Sigma Designs Accused of Copyright Infringement 417
Cygnus v1 writes "The XVID team has ceased development of the XVID video codec for the time being because they say that Sigma Designs' REALmagic MPEG-4 Video Codec software includes their code and has claimed it as Sigma Designs' own work. The current XVID homepage includes some binary-level comparisons." Update: 08/23 03:14 GMT by T : Apparently the folks at Sigma have seen that no good is likely to come from this; an anonymous reader submits a link to this release on Yahoo! which says "complete source code will be available for download starting August 23, free of charge, through Sigma's website."
How retarded. (Score:0, Interesting)
Sue them (Score:3, Interesting)
This sucks.. I've had people claim my code as their own and it just deflates your morale. Looks like it deflated XVID to the point where they pulled a Cartman*.
*"Screw you guys, I'm going home."
Re:Why stop coding? (Score:2, Interesting)
The only reason that I could think of would be if they thought Sigma was dependent enough on their code that stopping coding would leave Sigma high and dry. But that's a pretty roundabout way to get back at somebody. I'm going to guess that there are other legal machinations going on right now that they haven't mentioned that contributed to the decision to stop (publicly) coding at the moment.
If these guys are real hackers, they have their own private copy that they're still working on. Whenever this is resolved, expect a huge jump in Xvid functionality :)
Re:I'm not surprised (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:GPL Powerless (Score:5, Interesting)
Being that Xvid is a larger project than Virtual Dub, I would be highly surprised to not see the FSF step in at some point.
Re:I'm not surprised (Score:3, Interesting)
Anybody else notice... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Why stop coding? (Score:2, Interesting)
Ignoring them won't help (not sure why you suggested that--if MS used GPL code, say, the kernal, instead of developing their own idea, you'd say ignore them?). You mention sue them--sorry, but copyright infringment usually falls into civil, not criminal (there are exceptions, e.g. DMCA, the other one Ashcroft is using that Clinton signed into law in '97) court. Civil court cases are darn expensive. And if you lose, you're liable for the other parties legal bill.
btw, project development stopped; that's not necessarily all coding.
It's probably the best solution for them.
Re:Why stop coding? (Score:2, Interesting)
The only way to pressure them is to (hopefully temporary) stop development of xvid. By ignoring & continueing development you would give them a free ride.
"Hey now we can use GPL source from other projects too, they don`t sue anyway ! And those code monkeys keep improving it for free
Understanding GPL is not trivial. (Score:2, Interesting)
However, I don't think that even the majority of the software companies, used to deal with closed source, know what GPL means.
BSD license is VERY clear and simple. LGPL is somewhat clear. GPL then...well... I have not yet seen a good and BRIEF explanation on for example : what in practise - makes the GPL spread to new code - when does your software become automagically governed by GPL? Where's the magic line. I think I can somewhat imagine myself where the magic line is but I am not able to express this in one simple sentence which would not leave any exceptions. Can you? If yes, please post it here. It would make it much easier for many.
I can very much understand even the feelings of those who think "GPL is a virus" before someone can express it's meaning without sounding like a hippie, if you know what I mean :)
Is there... (Score:2, Interesting)
Sony and SN Systems copied GCC for PlayStation (Score:5, Interesting)
It's not a slam dunk (Score:4, Interesting)
If not, they should register it right away, while Sigma is still distributing the alleged infringement.
If not registered, you can only get actual damages. And it's easy to see a court saying that actual damages -- which are financial, not personal -- are zero in a case like this. How much money did the team lose? You might do better arguing how much Sigma made from the infringing code but they would of course make the argument that the money came from their proprietary additions, not the GPLd code which of course anybody can get for free.
To compel them to comply with GPL, you will have to get the court to agree with the implied licence. That's harder, though if they really have documents from Sigma admitting that they were aware of the GPL terms you might have a shot.
Otherwise, I don't think anybody has had a court rule that you would be bound by the GPL contract if you used GPLd code. They would rule you violated copyright, but will they rule more?
Think about it. If I put a licence in my code saying "Use this code without my permission and you must give me your whole corporation" no court would consider that enforceable.
Will they consider it enforceable if the licence says "use this code without my permission and you must give away all the source code to everything you bundled with it"? Also in doubt.
Could be. Could not be.
Criminal Infringement (Score:1, Interesting)
If they can prove it was willfull infringement
for commercial gain (which seems obvious in this
case, especially given the cease-and-desist
orders), it is a criminal act (see below), and the responsible party can be imprisoned for up to
a year. (q.v. TITLE 18, sec 2319.)
Unfortunately, the "big penalties" would only
apply if XVID had retail value.
TITLE 17 CH 5 Sec 506:
(a) Criminal Infringement. -
Any person who infringes a copyright willfully either -
(1)
for purposes of commercial advantage or private financial gain, or
(2)
by the reproduction or distribution, including by electronic means, during any 180-day period, of 1 or more copies or phonorecords of 1 or more copyrighted works, which have a total retail value of more than $1,000,
shall be punished as provided under section 2319 of title 18, United States Code. For purposes of this subsection, evidence of reproduction or distribution of a copyrighted work, by itself, shall not be sufficient to establish willful infringement.
Re:Why stop coding? (Score:2, Interesting)
FSF now has copyleft over XVID (Score:0, Interesting)
This is Cygnus, I just had a nice chat with FSF's lawyer and we've agreeded to write off the software to FSF as of 6 pm today (August 22 2002 - Thur). Hopefully, this should help in a major way. I'm delighted by the number of people who wrote encouraging e-mails and good suggestions, hell, it feels good to know that the community is behind us.
Also, contrary to what some people have been thinking, closing the project is only temporary (till the issues are closed), we are not bending down for any corporation that has stolen our code. Also, I'd like to thank Darell Kruger of AMD for his and his company's generous donation, we are forwarding all this to our FSF council.
Also note, SIGMA Design's code is being used by a number of RIAA endosed hardware and software solutions (mainly DVD players from Panasonic and Daewoo), hopefully this would turn interesting, since the the most recent players are using their 1.1 code already. I would like to hear from people who own such players. Since we'd like to go at the harware manifacturars and possibly the cartel itself.
Please join our mailing list if you have any more suggestions (as my e-mail is completely full) and our little server might go foo-bar if we keep it at it.
Thank you.
Eric "Cygnus" Von Jane
unanswered question (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Sue them - I agree, for all copyright violation (Score:5, Interesting)
http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=
Specifically:
I spoke to a manager at Sigma Designs over the phone a couple weeks ago, and he basically verified the accusation - a programmer "mistakenly" based their MPEG-4 codec around XviD, added a few patches, changed the interface (but not by much), then released it as their own. We were informed that they were replacing all GPL'ed code with their own, to avoid a licensing problem (even though copyright infringement had already occurred, of course).
After that, version 1.1 came out, which was a complete slap in the face. Supposedly "rewritten", it was nothing but a different checkout of XviD with a few registers changed and some code reordered.
Should be an interesting few days.
-h
Can Xvid be sued by Sigma ? (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:It's not a slam dunk (Score:3, Interesting)
That's not what they are saying. All they are laying claim to is the DLL file which contains the stolen GPLed code.
If you take my code, compile it, and sell it, that doesn't make it yours.
Rape Is still rape if you're not a hooker (Score:4, Interesting)
Software distributed with the GPL is not without cost The 'price' of using GPL code is that if you make changes to the code, you can't distribute the modified object code without also distributing the modified source code.
(I.E. the price is your derivative code).
In any case, these people are stealing copyright code without permission. Since they're charging for it, then they are liable for both the price they're charging for this stolen code and any punitive damages (which can be quite hefty for copyright violation).
It looks like this might be a good time to call in the lawyers.
____________
And yes there IS damage to me from having someone steal my GPL code. When I put code under the GPL, my expectation is that, in return for making my source code freely available, I'll get back from the community that uses my code the work that they do to improve my code. When someone steals my code and puts it into a proprietary product, I loose in a few ways: