Open Sauce Software
Tasty titbits from people using Linux and other open source software in business.
Tuesday 6 May 2008, 9:12 PM
Google's CoreAVC shows how easy copyright is to get right
Are high-profile copyright claims putting you off open source? If so, here's a story to reassure you. A video utility, which disappeared from Google Code in a puff of threatened litigation, is back again - in less than a week.
The CoreAVC for Linux codec, which handles H.264/MPEG-4 video was taken off the Google code site when CoreCodec complained that it infringed copyright in its CoreAVC codec for Windows.
Now, according to Stephen Shankland, it's back. CoreCodec checked, and found that the Digital Millenium Copyright Act does allow reverse engineering in cases like this. So back up it went. More details at Wikipedia.
Open source projects rarely produce copyright issues - and when they do, they're usually very easy to sort out. That's what lawyer Andrew Katz told a meeting of the Westminster eForum which reported from last October.
As an expert on copyright law, he seemed surprised to find himself rejoicing in this lack of business. And it's nice to see cases like this that bear out what he says (and he would I'm sure point out that there are many more potential cases that never get as far as this one).
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