FFmpeg Developer Files DMCA Against Rockchip After Two-Year Wait for License Fix (x.com)
- Reference: 0180460835
- News link: https://it.slashdot.org/story/25/12/26/193244/ffmpeg-developer-files-dmca-against-rockchip-after-two-year-wait-for-license-fix
- Source link: https://x.com/FFmpeg/status/2004599109559496984
FFmpeg first called out Rockchip in February 2024 for " [2]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.
[1] https://github.com/rockchip-linux/mpp/blob/fdeb8c378b79d4b4ef80457e4431815de89dc417/mpp/codec/dec/av1/av1d_cbs.c
[2] https://x.com/FFmpeg/status/1761005762233413654
Re: (Score:3)
> 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.
Re: (Score:3)
> 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: (Score:2)
> 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.
Re: (Score:1)
> 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: (Score:2)
> 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.
Re: (Score:2)
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: (Score:2)
> 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.
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 ar
GPL vs DMCA (Score:2)
Really, if someone commits copyright infringement by shipping your GPL licensed code without the GPL license, then the simplest way to stop them in the USA is a DMCA notice. The only surprising thing is that they waited two years.
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.
Ah, the beauty of distributed repos (Score:1)
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.
Re:Ah, the beauty of distributed repos (Score:4, Insightful)
You're missing the point: the code was, and still is, available in the ffmpeg repository since the beginning.
Re: (Score:2)
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: (Score:2)
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 [1]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.
[1] https://github.com/nyanmisaka/ffmpeg-rockchip
Re: (Score:3)
> 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.