Video codec company DivX has let go of 21 people, or roughly 10 percent of the company’s workforce in San Diego (though some of the cuts rook place globally as well), TechCrunch is reporting. A DivX spokesperson confirmed the layoffs with us via email saying “The layoff was 21 people, across multiple departments. It was driven by the economic environment.”

It’s been a tough year for DivX. The company kicked off 2008 by shuttering its video-sharing site Stage6 in February amidst increased operating expenses and pre-emptive copyright litigation. Then in November, it sued Yahoo for allegedly backing out of a toolbar marketing agreement that reportedly represented 20 percent of the company’s revenue. Oh, and its CTO resigned at the start of this month.

DivX CEO Kevin Hell stopped by our office in August to talk about the transition DivX was undergoing as it moved from a PC-based video company to platform that could play video on multiple devices (clip embedded below). Hell also said this was “win or go home” time for DivX. Unfortunately, the company sent a lot of people home.