CoreCodec, the company behind the high-performance CoreAVC H.264 implementation, issued an apology this morning for its recent abuse of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), a law that broadly prohibits circumvention of copy-protection mechanisms.

In a DMCA takedown notice sent to Google over the weekend, CoreCodec demanded that Google cease hosting coreavc-for-linux, an open source project that provided a Linux compatibility layer for the CoreAVC codec. The DMCA notice claimed that the open-source project infringes CoreCodec's copyright and includes CoreAVC code. Although Google complied with the notice and removed the project, the allegations made by CoreCodec were entirely without merit. The coreavc-for-linux project contains no infringing code and is merely a compatibility wrapper that enables legitimately purchased copies of CoreAVC to be used by Linux users.

In a statement published today in CoreCodec's community forums, cofounder Dan Marlin apologized and said that the company is working with Google to get the project back online. He explains that CoreCodec had some concerns about reverse-engineering that they were working privately to resolve with Alan Nisota, the lead developer of the coreavc-for-linux project, and that the DMCA notice was sent because the company's overzealous legal counsel wrongfully believed that it was a necessary part of the process.

"The DMCA does allow for reverse engineering for compatibility purposes and hence in the end no matter what the 'other points' are the DMCA takedown request was wrongly sent," wrote Marlin in a public statement. "I'd like to publicly apologize to Alan for the disconnect between him and us as well as the disruption to the project as there was no ill will intended and we were already working on a resolution with him before this went public."

Marlin says that that CoreCodec has established a new internal process for handling intellectual property issues so that they won't improperly use the DMCA again in the future. CoreCodec will also be assisting Nisota with his ongoing development efforts to ensure that coreavc-for-linux users can continue buying and using the CoreAVC codec. In the long-term CoreCodec also hopes to release a GStreamer-based CoreAVC codec so that they can officially support Linux users.

This situation highlights some of the serious flaws of the DMCA. Companies often issue takedown notices without fully understanding the situation and hosting providers often acquiesce in order to avoid any potential liability. All too often, DMCA takedown notices are used as a tool to censor and intimidate rather than a vehicle for addressing instances of infringement.