

H.264 patent license published for the first time by the FSF - liraz
http://static.fsf.org/nosvn/h264-patent-license.pdf

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liraz
According to John Sullivan, the operations manager for the FSF: "Those terms
have previously even been unavailable for examination online. We are
publishing them on fsf.org today in order to comment on their unethical
restrictions."

Analysis of the H.264 patent licensing restrictions in the context of the
Apple/Adobe back and forth on Flash and "open standards":

[http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2010/04/pot-meet-
kettle-a-...](http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2010/04/pot-meet-kettle-a-
response-to-steve-jobs-letter-on-flash.ars)

The meaty part is that they require all licensed software to include the
following notice:

THIS PRODUCT IS LICENSED UNDER THE AVC PATENT PORTFOLIO LICENSE FOR THE
PERSONAL AND NON-COMMERCIAL USE OF A CONSUMER TO (I) ENCODE VIDEO IN
COMPLIANCE WITH THE AVC STANDARD ("AVC VIDEO") AND/OR (II) DECODE AVC VIDEO
THAT WAS ENCODED BY A CONSUMER ENGAGED IN A PERSONAL AND NON-COMMERCIAL
ACTIVITY AND/OR WAS OBTAINED FROM A VIDEO PROVIDER LICENSED TO PROVIDE AVC
VIDEO. NO LICENSE IS GRANTED OR SHALL BE IMPLIED FOR ANY OTHER USE. ADDITIONAL
INFORMATION MAY BE OBTAINED FROM MPEG LA, L.L.C. SEE HTTP://WWW.MPEGLA.COM

So even a $12,000 video camera needs to include a limitation on non-commercial
"consumer" use. But would it be legal to try and enforce that?

~~~
jws
Don't you think there is a different license for commercial encoders? That
commercial license probably comes with a stunning set of fees outlined in
byzantine detail, hence the need to keep businesses from using the consumer
license.

(I think the professional camera crowd doesn't do interframe compression in
the camera anyway. It makes editing a little funny and they like very high
quality source material. Google shopping for "video camera h.264" over $1000
only brought me a bunch of security camera packages.

The Canon Vixia HF S21 is over $1000 and contains the prohibition (well, the
MPEG-2 version of it), sadly I can not paste it here because Canon set the no-
copy bit on the downloadable PDF manual! Yes! That will defend the company
from the evil threat of… umm… I can create no scenario where copying from the
users' manual is a threat.)

~~~
please
Look for Canon 5D Mark II, it uses h264 and is used for commercial film
production

~~~
frw
I work part-time for a production company and as far as I know, the industry
standard is the RED Camera <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RED_Digital_Cinema>,
whose standard output is 2K-4K RAW.

Compressed formats that interpolate between keyframes (like MPEG) are
generally a bad idea since they make precise cutting between clips a lot
harder.

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kierank
This isn't the first time the licence has been published. There's a copy in a
Divx regulatory filing:

[http://apps.shareholder.com/sec/viewerContent.aspx?companyid...](http://apps.shareholder.com/sec/viewerContent.aspx?companyid=DIVX&docid=6470121)

About 4/5 of the way down.

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jacquesm
That's the 2005 revision, presumably that has been updated in the meantime.

If this license was a computer program I'd have to class it as spaghetti code.

edit: the meat starts on page 11.

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justinph
Warning: This is an 8.7MB, 32 page pdf.

~~~
buster
That's why there is the scribd link in the title. Click it, to view the pdf
online. Very handy!

