this countries....
Sneakers made overseas use manufacturing processes illegal in the USA that doesn't make importing the shoes illegal.
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Old 5th April 2006, 13:36   #80  |  Link
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I really hope a future version of ffdshow will include this. I can't stand having to install several codecs...
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