Well, if posting binaries (without paying royalties) is illegal and you post a link to a site with binaries, then it's a link to a site with illegal content :( and I don't think this would be acceptable...

Yes I have to agree to that :!:
This would then make my program illegal, because it would depend on DLL's that are freely available, but the "whole" is then illegal, if I don't pay royalties to MPEGLA. :?
I don't think we'll see the KVCD encoder working with MPEG-2 avcodec libraries. It will just be MPEG-1, until I contact MPEGLA directly for further clarifications.

-kwag

But you know if site with binaries didn't pay licenses?
Kwag's encoder also can leave this door open.
What users do with that is not a developper problem.

just my 2 cent
 

Even if I know that what I say is not mutch apreciated, i (as always) think that a FairUse-like approach (direct DVD encoding) would be great.

Source code available here

Re: just my 2 cent
 

What do you mean patchworks?
What is it you say that we don't appreciate in what you say?
What do you mean? That we don't appreciate a good fellow like you bumping in on a thread and posting completely out of the context?
Or do you mean that KVCD Encoder GUI should be similar to Fairuse?
Cheers

Hello to everyone ! I was navigating in ffmpeg home page and there we have a faq about licenses issues:

Cheers,

If you live in a country where software patents are not recognised, you can distribute the binaries legally AFAIK. Unfortunately patent laws exist in the US. I live in Australia, and we don't have software patents, yet. The Fair Trade agreement with the US is going to change this, which is going to screw small business in here. Until then, AFAIK, I can distribute binaries and legally as far as Australian law enforcement is concerned. But correct me if I am wrong.

So Kwag, if you would distribute it outside the US, would it then be legal (or if you ask someone in a country where no Software IP laws exists to do it)??

Thanks Peter.
But I think I would be screwed, because I'm in the US (Puerto Rico), so even if I distribute the binaries on some remote site, the source of origin is still US, and there are legal bindings to that too.

An off (but close) topic: Last night I read an interesting article about the site "SUPRNOVA.ORG" about to be shutdown by authorities: http://www.slyck.com/news.php?story=602
I guess most of you know what it is. Remembering the site "ShareReactor", which was shut down, and they only posted links to copyrighted stuff, suprnova.org will be shut down for shure, because on top of having links to warez stuff, they even "host" the .torrent files.
So the ramifications are very strong for a site shutdown.
This is just an example of the things that are going on on the net. So even if I distribute the files on a "off shore" site, I'm sure they'll try to find a way to make the connection. I'm still evaluating other legal possibilities.

Thanks,
-kwag

True, this gets sometime sick.
I've readed on my local portal (that takes a goal, to point some people using illegal software, that there exsists freeware or cheeper possibilities) that in US some organisation proceded small test. They sended emails to providers hosting some sites, with abuse information about illegal contents of some sites. Mails were from popular mail serveices like yahoo or lycos, and 8 of 10 providers shut down pointed sites without even bothering if content of site is illegal :? Sick :!:
So this is risky.

:D
What if illegal material is hosted on Chinese or North Korean (or Russian) servers. US companies don't even bother with copyrighted material on Chinese servers, the Chinese government doesn't care (and probably love the fact that it pisses off US companies). And the US doesn't want to cause any conflicts :wink:.

:lol:

Well, that's true, but mostly because the US doesn't know the source of origin. They are hosted anonymously by anonymous posters.
But in the case of the KVCD encoder, I'm sure if I host it on the moon, they'll come after me :lol:

-kwag

Hi Kwag an others,
all this legal staff complicate things a lot :( . Let me see if I understood well: as libavcodec is able to encode mpeg streams, any encoder based in libavcodec should pay royalties?, did I understand it well?. If not, K-encoder could be released with MPEG-2 abilities just linked to libavcodec, and as Kwag said, a Pro version with charged codecs. Am I saying silly things?.
Anyway, I'm willing to test it even with MPEG-1 support "only". I'm sure it'll look great :wink: . And then you'll find the way to make it able to encode KDVD. Sure.
....
...
..
.
waiting with excitement

Anything that is faster than Tmpgenc gets my vote.

To dumb down US law as far as that goes, the data on the computer is under the jurisdiction of the country in which the computer is physically located.

If you had it hosted in a country where they dont care about copyright laws, or never signed the bourne convention (south korea comes to mind), you would be in the green, but the people who downloaded it would not be.

1) What about distributing the sources (of the codec only) along with a makefile and detailed instructions on how to build it with some specific free compiler (like gcc, bcc)? Would that be OK?

2) If you write the mpeg-2 encoder in java (interpreted) would that be considered "source code" or "binary"?

Java is not interpreted but pre-compiled in a pseudo language that will be understood locally on any client by the VM.

JavaScript is interpreted. And if you manage to do a mpeg2 encoder with this, tell me :-)

Interesting. Its more likely to be possible to write it in a VB Script. Assuming it were possible, who would be patient enough to encode at ~1fps or less? Maybe in the future when we all have 50GHz machines.

:rotf: Exactly :!: I wouldn't :lol: At that time, a JAVA encoder would do real time encoding, and a C/C++ (or other optimized compiled language) will be doing 50X realtime :D

-kwag

FairUse....
 

I mean that no one (both here and @ FairUse forum) seems interested to build a DVD-to-K(s)VCD backup tool (like FairUse, that is a DVD-to-MPEG4).
Can't understand why... I think that an open source backup tool that can (also ?) encode *directly* from a DVD could be interesting for DVD-players manufacturers to bundle with... and probably they can support its develop.

Probably I have misunderstood the open source philosophy, but I always try to express my opinion about a project, expecially if is constructive.

Anyway, happy coding !

Sorry patchworks,
I still don't think I clearly understand what you are trying to say.
There's no problem in showing your emotions towards any project around ;-).
But the truth is, this is not an "open source" forum.
Meaning, most of us like to use open source tools but most of us think that plain freeware does the trick and that there's no need for the source if the coder is interested in keeping it for himself.
Of course as long as he maintains it's code.
Cheers