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Multimedia Codecs: The Legal Path

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Software

If the American government invested as many resources rounding up violators of software licenses as it does fighting “terror” (and no, I don’t mean the Jacobin variety), I’d have been put away long ago, because all of my Ubuntu systems use patented multimedia software that I didn’t pay for. But I’ve recently realized that it doesn’t have to be this way, and that legal codec support is easily available. Here’s a look at some of those options.

Last week, we wrote about multimedia patents and their place within the free-software ecosystem. As almost anyone who’s installed Ubuntu knows, the operating system doesn’t ship with patented multimedia codecs by default due to legal issues.

For most people, however, installing software to play MP3s and DVDs is simple enough. In many cases, the system automatically prompts users to download the fully functional but legally ambiguous gstreamer-ugly plugins from Ubuntu’s repositories the first time they try to play media compressed using proprietary algorithms. Where relevant, the pop-ups warn that using the software may be illegal in certain jurisdictions, but that hasn’t stopped anyone I know from clicking “OK”.

So chances are good that if you use Ubuntu for listening to music or watching videos, and you live in the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Germany, Japan or any other country whose legal codes frown upon violation of software patents, you’re breaking the law, maybe without realizing it.

If you’re like me, this may not bother you very much. There are much worse laws to break, after all.




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