Open-Source Standoff: GitHub Freezes Rockchip’s Code After Two-Year FFmpeg License Battle

Rockchip Electronics, a company focused on chip design, has found itself at the center of controversy after being accused by the well-known open-source project FFmpeg of copying code in violation of licensing terms. Following the submission of a DMCA takedown notice under the U.S. Digital Millennium Copyright Act, GitHub has now disabled Rockchip’s MPP project repository.

The issue first surfaced in February 2024, when the FFmpeg team discovered that Rockchip had copied portions of FFmpeg code directly into its drivers. While the use of open-source code is permitted, the problem lay in Rockchip’s actions: the company altered the original license and removed the original authors’ attributions.

At the time, Herman Chen, a developer responsible for the MPP project, issued an apology to FFmpeg and promised that the offending code would be replaced in future updates. He attributed the infringement to a misunderstanding of the differences and conflicts between the Apache and LGPL licenses.

Under normal circumstances, the matter might have ended there. However, nearly two years passed without Rockchip removing the code or restoring the original license. As a result, FFmpeg developers opted for a more direct course of action. They submitted a DMCA notice to GitHub, explaining that the infringed component was the libavcodec library, which contains a wide array of audio and video decoders and encoders for numerous formats.

These encoders are distributed under the LGPL. According to FFmpeg, the infringing party removed the original copyright notices and author credits, claimed authorship of the code, and redistributed it under the more permissive Apache license—all of which constitutes a violation of the LGPL’s terms.

FFmpeg further noted that the infringer had been notified nearly two years earlier and had taken no meaningful steps to resolve the issue. Even earlier communications—including the developer’s last comment, now hidden—suggested that there was no genuine intention to address the problem.

Upon receiving the DMCA notice, GitHub followed its standard procedures and froze the MPP repository. Visiting the project page now displays a notice stating that access has been disabled due to a DMCA violation.

Rockchip has yet to issue any public response. Should the company choose to appeal and properly remedy the infringement, restoring the repository would not be difficult. That such a straightforward issue escalated to the point of a DMCA takedown, however, leaves many observers puzzled by Rockchip’s handling of the situation.

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