A GitHub repository maintained by Rockchip has been disabled following a DMCA takedown request filed by a contributor to the FFmpeg project. The company was informed about the problem nearly two years ago, but despite repeated assurances, it has still taken no action to resolve it. In the end, the expected happened.
The complaint alleges that Rockchip’s Media Process Platform (MPP) repository contains multiple files derived directly from FFmpeg’s libavcodec codebase and that the reuse violates the terms of the LGPL license under which FFmpeg is distributed.
For those unfamiliar, Rockchip is a Chi…
A GitHub repository maintained by Rockchip has been disabled following a DMCA takedown request filed by a contributor to the FFmpeg project. The company was informed about the problem nearly two years ago, but despite repeated assurances, it has still taken no action to resolve it. In the end, the expected happened.
The complaint alleges that Rockchip’s Media Process Platform (MPP) repository contains multiple files derived directly from FFmpeg’s libavcodec codebase and that the reuse violates the terms of the LGPL license under which FFmpeg is distributed.
For those unfamiliar, Rockchip is a Chinese semiconductor company best known for designing system-on-chip platforms widely used in single-board computers, Android devices, media players, and embedded Linux systems.
To support multimedia acceleration on its hardware, Rockchip develops MPP, an open-source framework that provides video decoding and encoding support for formats such as AV1, H.265, and VP9.
GitHub disabled the Rockchip Linux MPP repository after a DMCA notice.
The DMCA filing states that several files in the Rockchip MPP repository are derived from FFmpeg’s libavcodec sources. It lists AV1, H.265, and VP9 decoder files, and claims the copied code is clear because of matching structure, comments, and commented-out calls to FFmpeg functions with their original names.
Much of FFmpeg, including libavcodec, uses the GNU Lesser General Public License version 2.1. This license allows reuse, but only if certain rules are followed. These rules include keeping copyright notices, giving proper credit, and ensuring any shared code remains under an LGPL-compatible license.
The DMCA notice says Rockchip broke these rules by removing the original copyright and author details, claiming the copied code as their own, and sharing it under the Apache license, which does not meet LGPL requirements here.
As a result of the complaint, GitHub disabled public access to the affected repository. At the time of writing, the repository remains unavailable, and no counter-notice has been publicly filed.
Bobby Borisov
Bobby, an editor-in-chief at Linuxiac, is a Linux professional with over 20 years of experience. With a strong focus on Linux and open-source software, he has worked as a Senior Linux System Administrator, Software Developer, and DevOps Engineer for small and large multinational companies.