
Know Your Rights: H.264, patent licensing, and you - tvon
http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/04/know-your-rights-h-264-patent-licensing-and-you/
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ZeroGravitas
Genuine question: how can they charge you for sending a file over the web?

Even if you accept patents, and software patents, since when did a patent on
an encoder or decoder (or equivalently a compiler or runtime) then give you
the ability to restrict what is done with the product created by that patented
process?

Is this just some business model left over from the shiny disc era that no-one
has bothered to question, or are a bunch of other folk going to start charging
you to put things on the web.

I thought the GIF thing was about production of GIFs, but maybe they made the
same claim?

(I'm also genuinely appalled that the only case he considers worth talking
about is "will they charge me to watch cat videos on Youtube?", his advice if
you want to do something "commercial" (whatever the hell that means)? "talk to
a lawyer".)

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rlpb
I think that this is a very important point. The only reason you need to
license something is if the law prevents you from acting without a licence.

However, if you are processing the video in any way, or shipping software that
does, then you will need a patent licence, won't you? In this case, the
license terms could impose appropriate terms (eg. "we will license the patent
to you in return for $x for every file you send over the web").

Licensing an encoder might also come with extra terms in the EULA (eg. "if you
give us $x we will let you use our h.264 encoding software but you must also
agree to pay MPEG-LA $y under these extra terms").

So essentially the whole system can be enforced purely via contract law, non-
withstanding the dubiousness of the validity of some EULAs.

This suggests to me that a Rapidshare-type site would not need a licence even
though people can use it to send h.264 video over the web. However a Youtube-
type site would, because they are doing h.264 processing themselves - and a
licence could come attached with additional terms.

~~~
ZeroGravitas
Ah, so this explains why even Final Cut _Pro_ doesn't let you use the produced
file commercially. It's not the web streaming you're paying for, you're
actually paying (again) for the encoding. Even in the rapidshare case they
know that you've not already paid to encode it commercially, and nor has the
uploader, because they don't offer that licence.

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zppx
> "but releasing the source to something doesn't erase any potential patent
> liability"

This line sounds fuzzy for me, then how does MPEG-LA can assert that H.264 is
protected against a patent ambush by a third party that is not part of the
consortium? Just because the standard is open and there's a large patent pool
that belongs to the members of the consortium does not mean that a patent
troll can't have a patent that covers some part of the codec.

That said I think that H.264 won the fight. I think however that video codecs,
and associated patents, will grow in irrelevance at the same time video
becomes more popular.

~~~
danudey
I think the protection here is in your group of friends. If you get sued for
infringing on a patent because you're using Theora, you're pretty much on your
own (maybe the EFF will help). If you get sued for infringing on a patent
because of h.264, then (among others) Apple, Microsoft, Google, Kodak, Adobe,
and dozens of other corporations (with much larger pockets than you) are also
on the hook. The last thing they want is a precedent set saying using h.264 is
illegal because you couldn't afford a good lawyer.

MPEG-LA takes responsibility for the patent infringement, so they get sued
instead of you, and then they (with the backing of the other large companies
who've contributed and licensed from MPEG-LA) fight the lawsuit, using the
best lawyers money can buy. If nothing else, they'll make it so expensive to
fight that any would-be patent troll will think very long and very hard about
throwing their gloves into that ring.

~~~
vetinari
Sigh, once again:

<http://www.mpegla.com/main/programs/AVC/Pages/FAQ.aspx>

Q: Are all AVC essential patents included?

A: No assurance is or can be made that the License includes every essential
patent. The purpose of the License is to offer a convenient licensing
alternative to everyone on the same terms and to include as much essential
intellectual property as possible for their convenience. Participation in the
License is voluntary on the part of essential patent holders, however.

Short version: There is no guarantee there will be no troll. No, they won't
fight for you, it is your problem.

~~~
ZeroGravitas
This very article claims that AT&T have patent claims on H.264 that aren't
covered by MPEG-LA. You have to sort it out seperately.

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JunkDNA
This article mentions other standards that are managed in a way similar to
H.264 such as bluetooth, USB, Wifi, etc... As far as I can recall, there
hasn't been much consternation about whether or not to support any of these in
Linux. Can anyone enlighten me as to why there is such a line in the sand with
respect to H.264 from the perspective of the open source community and not
these other standards? Are the terms of the H.264 a departure from what these
other groups have done?

~~~
ZeroGravitas
It's possibly just not true.

I tried Googling for USB royalty fees. There's some info about paying to get
vendor IDs and use the logo, but I also found several saying that USB 2.0 was
specifically created to be royalty free, including e.g. this quote:

" _Frustrated by Apples royalty fees on firewire devices, in April 2000, seven
industry-leading companies, consisting of Compaq, Hewlett Packard, Intel,
Lucent, Microsoft, NEC, and Philips published the specifications for USB2.0._
"

All the main Google results for "Bluetooth royalty" actually found things
saying _royalty-free_ , including this about Wireless USB:

" _The final abandoning of WiMedia may have come down to licensing battles.
Foley said in the interview that the SIG asked WiMedia stakeholders to make
their technology available on the same royalty-free basis as Bluetooth, so
that it could be certified and licensed in the same way as the older standard.
"Some WiMedia members weren't amenable to that," said Foley, wanting to hold
on to their existing royalties, even in a market of "zero units", as he put
it._ "

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jamesbritt
"... using H.264 to distribute free internet video to end users doesn't cost a
thing, and won't cost anything until at least 2015. After that, it's up in the
air, and that's a bridge we'll have to cross when we come to it -- there's a
chance the MPEG-LA could start charging a royalty for free video in five
years."

Oh, perfect. Let's get everyone accustomed to using this, and then start
charging.

