

Google’s WebM may not be royalty-free for long - GR8K
http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/20100520/googles-royalty-free-webm-video-may-not-be-royalty-free-for-long/

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lenni
The MPEG LA CEO: "[...] there have been expressions of interest from the
market urging us to facilitate formation of licenses that would address the
market’s need for a convenient one-stop marketplace alternative to negotiating
separate licenses with individual patent holders in accessing essential patent
rights for VP8 [...]"

He's making it sound like people are desperate to pay a license fee to MPEG LA
and wanting to be saved from Google's evil open source, royalty free clutches.
However, it is his company that is creating this situation by threatening to
patent troll VP8/WebM.

I read his statement as a thiny veiled threat: Dare to use WebM and we will
unleash the dogs and make your life difficult. Classic FUD, Microsoft would be
proud.

~~~
mukyu
The MPEG LA is not a patent troll. You probably have heard of their products
as they are some of the most famous codecs and supported by multitudes of
devices. They are using patents exactly as they were designed for.

~~~
ZeroGravitas
You've obviously not kept up with recent events, they just recently sued
Apple, HTC and RIM over smartphone patents that they own themselves, not part
of any standard:

[http://thepriorart.typepad.com/the_prior_art/2010/04/mobilem...](http://thepriorart.typepad.com/the_prior_art/2010/04/mobilemedia-
ideas-v-apple.html)

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Bossman
What a pain in the ass this is. I mean, I don't blame MPEG LA for trying to
protect their business, but it's really lame that someone can create their own
piece of software or codec, put a lot of hard work into it for others to enjoy
and then another company or individual can come along and claim the rights to
it and be legally backed when they try to get royalties for something they
never worked on.

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nixy
On an unrelated note, am I the only one bothered that a lot of online
publications put the stock "name" after the company name?

    
    
      ... favored by Apple (AAPL) and Microsoft (MSFT).
    

What good does this _really_ do?

~~~
dflock
Makes them seem all... businessey?

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papachito
They've said the same thing about Vorbis and 10 years later there's still
nothing. I'm with Google on that one. MPEGLA will just keep the FUD going for
years like they did with Vorbis.

VP8 has already been in use for years by Skype and many others, there was
already plenty of money to be done back then, so why didn't they sue back
then?

