Legality of Linux Mint codecs (was linux mint)

[Martin Visser]

Robert,

I pretty much agree with your observations. I guess I take the pragmatic
approach. I think most people would concur though, that the information
contained in https://help.ubuntu.com/community/RestrictedFormats is little
more than a nod and a wink to the laws that exist (which the Ubuntu
community has to do).

The reality is that I think we all know that almost everyone is civilly
disobedient in this regard - we just don't like saying it in public. So it
is frustrating why we all get so precious about this.

I personally would like to see a few more public take-down notices (to draw
attention to some of the inconsistencies) out there. (Why hasn't the
ubuntu-restricted-extras*.deb ever been asked to be removed from Australian
mirror sites?)

But also I don't want ordinary people to have to put themselves on the
perceived chopping block either.

Regards, Martin

MartinVisser99 at gmail.com


On Mon, Apr 12, 2010 at 12:26 PM, Robert Collins
<robertc at robertcollins.net>wrote:

> On Mon, 2010-04-12 at 12:02 +1000, Martin Visser wrote:
> > Barry,
> >
> >
> > I am guessing you mean patents rather patterns. That said, I think you
> > will find that those patents have not been enforced. They may have
> > some standing, but I don't think any non-licence holder of media
> > codecs and has been subject to legal proceedings in Australia (at
> > least publically).
>
> Patents don't get weaker with lack of enforcement: there is no reason to
> assume its safe just because there haven't been lawsuites.
>
> > (And put up your hand if you don't use MP3 on Ubuntu (without using
> > Fluendo). And if you do, you are, IMHO and remember IANAL, morally
> > clear, in that you probably already own multiple devices all that have
> > full-licensed patents on them - hence have already paid the patent
> > owners multiple times over).
>
> Its up to patent owners how they license: they may license per-device
> rather than per-user (or however they choose). If they want a license
> per device, you're infringing if you claim that you've paid but then use
> another device.
>
> This sucks, but its the current state of law.
>
> Australia permits business process and software patents.
>
> If you want to lobby for changes to the patent system by civil
> disobedience, thats your choice: but understand that the risk is real.
> In particular, someone distributing patent infringing software is a more
> visible target than an anonymous end user that downloads it.
>
> -Rob
>
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