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Author Topic: GDC sues Dolby over TMS and 3D audio interoperability Carsten Kurz Film God Posts: 4340 From: Cologne, NRW, Germany Registered: Aug 2009 posted 04-13-2016 09:15 AM                     Well placed around CinemaCon: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr-esq/future-digital-cinema-may-be-882944 ---- While Oracle is about to square off against Google in a $9 billion trial over copyrighted Java API code, the entertainment industry is witnessing its own cutting-edge dispute over interoperability codes now being used in the digital cinema industry. As theater owners across the country continue to switch from the use of physical film prints to entirely digital systems, a lawsuit was filed Monday by GDC Technology Limited against Dolby Laboratories. The plaintiff counts itself as one of the largest sellers of software and hardware to theater owners, and it has a system that has been installed on approximately 40,000 screens worldwide that allows video and audio content to be stored and played. To bring motion pictures like Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice to fans, digital cinema systems rely upon media servers, sound processors, projectors and maybe most essentially, software that contains the messages and commands that tie everything together. "There is nothing secret about these interoperability codes," states GDC's complaint filed in California federal court. "For years market participants, including GDC and Dolby, have readily shared their interoperability codes and related information with one another.... Were the market participants to not share this information, they would make it more difficult to sell their products to theater owners, whose needs may be better served by buying the four basic digital cinema components from different manufacturers and sellers, or in different combinations." According to the lawsuit, Dolby shared its codes "enthusiastically" and without license for years, but once it acquired a media server manufacturer called Doremi, it decided it would no longer do so. The change in position allegedly not only benefited its newly owned subsidiary, but also enhanced the prospect of Dolby's theater sound system called Atmos, which went head-to-head with a GDC licensed immersive sound system called DTS:X. Dolby is said to be claiming intellectual property rights in the interoperability codes to "pressure" customers, notifying GDC "that its protocols and interconnection codes are subject to copyright and other unspecified intellectual property rights. Further, Dolby demanded that GDC refrain from telling GDC’s customers that GDC has the right to use Dolby’s interconnection codes." GDC says Dolby knows very well that interoperability codes are "not protectable forms of intellectual property," pointing to dozens of digital cinema related works registered by Dolby that don't assert coverage for those codes. And even if that's not true, GDC says it "is engaged in fair use," that it writes its own software code and that the only element being used from Dolby are the messages and commands being used by other participants in the industry. The plaintiff, represented by Robert Schwartz at Irell & Manella, is now in court seeking declaratory relief that the codes don't constitute copyrighted subject matter nor trade secrets and that Dolby should be held liable for tortious interference and unfair competition. Read the entire complaint. We've reached out to Dolby and will add any statement.  --- - Carsten  |  IP: Logged Leo Enticknap Film God Posts: 7474 From: Loma Linda, CA Registered: Jul 2000 posted 04-13-2016 11:21 AM                        Interesting that GDC wants the case decided by a jury (final page of complaint). Unless they are able to select a jury consisting of at least some IT and/or a/v technology professionals, I'd have thought that there is a significant risk that jurors wouldn't understand (or at least, fully understand) the evidence they were being given, and therefore make the wrong call. For the last few years or so before I left Britain, there were regular calls by defense lawyers in medical negligence and complicated financial cases (criminal ones) for them either to be tried by a judge alone, or for the jury to be restricted to qualified professionals in those areas, who pointed to what they argued were major miscarriages of justice in the past. Those calls didn't go anywhere, but my understanding is that the issue is still live. In terms of the case itself, I wonder what Dolby's defense will be? The obvious one I can think of is that under the relevant precedents and/or statutes, the codes are copyrightable IP, that choosing to allow competitors to use them in the past is not the same thing as releasing them into the public domain, and therefore that the law allows Dolby simply to change its mind on that at any given point in time, whether their competitors like it or not. A lot of the text of that complaint says, in effect, "Dolby co-operated with us in the past, they aren't now, and we think that's unfair." Unless there is specific case law that does actually establish that sharing those codes is a one-way ticket (i.e. that you can't revoke the right to use them later), I wouldn't have thought that this would hold a lot of water. The claim also made assertions, without any evidence to back them up, about the claimed superiority of DTS:X over Atmos (no figures for the number of installations, for example, whereas there are for server sales). If this becomes a serious issue in the trial, it will surely become established pretty quickly that no-one's immersive audio system has achieved mass-rollout, mainly because of the cost of rewiring auditoria, not the competing features of the formats and players themselves. In a way, that makes the existence of this lawsuit interesting, because it indicates GDC's belief that this market is growable. Would they be bothering to sue Dolby if they'd concluded that immersive sound is effectively a stillborn technology? It'll be interesting to see how this one pans out, to put it mildly.  |  IP: Logged Mark Gulbrandsen Resident Trollmaster Posts: 16657 From: Music City Registered: Jun 99 posted 04-13-2016 12:38 PM                     Way before I entered the scene in this area it was Dolby's arrogance that turned off a lot of my customers back in the early Dolby Digital sound days (1980's) and most went with DTS then. IMHO if Dolby doesn't want to appear even by a simple licensing deal in GDC's TMS systems then that's a pretty stupid decision on their part. 40K screens is approaching nearly half of the worlds screens and that count just continues to climb. In the long run it'll be Dolby's loss. But either way I could actually care less what happens here... none of my present customers have anything Dolby nor will they in the foreseeable future due to poor past experiences with Dolby before I ever entered the scene here. Mark  |  IP: Logged Ken Lackner Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1907 From: Atlanta, GA, USA Registered: Sep 2001 posted 04-14-2016 07:14 AM                     What do they mean by "interoperability codes"? APIs and such that would allow third party automations and TMS systems to communicate with their servers? In my extremely unexpert legal opinion, I would tend to agree with Leo that there isn't much that can be done about that. Am I missing something?  |  IP: Logged Harold Hallikainen Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 906 From: Denver, CO, USA Registered: Aug 2009 posted 04-14-2016 07:23 AM                        The legal complaint (linked to in an earlier post) provides more detail. As I read it, Dolby is objecting to GDC's TMS communicating with Dolby servers using a protocol originally supplied to GDC by Dolby. They compare it to a IR universal remote control that knows how to talk to various devices whether that device manufacturer authorized it or not. It gets into whether protocols or unique byte strings in a standard protocol can be copyrighted. GDC is asking the court to say a GDC TMS is free to communicate with a Dolby server and for the court to tell Dolby to stop telling people it is not ok for GDC TMS to communicate with the Dolby server. My quick summary, anyway. For the details, read the complaint. It will be interesting to see the response. Harold  |  IP: Logged Carsten Kurz Film God Posts: 4340 From: Cologne, NRW, Germany Registered: Aug 2009 posted 04-14-2016 08:08 AM                     Dolby Cinema Processors use a serial/ethernet command protocol for format and volume changes. Now, could Dolby at some point, after these have been used for years by other manufacturers, prevent them from being used? Thousands of screens would have to stop working, because you are not allowed to send a 'cp750.sys.mute 0 <CR>' from your non-Dolby Server to a CP750? I am not familiar with US law, but I think the terms 'fair use' and 'unlawful interference' are the key elements here. Also keep in mind that already Dolbys Doremi aquisition had to be cleared. Now Dolby taking such steps... I don't think Dolby will be able to get through with this. Too many other TMS companies with a far larger market share. They can not simply exclude only GDC with a general copyright statement because they are a competitor in other areas. Will other TMS companies receive the same statement from Dolby? Is it wise to buy equipment from Dolby if it limits your choices for interoperability? The interesting question is, what is Dolby REALLY trying to achieve with this? - Carsten  |  IP: Logged Tony Bandiera Jr Film God Posts: 3067 From: Moreland Idaho Registered: Apr 2004 posted 04-14-2016 10:48 AM                     My question is, when did the management of Dolby start doing crack? (Maybe it was sometime shortly after September 12, 2013?) They have really lost touch with reality and seem to be, customer-relations-wise, a mere shell of their former self. Ray Dolby is spinning in his grave...  |  IP: Logged Mark Gulbrandsen Resident Trollmaster Posts: 16657 From: Music City Registered: Jun 99 posted 04-14-2016 11:08 AM                     No Tony, they went on crack back in the he 80's with the advent of SRD.  |  IP: Logged Mattias Mattsson Film Handler Posts: 90 From: Göteborg, Sweden Registered: May 2007 posted 04-14-2016 04:43 PM                     quote: Carsten Kurz Dolby Cinema Processors use a serial/ethernet command protocol for format and volume changes. Now, could Dolby at some point, after these have been used for years by other manufacturers, prevent them from being used? I believe the case is about the API for the Doremi line of servers/IMB:s. These have always required signing an NDA (even before the Dolby takeover) whereas Dolby has been more generous sharing the API details for the DSS servers.  |  IP: Logged Marco Giustini Film God Posts: 2713 From: Reading, UK Registered: Nov 2007 posted 04-15-2016 03:12 AM                     I guess Dolby are trying to push their TMS and they're slowly getting less helpful with other TMS manufacturers in terms of API exchange. I do not think Dolby can prevent anybody from using previously-released code but they could change the existing one or add new undocumented features. At that point third-party TMS's would stop working reliably with Dolby equipment and Dolby's reply would be 'buy a Dolby TMS'. Hopefully they don't end up burned as the Dolby TMS will need third party API's to work well too!! In my opinion this is just a very narrow-minded view of the market. It cannot work anymore these days. They will hit a brick wall.  |  IP: Logged Ken Lackner Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1907 From: Atlanta, GA, USA Registered: Sep 2001 posted 04-15-2016 10:07 AM                     quote: Hopefully they don't end up burned as the Dolby TMS will need third party API's to work well too!! Not if you have all Dolby equipment. In my opinion, Dolby is pretty awesome if you have ALL Dolby. Start mixing in third party anything that Dolby makes an equivalent of (which is pretty much everything but the projector), and the Dolby system becomes less and less awesome. Of course, it's just not a good idea to make a TMS that doesn't support servers other than your own. But in my experience it seems that each of the TMS systems that are made by a server manufacturer work best with their own servers. (Of course that's not to say they don't work at all with the other servers; sometimes there are certain annoyances you just have to live with by virtue of the fact that the two items are made by different vendors.)  |  IP: Logged Mark Gulbrandsen Resident Trollmaster Posts: 16657 From: Music City Registered: Jun 99 posted 04-15-2016 12:56 PM                     quote: Ken Lackner Start mixing in third party anything that Dolby makes an equivalent of (which is pretty much everything but the projector), and the Dolby system becomes less and less awesome. That's a very good way to put it Ken! I agree that people that are ONLY exposed to Dolby equipped booths have no idea how good the other equipment actually is until a piece of their beloved Dolby gear gets replaced with another competing brand. If Dolby doesn't agree to make their code universally available then hopefully no one else gives Dolby their code. The end result is that no one is gonna buy Dolby gear... which these days really isn't Dolby designed gear anyway. Mark  |  IP: Logged Randy Stankey Film God Posts: 6539 From: Erie, Pennsylvania Registered: Jun 99 posted 04-15-2016 01:07 PM                     It sounds like Dolby is going for Vendor Lock. That's the reason I don't buy Sony products very much. There are others that do the same thing. I don't buy those either. If they are going to start playing the "None of your equippment will work correctly if you don't buy 100% Dolby" game, I'll stop buying Dolby products, too.  |  IP: Logged Steve Guttag We forgot the crackers Gromit!!! Posts: 12814 From: Annapolis, MD Registered: Dec 1999 posted 04-16-2016 08:53 AM                     As I understand it...it is the Doremi side of things that never provided GDC their API codes. The Dolby DSS line did and was either the first or one of the first to have their server support the GDC TMS. I'm sure Doremi's position was to not support a direct sever competitor since Doremi had a TMS system. Doremi, conversely allowed 3rd party TMS companies to have their APIs. Now that Dolby has taken over the Doremi products...they seem to be continuing the Doremi position. Personally, I think it flies in the face of the whole DCI thing of interoperability. That is the CUSTOMER should be able to choose what equipment they want and everything should play nice. The example was we didn't want a Dolby, DTS, SDDS debacle again where exhibitors had to buy multiple pieces for everything to work. That is why every IMB has the same card slot specifications but Christie thew down that gauntlet with the Solaria1/1+ by refusing to allow 3rd party IMBs in there...they've backed down to allowing them with the CP2208. To a degree Barco has followed suit now on their Laser and the 6E though you can now, I believe use HDSDI, if not IMBs of other brands since the ICP is supported. Then again, I heard at the show that Christie is refusing to have a USL position on their projectors for IMBs...so this pettiness thing continues. I question if APIs can really be copyrighted. This sort of thing would have surly been tried during the "IBM Compatible" days of the 1980s in the PC world. Even when I was in college, we had assignments where we had to create DOS interrupts that would run on the 8088 chipset. All we knew were what the interrupt was supposed to do and we then wrote our own Assembly code to have it mimic what the real-deal was. It isn't like one is getting your source code because they have your API/commands/responses. Just because someone says "hello" to you doesn't mean you know what they are thinking. It wouldn't be too hard to find the APIs through mere observations of port activity. I've done it on some A/V equipment.  |  IP: Logged Ray Derrick Master Film Handler Posts: 310 From: Sydney, Australia Registered: Sep 2001 posted 06-27-2016 02:04 AM                     Steve, I am fairly certain that the GDC TMS does (or at least did) support Doremi servers. I know this because a few years back I installed an NEC IMS (which is made for NEC by Doremi) into an NC-900 projector and wanted to install a GDC TMS to control it. GDC told me there should be no problem because their TMS supported Doremi servers, however when I set it all up, the TMS could partly but not fully communicate with the IMS. So I contacted Jim Murray at Doremi who said words to the effect that "there is no way we are giving our codes to GDC for the NEC IMS". So I think this attitude from Doremi developed later, (maybe because GDC were outselling them?) and as you say is now being continued by Dolby. All seems very petty to me, but no surprise as I have come to expect such things from certain cinema manufacturers.  |  IP: Logged

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