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VLC Patent Issues?

caveman_uk said:
Apparently this ruling is to bring EU patent law into line with US Law on the matter where software patents already exist. Quite why we have to follow the US example and not the other way around is a different question... :rolleyes:
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The proposed EU ruling is in conformity with the current practice of the European Patent Office (which is not an EU institution), and as adopted by most but not all EU member states in the meantime (which means that those patents can actually be enforced in those countries). So not much will change. This practice is not as liberal as the US practice, because it requires an invention to have a technical contribution to the state of the art, which is not required in the US. Therefore administrative software can be patented in the US, but will not be patentable in Europe.
 
I had a weird thought... maybe between the extremes posted here there's a rational middle ground :D

Maybe inventors of software solutions SHOULD be protected just like any other inventors. Otherwise they have no incentive to invent.

But maybe WHAT gets patented, in the case of software, needs to be very carefully looked at.

Maybe the middle ground is that software patent law can be done right.

I hope we get there.
 
For those of you using VLC for DVD playback, you may also want to try the freeware/donationware program XinePlayer. It is also (apparently) going to be affected by this ruling, but ignoring that, it is actually a pretty nice DVD player that offers many of VLC's features in a simplified and streamlined package. XinePlayer also offers multiple de-interlacing options (similar to VLC) and it seems that XinePlayer uses fewer CPU cycles to implement de-interlacing (which could benefit lower-end systems).

XinePlayer is available on MacUpdate, so get it while you can. In fact, XinePlayer depends upon some of the work done for VLC and upon several of the open source efforts that may also be affected by this EU ruling.

Here is the link to the MacUpdate download:

http://macupdate.com/info.php/id/17492

As for software patents, I'm generally against them. The industry already has copyright and trade secret protections that apply to software and I believe that you should not be able to patent a general idea or technique (regardless of how "new") that can be implemented in a thousand different ways (actually, on a source-code level in an infinite number of ways, some better, some worse).

In a way, being able to patent software is almost like being able to patent an idea for a story or movie. So, I'm going to "patent" an idea for a story about a man and woman falling in love. After that, no one will be able to write any story about a man and woman falling in love without first licensing my story patent. Crazy, yet some some software patents are just about as silly. In my opinion, the above is what copyrights are for, and software can be copyrighted to protect a specific implementation of a technique or idea. IMO, software patents are out of control and we need new laws or changes in the law to restrict their use.

EDIT: sorry, XinePlayer is not on VersionTracker, use MacUpdate instead.
 
rvernout said:
Ehh sorry, patents have been around for more than a century.
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Software patents are different from regular patents, and traditional patent law never applied to software before these laws were recently created.
 
Now someone educate me

I read and understand that the EU is taking action against the makers of vlc and other mutimedia players, but out side of the EU how does the effect people in other countries. I understand patents have no borders, but it also becomes an issue of enforcing the judgment. What does the US care or Mexico or Canada? What prevents the software from being developed somewhere else ? I hear the bark, wheres the bite?
 
therevolution said:
Software patents are different from regular patents, and traditional patent law never applied to software before these laws were recently created.
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Software patents are not different from other patents. Patenting software implemented inventions has always been possible (see my post above), that is of course since software became a business. It was just not clear between the different member states how much of a technical contribution a software invention must have (none, a minimum or substantially). The current EU proposal is the first ruling specifically meant for software related inventions, in order to define uniformely in all member states which software inventions are patentable and which ones are not. The proposed standard will be a minimum of technical contribution, which has been the practice of the European Patent Office since long.
 
Maybe I'm missing something here, but after reading these posts, one might think the fate of computing and software creation itself was in question.

Really, this is one of many open source battles currently being fought. Everyone's a drama queen now because it's a video player.
 
Loge, that's a good read (thanks for the link to the letter by Knuth). Given my example above of being able to patent story or movie ideas, I think it's interesting that Knuth said the following:

The basic algorithmic ideas that people are now rushing to patent are so fundamental, the result threatens to be like what would happen if we allowed authors to have patents on individual words and concepts. Novelists or journalists would be unable to write stories unless their publishers had permission from the owners of the words. Algorithms are exactly as basic to software as words are to writers, because they are the fundamental building blocks needed to make interesting products.
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Loge said:
Worth remembering Donald Knuth's letter of 1994 on the subject of software patents.

http://www.softwarepatenter.dk/baggrund/letter-uspto-donaldknuth/view

He states that he would not have been able to develop TeX, had software patents been around at the time. I sort of take it for granted that I can produce professional looking mathematical documents, on the platform of my choice, using free software.
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caveman_uk said:
Apparently this ruling is to bring EU patent law into line with US Law on the matter where software patents already exist. Quite why we have to follow the US example and not the other way around is a different question... :rolleyes:
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huh, i think this was the US Congress' statement when they updated the ruling on software patents. :)
when are we ever going to catch up with each other? ;)
 
exactly

caveman_uk said:
Apparently this ruling is to bring EU patent law into line with US Law on the matter where software patents already exist. Quite why we have to follow the US example and not the other way around is a different question... :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

The EU was dead set against what they saw as an abuse of the patent principle by mostly US companies.

Alas, the all mighty dollar, even when converted to Euros, still carries a great deal of influence.

Lets be realistic here. Patents, in general, are a good idea. This was never in dispute. However the EU felt that where software was concerned, the principle was being abused and leading to a crippling of innovation.

In other words, the EU felt that the US was granting patents too easily. And frankly, they have a point. I recall reading somewhere where US politicians were applying pressure to EU politicians to have the EU fall in line with the American thinking. Sadly it appears to have worked.

~iGuy
 
See the thing is that software is a lot like biological patents- you might have one or a couple of ways to do/make something (basic ideas mostly one way). An example is DNA for something specific to humans- lets say a sequence to prevent someone getting AIDS. About the only way to prevent it is coding for something to block the bonding site. Now imagine someone has patented this and is now charging a large fee. How do you go about making a cure without getting a liscence? You don't even have to be in the feild to get the patent either- all you need is the $$$ and submit it before anyone else(forcing someone to pull you on your own sled) Its not blocking one gate to the point- its blocking THE gate to the point.

Its also sort of why I don't like Software or Biological patents. Imagine if Microsoft or some other OS maker had patented the idea of an OS, or maybe interacting a with a cpu, or other basic methouds for a computer to run. Another point to bring up is how broad the pantents are- Amazon's one-click shopping patent (not a verry vital patent) but a verry broad patent. Another thing is how is a start-up suppose to know about all the patents that would/could affect their upcoming software/idea? A lot of wading through papers just to see if you can write a simple script. The original idea of a patent was that a maker of a product could have a limited time monopoly on the item- anymore we have 100+ year patents on things as simple as mickey mouse!
 
Only way to view DVDs with a Lombard

Shame... because this was just about the only way to view DVDs with a Lombard or Wallstreet (with upgraded processor) in OS X.
 
fpnc said:
Quoted: if we allowed authors to have patents on individual words and concepts
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Authors DO have copyrights on words ... one that comes to mind is Rich Hall and Snigglets

Authors also have patents on concepts and storylines... no one can use the concept of machine controlled virtual worlds and call it The Matrix
 
TwitchOSX said:
Most of the porno I d/l wont run in Quicktime, and I hate loading up Microsoft's video player... hell cant even think of the name of it right now.
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Duh, why do you think everyone's so upset?..... But thanks for your honesty!
 
i'm a little rusty on my software patent knowledge, but considering that VLC is an open source app, isn't the responsibility on the authors of the codecs they use? most of the codecs they use, AFAIR, are not their own. in which case, it would be the engineers (cough cough, reverse engineers) of the codecs to be responsible legally. unless VLC wrote some of the codecs. in which case they're screwed.
 
dferrara said:
Maybe I'm missing something here, but after reading these posts, one might think the fate of computing and software creation itself was in question.

Really, this is one of many open source battles currently being fought. Everyone's a drama queen now because it's a video player.
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the other open source battles have generally little to do with mac users. VLC is the best free video player for the mac currently. so therefore, it IS a big deal.
 
Oryan said:
I had lots of trouble with this too. When i finally read the readme file I found this:

VLC is known to have lots of problems on G5's. Try going into the preferences -> Modules -> audio output -> coreaudio. Now change the device value from 0 to 1. Choose Save and Quit and restart VLC.

Now DVD audio works fine on my computer. Hope this helps.
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Thanks so much, mine was at -1, but I set it to 1 and now it works. I couldn't find this on my own, and I asked earlier, but nobody else could help.
 
haha

d.perel said:
i'm downloading it now, but what does it do?
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it plays all kinds of video media ... like 98% of all formats, it's on every backup I do. haha i have like 8 versions... its the best out there, mplayer2 is ok but this one is fully developed... dont shut it down!
 
adzoox said:
Authors DO have copyrights on words ... one that comes to mind is Rich Hall and Snigglets

Authors also have patents on concepts and storylines... no one can use the concept of machine controlled virtual worlds and call it The Matrix
Click to expand...

No, that's copyright, and it's different. This would be more analgous to the Wachowski Brothers having a patent on all stories invoving machine controlled virtual worlds.

That's obviously not the case though.
 
Software patents kill innovations

I have an idea :rolleyes: : a chemical/organic compound that can be taken either internally or externally by human to cure AIDS. Now if I can get the patent office to patent this idea, anyone that's working on cures for AIDS will be infringing on my patent!

I would never get this patent, of course, because the idea is so general. But this is what software patent currently is! I have absolutely no idea on how to find this cure for AIDS, I just have a patented idea. How will this help in finding cure for AIDS? Nobody has stolen or copied any actual formula or anything. But all I have to do is sit on my fat lazy arsk and file lawsuits.

So, could someone tell me who the EU representative in the U.S. is that we can write to?
 
Perhaps I missunderstand, but Nothing I read seemed to indicate that this directly affects this project. It does, in a round about way, and is totally not a good idea. But I don't see how it DIRECTLY affects this project, as in, law passes, project is illegal.
 
BillHarrison said:
Perhaps I missunderstand, but Nothing I read seemed to indicate that this directly affects this project. It does, in a round about way, and is totally not a good idea. But I don't see how it DIRECTLY affects this project, as in, law passes, project is illegal.
Click to expand...
Software patents become law
Previously filed software patents suddenly become legal
Certain concepts implemented in VLC violate some of these patents
VLC is illegal
 
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