[wellylug] Multimedia Nightmares

[Daniel Pittman]

Tim McKenzie <tjm1983 at gmail.com> writes:
> On Fri, 11 Sep 2009 17:13:16 Daniel Pittman wrote:
>
>> For that, yes, you need to break the law and install the win32 codecs.
>
> Which law?

For most of the codecs in the "win32 codec pack", simple contract law: the
license agreement for the codec doesn't permit redistribution, so it is
against the law for the folks upstream to collect these together and ship them
to you.

The shipped codecs in the pack don't come with their license agreements
displayed, but are just the bare code.  I am not an expert in NZ law, but
I can say that is illegal in other parts of the world with similar legal
structures.

In a number of cases the license supplied with the original codec permits use
only for non-commercial purposes, on a single *Windows* PC.  Using them on a
Linux machine is a violation of that license agreement.


...and, yes, the enforcement of shrink-wrap and click-wrap licenses is not
clear cut.  They are certainly still enforceable enough to need a judge
involved, though, I think you will find.

> If you're talking about patent law, are you sure there are any relevant
> patents in New Zealand?

No, you don't even need to start looking at the difficult bits of law to get
into the dubious areas here.  Doesn't it suck?

> Microsoft owns nine dozen current patents in New Zealand:
> http://www.iponz.govt.nz/cms/banner_template/IPPATENT I haven't looked
> through them all to see which (if any) apply to audio or video codecs, but
> given how few valid patents they have, someone may wish to do so on a rainy
> afternoon.

Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft, Sony, and a number of the other big CE companies are
much more interesting that Microsoft if you want to look into patents
surrounding A/V codecs.

Regards,
        Daniel
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