[Ffmpeg-devel] moving non-SIMD parts of libswscale to LGPL

[Roine Gustafsson]

On Nov 17, 2006, at 7:26 AM, Michael Niedermayer wrote:
> On Thu, Nov 16, 2006 at 08:25:37PM +0700, Roine Gustafsson wrote:
> [...]
>> (BTW, I think the database exception rule has led some people here to
>> believe that tables are not covered by copyright, which is not
>> necessarily true. If the data in the table can be considered a work
>> and is not just a "mere aggregation", the table is covered by
>> copyright.)
>
> IANAL!
> the first million digits of pi are not copyrightable, even if it took
> your lifetime to find them and they are certainly not mere aggregated
> IANAL

The digits of pi are not a creative work of art, and as such not  
covered by copyright.

> IANAL!
> or for a more realistic example, assuming bill gates would write a  
> poem
> to his cat, and include that at the top of every executable every word
> file and so on, and then add a check into all programs so that they
> would refuse to execute or display files which didnt include this poem
> IANAL!
> next he would write some nasty license for this poem (like pay me  
> 1% of
> your income related to all programs which contain my poem)
>
> do you think microsoft would win a lawsuit if some company which  
> writes
> software for MS operating systems just copied that poem without  
> paying MS?
>
> if you think yes, then why didnt MS try that yet?

MS do claim copyright on some structs in SMB to kill off Samba.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/12/23/microsoft_eu_appeal_analysis/

> and now to the case of any essential and unique tables needed to  
> decode
> some format, here its not even a 1% of our income its rather a "no you
> cannot use these tables"

Don't kill the messenger.
My note was more to Luca who didn't seem to think data in tables  
could be covered by copyright at all.
I mean, what is libavcodec.a if not a table of data?

Besides, it's only verbatim copies of works of art that are covered  
by copyright. Any table that could be trivially generated in code  
(i.e the table is only a convenience and does not contain any  
creative "art") should not be covered by copyright. As such, IMO few  
tables would in reality be covered.

> and again I am not a lawyer,

...and we're all awfully happy with your choice of profession.


   Roine