Offical CODECS list

[curuxz]

Is there such a thing and if not please please could the admins make one, A kind of ethical guide as to which to use, which ones are totaly open and non-microsuck or copyrighted. So that we can all start trying to get some standards over which we use in our community and which ones are legal without breaking the ethics that make linux :)

[gil-galad]

Well its a bit complicated.

Some are open source and completely free. (Legal)
-Ogg.

Some are open source codecs yet they may be covered by patents. (Possible patent infringement)
-Mpeg 2, Mpeg 3, Xvid/Mpeg 4.

Some are open source versions of closed source codecs. (Possible patent infringement)
-Open source versions of quicktime and wmv.

Some are closed source yet work with mplayer and xine. (Illegal due to copyright/software license)
-Windows codecs, quicktime.

Some are encrypted and it is illegal to break the encryption by using it. (Illegal in US due to DMCA)
-DVDs, protected WMV/WMA