VLC disappearing?

ipodandimacipodandimac
Posted:
in Mac Software edited January 2014
i'm surprised there hasn't been a thread started about this yet since some people are slaves to VLC. i'm personally not a fan of the app, but i do want them to win this lawsuit (or whatever you wanna call this). basically since VLC can play so many file types, they're getting sued for patent infringements.



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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 4
    ebbyebby Posts: 3,110member
    Find shelter soon. I feel a rant brewing...
  • Reply 2 of 4
    karl kuehnkarl kuehn Posts: 756member
    How is this news? VLC has always infringed on a whole number of MPEG licensing group patents... in order to play MPEG of any variety you have to. And the basis for the original Divx was code stolen from Microsoft (copywrite infringement... later versions got reverse engineered, so they are probably clear of the copywrite... but there are still the probable patent issues).



    As software patents are legal in the US, this is a clear case: VLC loses. However, at this point there is no lawsuit. The linked site is advocating abolishing software patents. I generally agree with the sentiment... to a point, but it is a more complex issue than they make it out to be, and their violation of the patents is clear.
  • Reply 3 of 4
    ipodandimacipodandimac Posts: 3,273member
    good points.
  • Reply 4 of 4
    gene cleangene clean Posts: 3,481member
    They are not threatened by patents being legal in the US, but by EU trying to pass a Patents Law. That Law will be similar to the one in the US, and seeing as VideoLAN is in Europe, it will be affected by it.



    I've read the same thing on www.mplayerhq.hu so it's no news to me.
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