Meizu's CeBIT booth shut down over MP3 licensing issues, not the M8

Well, it looks like that Meizu CeBIT shutdown wasn't for what you'd expect -- in a Meizu forum post, Jack Wong says that an Italian company called Sisvel complained about another Meizu PMP's unlicensed use of the MP3 codec, and that's what prompted the 5-0 to arrive. Interestingly, Jack also says that it's all a big misunderstanding, because Meizu products, including the M8, don't actually play MP3s, just WMA, and that local distributors have to cough up the licensing fees for MP3 playback. Apparently the booth is now open again, with the offending PMP removed -- the M8 remains on display, probably because it doesn't actually work yet.

Read - Jack Wong post at Meizu forums
Read - Heise article about the shutdown

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

[Jeff @ Mar 5th 2008 3:01PM]

Please don't cry Apple fans...you will have your retribution soon...

[ijyt @ Mar 5th 2008 3:03PM]

What a twist!

[nedy78 @ Mar 5th 2008 4:11PM]

No kidding, I'm waiting for the made for tv movie to come out. Germans, M8s, WMV, oh my...

[James Cameron @ Mar 5th 2008 7:46PM]

Next time they should put THE HOFF on their MP3. You don't mess with THE HOFF!!

[MosquitoControl @ Mar 5th 2008 3:08PM]

This makes, at least for now, some of those self-righteous know-it-all posts in the last thread much, much funnier.

[Harbo @ Mar 5th 2008 3:08PM]

:)

[patsy @ Mar 5th 2008 4:37PM]

Yeah, but what's a tech blog without knee-jerk association of anything German with Nazis, the Gestapo, or at the very least Attila The Hun in another merciless sweep across Central Europe.

[Wwhat @ Mar 6th 2008 6:49AM]

Sounds pretty nazi to me what it says on that picture, and that they make issue of mp3 licensing crap for products just on show that aren't sold.

[daedalus @ Mar 5th 2008 3:09PM]

Well that was a big STFU to like, 75% of Engadget readers

[ilh @ Mar 6th 2008 8:36AM]

Indeed. Anyone who knows anything about the M6 could've guessed that it might have something to do with this.
Got my gf 1 in 2006 and it shipped with a version of the firmware that couldn't play mp3s. Downloaded the firmware that could and voila no royalty fees to pay. Of course distributors like Dane-elec or whatever they're called pay the royalty fees and put the mp3 playing firmware on.
Copy or not i'm looking forward to the M8 as the sound quality on the M6 is superb.

[Cahlito @ Mar 5th 2008 3:09PM]

wth is a meizu

[Harbo @ Mar 5th 2008 3:14PM]

its chinese for apple, except something keeps getting lost in translation...

[Nando @ Mar 5th 2008 3:50PM]

"Lip them..."

[ilh @ Mar 6th 2008 8:37AM]

Yay for putting my comment as a reply to the wrong post, POS commenting system.

[pismodude2 @ Mar 5th 2008 3:12PM]

Say what? Fire the iMissiles!!!

[Frankenstein Black @ Mar 5th 2008 4:59PM]

Exactly! Don't forget the Debt cards they (China) holds too. Question, how do you tell someone that you owe money too and maker of a hefty portion of the parts to your weaponry to “stand down”? Answer, YOU DON’T! Thanks Dick n Dubya, LOL, sounds like a root beer company if it tweren’t so sad ;^(...

[Chip @ Mar 5th 2008 6:15PM]

? Most of the parts of our weaponry aren't made in China. Those that are, are innocuous. Besides, the President doesn't tell our military contractors where to make their parts. He signs legislation put forth by congress that are the guidelines the military must adhere to. If you want to go down that road, Clinton GAVE China their rocket technology. http://archive.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2003/9/29/25139.shtml

[pismodude2 @ Mar 5th 2008 9:59PM]

Wow. My comment was supposed to be a joke guys... Didn't expect such interesting responses. ;-)

[Frankenstein Black @ Mar 6th 2008 9:43AM]

Wow, Chip. Way to ignore the enormous Pink Elephant in the room! I was referring to Dick n Dubya's incessant borrowing of money from China which one day we could, er, WILL have beef with!! Good luck with that kids (and grandkids)...

[Alan Strangis @ Mar 5th 2008 3:15PM]

LMFAO!

I wonder if Joshua Topolsky will apologize for misleading a legion of engadget readers in his original post suggesting this was M8 related...

...let alone the unreasonable Apple fanatics who jumped down peoples throat for suggesting that the German police wouldn't close down a booth for imitating the look of the iPhone...

...then barraging everyone with spurious accusations that the M8 was actually running the iPhone OS on top of Windows CE, that Apple invented multi-touch, that Bill Gates stole code from Apple when he worked there in the 1980's...

Ah it was a fun ride while it lasted.

[coffee @ Mar 5th 2008 3:18PM]

this is pretty hilarious. That's what they get for making assumptions when they blog.

[Harbo @ Mar 5th 2008 3:20PM]

imagine a news network which only broadcast assumptions.

" and today we had no news of george bush doing anything stupid, so we assume he didnt "

see, will only land you trouble

[Alan Strangis @ Mar 5th 2008 3:24PM]

Harbo: no kidding, though I'd say the news isn't THAT much better.

[Alan Strangis @ Mar 5th 2008 3:25PM]

Harbo: no kidding, though I'd say the news isn't THAT much better.

[joe23521 @ Mar 5th 2008 4:04PM]

"imagine a news network which only broadcast assumptions."

Clearly you never watch CNN, FOXNEWS, or MSNBC.

[fred @ Mar 5th 2008 4:07PM]

"I wonder if Joshua Topolsky will apologize for misleading a legion of engadget readers in his original post suggesting this was M8 related..."

It's already humiliating enough that they had to even post this.

Maybe this whole debacle taught them a lesson, but I seriously doubt it.

They showed a very disturbing face today with that original story. I think it really damaged their credibility greatly, and it needn't have happened.

[Harbo @ Mar 5th 2008 4:15PM]

being a brit cant say I do, bbc is no better though i agree, and printed news, well, just dont bother, false headlines and retractions a plenty

[Bob @ Mar 5th 2008 4:28PM]

Nah, he's way too busy refreshing the Apple store website to see if it's down so he can make one of his patented posts!

[Nilay Patel @ Mar 5th 2008 4:59PM]

How is this humiliating? We were initially informed that authorities were there because of the M8, which isn't some far-fetched notion. Later, we got better information and updated accordingly.

[bob sakamano @ Mar 5th 2008 6:31PM]

nilay

i stand by you.

[snitch @ Mar 5th 2008 3:19PM]

this might mean that when apple decides to gets involve things will be worse,lol. i mean you ether want a iphone or you don't plain and simple. Not to many people like goin for knock-offs at least not on the US. Apple is just sitting back and letting them do what they wanna do, so they can own them later. About time they start taking advantage of the patent system too you know

[Alan Strangis @ Mar 5th 2008 4:36PM]

That's the first time I've seen someone who's not a patent lawyer say something positive about the US patent office in a LONG time... unless...

[farfisa @ Mar 5th 2008 3:25PM]

So, they brought an mp3 player to a trade show in Fraunhofer's homeland without properly licensing the codec? Ballsy as ever!

[DarkMan08 @ Mar 5th 2008 3:30PM]

Didn't this happen last year at CeBIT?

[Jeff @ Mar 5th 2008 3:34PM]

For SanDisk I believe...

[Iain @ Mar 5th 2008 3:46PM]

Yep, certainly did.

Only for it later to transpire that they weren't guilty of breaching copyright/patent laws as they didn't use Sisvel's decoding algorithms.

[BioWare #1 @ Mar 5th 2008 3:42PM]

HAW HAW HAW HAW HAW HAW HAW HAW...

*sigh*

Now is time to go back to the original article and re-read all the fanboys crying about copyrights and how engadget doesn't have their collective heads up Steve Job's ass. The juxtaposition of this article to that one shows that on every point, you all FAIL.

[Jeff @ Mar 5th 2008 3:59PM]

That may be true but who here actually reads more than the headlines and looks at the pretty pictures? :P

[SimonRichards @ Mar 5th 2008 3:42PM]

They don't play MP3s? WTF?

[Jeff @ Mar 5th 2008 3:52PM]

You know that's what it always is on paper.

Its an undocumented 'feature'...perhaps added by hackers...to every unit.

[snitch @ Mar 5th 2008 3:43PM]

i mean don't they know that Apple don't like to license patents???? anyone who has Dealt with them will tell you how they think steve is an greedy ass, who will rather put products out of commission instead of working with companies

[tekdroid @ Mar 5th 2008 3:46PM]

gotta love the mp3 licensing police.
http://www.mp3licensing.com/royalty/

http://www.vorbis.com

[Ryan @ Mar 5th 2008 3:59PM]

Let me get this straight... jack Wong says that it doesn't play Mp3's? Only WMA? The M* can't play Mp3's???

Am I misunderstanding something?

[kadajawi @ Mar 5th 2008 9:20PM]

Uh, I'd say for the moment, yes (why should the prototype play MP3s anyway? Though I think Meizu could have given that company those 60 cents or so). Their distributor in Europe etc. will have to pay the fees for devices sold outside of China, in China of course they won't really care to pay anything. So I'm sure that by the time the thing is done, it will play MP3s. Or you can install it via some unofficial software from Meizu.

[Kei @ Mar 5th 2008 4:03PM]

always a tiny little snide comment by engadget regarding the M8. lol

[Bart @ Mar 5th 2008 4:17PM]

Seriously guys, stop fooling yourselves :)
always talking about how much a rip off it really is, but actually you're just as excited as me and a lot of others are, hence the amount of newsposts about it btw :)

cheers

[crow610 @ Mar 5th 2008 4:21PM]

I have an M6 and it can't play MP3s, only WMAs but it can play MP3s. WTF did I just say.

Oh wait..I get it. Because when playing some MP3s, the last few seconds of the track will stutter which makes the M6 (that's what I own) not able to play MP3s!

[Mr Corsini @ Mar 5th 2008 4:24PM]

hahaha, shame, engadget really need an education in how to report stories OBJECTIVELY. Stop bashing meizu then bringing us almost obsessive updates about their progress every 5 minutes, face it you will all be buying an M8 when it comes out. Long live Meizu! the iphone has no chance in china! hahaha

[Scott @ Mar 5th 2008 5:12PM]

So you're saying they don't have MP3s in China?

[T-Bone @ Mar 5th 2008 8:32PM]

They don't have to be objective, they aren't a news site, just a blog. Look what it says right under the comment submission thingie:
"All contents copyright © 2003-2008, Weblogs, Inc. All rights reserved

Engadget® is a member of the Weblogs, Inc. Network."