From the people who brought you DeCSS

[Baron Munchausen]

Heh... of course not. MPEG, RealPlayer, Windows Media and several other formats all have good encoders. It's almost always a matter of the quality of the encoder software and the competance of the original content producers rather than a question of the codec/format.

Instead, it's like this company inventeded this codec/format for Apple and signed a bunch of contracts with them in order to make money. If someone starts converting all those cool movie trailers and other exclusive features to other formats then people cannot be forced to install their player anymore, and the sites relying on the draw of QuickTime features to enhance their traffic and so advertising revenue will suffer. The pain will travel up the food chain and the original company (who's name I have spaced) will also suffer. Therefore: This guy has 'damaged' them financially by breaking into their lockbox and he's going to be sued.