can anyone confirm that in order to avoid MPEG LA license fees for encoding (20$ per unit sold I think) I can not distribute Cisco's compiled encoder library with my software (even if I use the binary from Cisco's repository -when they make it available- instead of compiling it myself) and the only option would be to download it from my software at runtime as a plugin? are there any other options (the systems on which my software is going to be installed do not have internet access)?
That's right. This is a workaround for the MPEG LA license, and having the user download the binary right from Cisco is the only way to have Cisco pay for the license fees. Anything else and you've got to become a licensee.
There's plenty of other H.264 products that you can get without directly downloading them. Flash is a close analogy, they pay the flat fee and nearly every desktop in the world uses it. And while some people download Flash direct from Adobe's servers, other's get it indirectly, e.g. pre-installed on computers they buy, or by downloading an installer. And people build apps (including desktop apps) around that functionality.
Cisco is mostly doing this to support WebRTC interoperability with their deployed hardware (which generally means internet access) so they may just be going for the simplest thing for them to do.
Not $20 but $0.20. (after the first free 100,000 and until it drops to $0.10 after 5 million) although you may have to sign a license with MPEG-LA to take advantage of the free 100,000 and potentially submit to audits so there are risks/costs.
I don't know how direct the distribution from Cisco to the end user has to be to be legal although I can imagine a range of possibilities for this I don't know if they would be practical in your situation. I imagine that you could ship a tool that creates an install package to be used on the non-connected devices and downloads the binary from Cisco and adds it to your install bundle but that is still an annoying extra step.
Practically I don't see anyone coming after you (and certainly not getting real damages) if you did include Cisco's binary with your product - it would be hard to see the real harm or damage caused.
