5 ms·

H.264 is not proprietary. It's a standard, created through the coordination and cooperation of a large number of groups. Unlike much software that is 'protected

by tumult 17y ago

H.264 is not proprietary. It's a standard, created through the coordination and cooperation of a large number of groups. Unlike much software that is 'protected' under patents, the development of MPEGn, H.264, etc. was a significant investment in both time and money by those participating. That does not make it any more justified, but it is something to keep in mind -- the project is not a joke or a patent troll. Anyone can view the standard and implement it. To distribute, you are to acquire a license from the MPEG LA. The terms are not onerous or the fee excessive. Google and Apple both pay the license fee for each download of Safari or Chrome. The patent holders have so far not prosecuted projects like x264, which distributes its implementations without a license. Do I think software patents should be abolished? Yes. Do I think Mozilla is holding back the open web by not supporting H.264? Yes.

ZeroGravitas 17y ago
If the MPEG-LA's fees are neither onerous or excessive then why was there widespread industry revolt when they were introduced? Didn't that one company have a very public falling out with them about it? What was their name again? Oh yes, Apple: "Apple Computer has rejected proposed licensing terms for the emerging MPEG-4 video standard, leaving the future of its QuickTime multimedia technology in limbo. At a company-sponsored conference on Tuesday, Apple previewed the latest versions of its QuickTime digital media player and new QuickTime broadcast technology, both built on MPEG-4. But the company said those products will remain grounded indefinitely as it seeks to change MPEG-4 licensing terms unveiled last month by a key licensing clearinghouse. The terms, set by MPEG LA on 31 January, have prompted a wave of criticism in streaming circles for including a per-minute streaming charge that adds up to 2 cents an hour for video clips delivered in the MPEG-4 format." from Apple's MPEG-4 snub may halt QuickTime http://news.zdnet.co.uk/internet/0,1000000097,2104282,00.htm http://news.zdnet.co.uk/internet/0,1000000097,2104282,00.htm If Apple can fight against stupid licence terms why can't Mozilla?
- tumult 17y ago
  This is for a broadcast license, from an article in 2002, for an older technology (straight MPEG-4, not the newer superset H.264 which is now widely embraced.) I don't know whether or not this proposed broadcast license fee was ever even enacted, though QuickTime does support plain MPEG-4, so I imagine not.
  - ZeroGravitas 17y ago
    What do you mean by "broadcast licence"?. Streaming web video was part of that dispute, and fees for web video providers are a cruicial part of Mozilla's argument. As they're only due to announce what the fees for publishing H.264 will be at the end of this month we'll have to wait for then to see if they are onerous or not. I've also heard that the only reason Microsoft's VC-1 codec is in the Blu-Ray standard is because MPEG-LA were playing hardball on their H.264 licence fees. Here's the manager of Blu-Ray making the very simple point that surrendering to a single patented standard is only going to let them ratchet up prices: "There are other advantages to having two compression techniques," Doherty says. "Moving forward, the technologies can have competition to help drive down licensing fees and improve picture quality." from here: http://www.pcworld.com/article/117681/bluray_disc_to_support_mpeg4_vc1.html http://www.pcworld.com/article/117681/bluray_disc_to_support... If Apple (who also fell out with them about AAC payment terms) and Blu-ray need to play games to achieve reasonable terms then what hope do the small businesses have, especially when the standard response is "let's all lock ourselves into this one codec, what could possibly go wrong?"
    - tumult 17y ago
      Mozilla is not a small business. Businesses play games with each other because they are competing in an open market. End users do not have to do this. I don't work at Mozilla, I do not know what their situation is, but saying 'no way' to the whole thing and using a technology that they know nobody else will use and fragmenting web video is not helping end users. If we're lucky, this is all actually maneuvering on the part of Mozilla to get the MPEG LA to lighten their terms with Mozilla.
      - ZeroGravitas 17y ago
        That's the second time in this thread you've implied that only Mozilla is affected by H.264 patent fees. Apple and Google have already tried to get MPEG-LA to freely licence a lower quality subset of H.264 to break this impasse. The individual patent holders of that subset weren't impressed by this suggested compromise and even if they were it would still be a bait and switch technique that leaves open source products as second class citizens. One more thing, you call it an open standard elsewhere. If a standard is described as "open" then that traditionally means no patent fees. H.264 is a standard, but it is not generally held to be an "open standard": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_standard http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_standard
statictype 17y ago
Interesting. Thanks for the info. >Do I think Mozilla is holding back the open web by not supporting H.264? Yes. I'm wondering if it's fair to expect Mozilla (which I'm given to understand is a non-profit organization) to pay a license fee on every download the way a commercial entity like Google or Apple does? Do they get enough donations\royalties for this to be feasible? Edit: Mozilla's explanation: http://www.osnews.com/story/22787/Mozilla_Explains_Why_it_Doesn_t_License_h264 http://www.osnews.com/story/22787/Mozilla_Explains_Why_it_Do...
- robin_reala 17y ago
  Actually, as I understand it, only the Mozilla Foundation is a non-profit entity. The Mozilla Corporation is for-profit and makes considerable amounts of money from search engine (currently Google) sponsorship. Estimates of $5mil for an H.264 licence for Firefox were being thrown around which is feasible for MoCo to pay. However, Firefox is just one product. Mozilla also have a mission to enable downstream projects, and buying a licence for Firefox wouldn’t cover these. They’d then be promoting a format on the web that would hurt long-term dependant projects of theirs; not a feasible solution in their eyes.
  - ROFISH 17y ago
    So why doesn't Google, a significant stakeholder of H.264 with both YouTube (don't want to reencode) and Android (H.264 is better on battery life due to hardware considerations), just sponsor Firefox's H.264 license?
    - robin_reala 17y ago
      Because that wouldn’t address the root issue of Mozilla’s objection: that downstream projects that use Mozilla code won’t be able to without paying for an H.264 licence themselves.
shrikant 17y ago
I'm not sure how this works, but if x264 has been getting along fine without legal tangles, then why can't Mozilla use this instead? Unless their primary fear is of being a larger patent attack surface. Additionally, I was under the impression that the patent sabre-rattling can happen only in places where software patents are valid. So why can't Mozilla offer a build of Firefox for download only in, say, India? Too much effort?
- spatulon 17y ago
  x264 is an encoder. Browsers need a decoder. The most popular open source H.264 decoder is the one that's part of FFmpeg, which is used both by applications that do pay a license fee (Google Chrome) and applications that don't (VLC).
  - xenonite 17y ago
    do you know why VLC does not have to pay a fee?
    - spatulon 17y ago
      Just because they don't pay a fee, doesn't mean they don't have to. However, they seem to be passing on the responsibility to the end users: "... Hence there is not need to obtain any patent licenses for VideoLAN software within the European Union. In other venues, please check any applicable law." http://www.videolan.org/support/faq.html http://www.videolan.org/support/faq.html The VideoLan organisation may be based in the EU, but there are a number of companies in the US whose servers act as VLC mirrors. Would they be potential targets if the MPEG-LA decided to do something about VLC being unlicensed? With its widespread popularity it can hardly have gone unnoticed.
      - pbhjpbhj 17y ago
        I'm sure they don't want the negative press as they are trying to convince everyone to adopt their codec into HTML5. VLC's mirror servers could be shutdown but would they make money on a lawsuit? Do the VLC distributors have enough to make it worth while, not until they've managed to weasel into HTML5 implementations in all the top browsers - after that every video app using 264 will be a worthy target I'd have thought as the less apps not paying license fees the more sales of those that are. It's going to be GIF all over again, oh joy.
Tichy 17y ago
"The terms are not onerous or the fee excessive" No matter how low the fee, it will rule out most open source and hobby projects.
- tumult 17y ago
  I would not call Mozilla's Firefox a hobby project. The hobby projects which use H.264 have not been prosecuted, as far as I know, though I feel it's wrong for this possibility to exist.
  - Tichy 17y ago
    No, but there could be other projects than Mozilla?
    - tumult 17y ago
      Right. This is how Chromium works. Chromium does not build with H.264 compatibility out of the box. Projects using Chromium (not the Chrome package Google defaults for end-users) must explicitly enable H.264.
      - blasdel 17y ago
        All they have to do is add symlinks to their non-broken ffmpeg libraries in /usr/lib/chromium You don't have to compile chromium any differently, just tell it not to use its bundled ffmpeg (even chrome only includes a few codecs), and it'll figure out what's supported at runtime.
zppx 17y ago
Well, what if I decide to make a toy web application that works with video and I decide to use HTML5 video standard? Will I have to pay royalties only to serve this webpage? And what if I put the source code of this application on github or any other repository that's open to anyone? And if I want to found a company that wants to make a living working with video online but nothing charging users directly, will I have to pay royalties only because every new user will expect that I should support the patented codec that he uses? Now, what's about that's is open?
- tumult 17y ago
  Well, what if I decide to make a toy web application that works with video and I decide to use HTML5 video standard? Nobody is going to come after you. You're not even worth their time. Is it stupid that technically this may be interpreted as a possibility under law? Yes, but that's the stupid country we live in. The same thing could happen with Theora if someone claimed to hold a patent covering it, and you'd be equally screwed. And what if I put the source code of this application on github or any other repository that's open to anyone? No problems there. And if I want to found a company that wants to make a living working with video online but nothing charging users directly, will I have to pay royalties only because every new user will expect that I should support the patented codec that he uses? Talk to your lawyer. You're a company, right? Now, what's about that's is open? The standard is open. You are free to implement it. The licensing terms are open. You are free to license it. You are not free to distribute implementations to users without licensing the technology that has been openly provided.
  - ryandvm 17y ago
    > The same thing could happen with Theora if someone claimed to hold a patent covering it, and you'd be equally screwed. This is key. Theora is just as likely to be a patent target as h.264. You really can't do a competitive video codec right now without stepping on somebody's patent.
    - pbhjpbhj 17y ago
      There is a big difference between operating technology that is currently in use without being subject to patent proceedings and operating a technology one knows to be patented without a license. Ignorance is a defence here, particularly for end-users, as this is only potentially tortuous infringement and not criminal. Even for a major corp, if they can't be shown to have been aware of the patent then they can avoid a far greater penalty. You can be told to cease and desist on the basis of a submarine patent on Theora, for sure, but a compliant end-user losing money over this? Not a chance. Incidentally patents only cover commercial activity (at least in Europe).
cabalamat 17y ago
> H.264 is not proprietary Yes it is. It is owned by a consortium, and that consortium wants money off me if I write and distribute software (my own software, that I have written, for fucks sake, not their software that they have written) that implements it. > The terms are not onerous The license terms are incompatible with free software. That makes them onerous.
- timdorr 17y ago
  > Yes it is. It is owned by a consortium, and that consortium wants money off me if I write and distribute software (my own software, that I have written, for fucks sake, not their software that they have written) that implements it. Proprietary means "manufactured exclusively by the owner of intellectual property rights (IPR), as with a patent or trade secret." So, no, it's not proprietary. The fact you can write your own version of the standard without reverse engineering proves that. H.264 wasn't trivial to create. It involved a lot of work to both meet the quality requirements and the technical requirements for supporting all the various ways in which it can be used. MPEG-LA isn't imposing a fee for your work, they're only imposing it for the costs associated with defining the standard. You're not charged more if you write a more complex implementation of the standard. That being said, I still think it's dumb to charge for the standard. But it's perfectly within their reason and we have OSS alternatives to fall back on.
Nwallins 17y ago
> H.264 is not proprietary. ... To distribute, you are to acquire a license from the MPEG LA. In what sense is this not proprietary? http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/proprietary http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/proprietary It seems to me that MPEG LA is the proprietor, and they are controlling access to their property.

by tumult 17y ago

ZeroGravitas 17y ago

If the MPEG-LA's fees are neither onerous or excessive then why was there widespread industry revolt when they were introduced? Didn't that one company have a very public falling out with them about it? What was their name again? Oh yes, Apple: "Apple Computer has rejected proposed licensing terms for the emerging MPEG-4 video standard, leaving the future of its QuickTime multimedia technology in limbo. At a company-sponsored conference on Tuesday, Apple previewed the latest versions of its QuickTime digital media player and new QuickTime broadcast technology, both built on MPEG-4. But the company said those products will remain grounded indefinitely as it seeks to change MPEG-4 licensing terms unveiled last month by a key licensing clearinghouse. The terms, set by MPEG LA on 31 January, have prompted a wave of criticism in streaming circles for including a per-minute streaming charge that adds up to 2 cents an hour for video clips delivered in the MPEG-4 format." from Apple's MPEG-4 snub may halt QuickTime http://news.zdnet.co.uk/internet/0,1000000097,2104282,00.htm http://news.zdnet.co.uk/internet/0,1000000097,2104282,00.htm If Apple can fight against stupid licence terms why can't Mozilla?

tumult 17y ago
This is for a broadcast license, from an article in 2002, for an older technology (straight MPEG-4, not the newer superset H.264 which is now widely embraced.) I don't know whether or not this proposed broadcast license fee was ever even enacted, though QuickTime does support plain MPEG-4, so I imagine not.
- ZeroGravitas 17y ago
  What do you mean by "broadcast licence"?. Streaming web video was part of that dispute, and fees for web video providers are a cruicial part of Mozilla's argument. As they're only due to announce what the fees for publishing H.264 will be at the end of this month we'll have to wait for then to see if they are onerous or not. I've also heard that the only reason Microsoft's VC-1 codec is in the Blu-Ray standard is because MPEG-LA were playing hardball on their H.264 licence fees. Here's the manager of Blu-Ray making the very simple point that surrendering to a single patented standard is only going to let them ratchet up prices: "There are other advantages to having two compression techniques," Doherty says. "Moving forward, the technologies can have competition to help drive down licensing fees and improve picture quality." from here: http://www.pcworld.com/article/117681/bluray_disc_to_support_mpeg4_vc1.html http://www.pcworld.com/article/117681/bluray_disc_to_support... If Apple (who also fell out with them about AAC payment terms) and Blu-ray need to play games to achieve reasonable terms then what hope do the small businesses have, especially when the standard response is "let's all lock ourselves into this one codec, what could possibly go wrong?"
  - tumult 17y ago
    Mozilla is not a small business. Businesses play games with each other because they are competing in an open market. End users do not have to do this. I don't work at Mozilla, I do not know what their situation is, but saying 'no way' to the whole thing and using a technology that they know nobody else will use and fragmenting web video is not helping end users. If we're lucky, this is all actually maneuvering on the part of Mozilla to get the MPEG LA to lighten their terms with Mozilla.
    - ZeroGravitas 17y ago
      That's the second time in this thread you've implied that only Mozilla is affected by H.264 patent fees. Apple and Google have already tried to get MPEG-LA to freely licence a lower quality subset of H.264 to break this impasse. The individual patent holders of that subset weren't impressed by this suggested compromise and even if they were it would still be a bait and switch technique that leaves open source products as second class citizens. One more thing, you call it an open standard elsewhere. If a standard is described as "open" then that traditionally means no patent fees. H.264 is a standard, but it is not generally held to be an "open standard": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_standard http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_standard

statictype 17y ago

Interesting. Thanks for the info. >Do I think Mozilla is holding back the open web by not supporting H.264? Yes. I'm wondering if it's fair to expect Mozilla (which I'm given to understand is a non-profit organization) to pay a license fee on every download the way a commercial entity like Google or Apple does? Do they get enough donations\royalties for this to be feasible? Edit: Mozilla's explanation: http://www.osnews.com/story/22787/Mozilla_Explains_Why_it_Doesn_t_License_h264 http://www.osnews.com/story/22787/Mozilla_Explains_Why_it_Do...

robin_reala 17y ago
Actually, as I understand it, only the Mozilla Foundation is a non-profit entity. The Mozilla Corporation is for-profit and makes considerable amounts of money from search engine (currently Google) sponsorship. Estimates of $5mil for an H.264 licence for Firefox were being thrown around which is feasible for MoCo to pay. However, Firefox is just one product. Mozilla also have a mission to enable downstream projects, and buying a licence for Firefox wouldn’t cover these. They’d then be promoting a format on the web that would hurt long-term dependant projects of theirs; not a feasible solution in their eyes.
- ROFISH 17y ago
  So why doesn't Google, a significant stakeholder of H.264 with both YouTube (don't want to reencode) and Android (H.264 is better on battery life due to hardware considerations), just sponsor Firefox's H.264 license?
  - robin_reala 17y ago
    Because that wouldn’t address the root issue of Mozilla’s objection: that downstream projects that use Mozilla code won’t be able to without paying for an H.264 licence themselves.

shrikant 17y ago

I'm not sure how this works, but if x264 has been getting along fine without legal tangles, then why can't Mozilla use this instead? Unless their primary fear is of being a larger patent attack surface. Additionally, I was under the impression that the patent sabre-rattling can happen only in places where software patents are valid. So why can't Mozilla offer a build of Firefox for download only in, say, India? Too much effort?

spatulon 17y ago
x264 is an encoder. Browsers need a decoder. The most popular open source H.264 decoder is the one that's part of FFmpeg, which is used both by applications that do pay a license fee (Google Chrome) and applications that don't (VLC).
- xenonite 17y ago
  do you know why VLC does not have to pay a fee?
  - spatulon 17y ago
    Just because they don't pay a fee, doesn't mean they don't have to. However, they seem to be passing on the responsibility to the end users: "... Hence there is not need to obtain any patent licenses for VideoLAN software within the European Union. In other venues, please check any applicable law." http://www.videolan.org/support/faq.html http://www.videolan.org/support/faq.html The VideoLan organisation may be based in the EU, but there are a number of companies in the US whose servers act as VLC mirrors. Would they be potential targets if the MPEG-LA decided to do something about VLC being unlicensed? With its widespread popularity it can hardly have gone unnoticed.
    - pbhjpbhj 17y ago
      I'm sure they don't want the negative press as they are trying to convince everyone to adopt their codec into HTML5. VLC's mirror servers could be shutdown but would they make money on a lawsuit? Do the VLC distributors have enough to make it worth while, not until they've managed to weasel into HTML5 implementations in all the top browsers - after that every video app using 264 will be a worthy target I'd have thought as the less apps not paying license fees the more sales of those that are. It's going to be GIF all over again, oh joy.

Tichy 17y ago

"The terms are not onerous or the fee excessive" No matter how low the fee, it will rule out most open source and hobby projects.

tumult 17y ago
I would not call Mozilla's Firefox a hobby project. The hobby projects which use H.264 have not been prosecuted, as far as I know, though I feel it's wrong for this possibility to exist.
- Tichy 17y ago
  No, but there could be other projects than Mozilla?
  - tumult 17y ago
    Right. This is how Chromium works. Chromium does not build with H.264 compatibility out of the box. Projects using Chromium (not the Chrome package Google defaults for end-users) must explicitly enable H.264.
    - blasdel 17y ago
      All they have to do is add symlinks to their non-broken ffmpeg libraries in /usr/lib/chromium You don't have to compile chromium any differently, just tell it not to use its bundled ffmpeg (even chrome only includes a few codecs), and it'll figure out what's supported at runtime.

zppx 17y ago

Well, what if I decide to make a toy web application that works with video and I decide to use HTML5 video standard? Will I have to pay royalties only to serve this webpage? And what if I put the source code of this application on github or any other repository that's open to anyone? And if I want to found a company that wants to make a living working with video online but nothing charging users directly, will I have to pay royalties only because every new user will expect that I should support the patented codec that he uses? Now, what's about that's is open?

tumult 17y ago
Well, what if I decide to make a toy web application that works with video and I decide to use HTML5 video standard? Nobody is going to come after you. You're not even worth their time. Is it stupid that technically this may be interpreted as a possibility under law? Yes, but that's the stupid country we live in. The same thing could happen with Theora if someone claimed to hold a patent covering it, and you'd be equally screwed. And what if I put the source code of this application on github or any other repository that's open to anyone? No problems there. And if I want to found a company that wants to make a living working with video online but nothing charging users directly, will I have to pay royalties only because every new user will expect that I should support the patented codec that he uses? Talk to your lawyer. You're a company, right? Now, what's about that's is open? The standard is open. You are free to implement it. The licensing terms are open. You are free to license it. You are not free to distribute implementations to users without licensing the technology that has been openly provided.
- ryandvm 17y ago
  > The same thing could happen with Theora if someone claimed to hold a patent covering it, and you'd be equally screwed. This is key. Theora is just as likely to be a patent target as h.264. You really can't do a competitive video codec right now without stepping on somebody's patent.
  - pbhjpbhj 17y ago
    There is a big difference between operating technology that is currently in use without being subject to patent proceedings and operating a technology one knows to be patented without a license. Ignorance is a defence here, particularly for end-users, as this is only potentially tortuous infringement and not criminal. Even for a major corp, if they can't be shown to have been aware of the patent then they can avoid a far greater penalty. You can be told to cease and desist on the basis of a submarine patent on Theora, for sure, but a compliant end-user losing money over this? Not a chance. Incidentally patents only cover commercial activity (at least in Europe).

cabalamat 17y ago

> H.264 is not proprietary Yes it is. It is owned by a consortium, and that consortium wants money off me if I write and distribute software (my own software, that I have written, for fucks sake, not their software that they have written) that implements it. > The terms are not onerous The license terms are incompatible with free software. That makes them onerous.

timdorr 17y ago
> Yes it is. It is owned by a consortium, and that consortium wants money off me if I write and distribute software (my own software, that I have written, for fucks sake, not their software that they have written) that implements it. Proprietary means "manufactured exclusively by the owner of intellectual property rights (IPR), as with a patent or trade secret." So, no, it's not proprietary. The fact you can write your own version of the standard without reverse engineering proves that. H.264 wasn't trivial to create. It involved a lot of work to both meet the quality requirements and the technical requirements for supporting all the various ways in which it can be used. MPEG-LA isn't imposing a fee for your work, they're only imposing it for the costs associated with defining the standard. You're not charged more if you write a more complex implementation of the standard. That being said, I still think it's dumb to charge for the standard. But it's perfectly within their reason and we have OSS alternatives to fall back on.

Nwallins 17y ago

> H.264 is not proprietary. ... To distribute, you are to acquire a license from the MPEG LA. In what sense is this not proprietary? http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/proprietary http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/proprietary It seems to me that MPEG LA is the proprietor, and they are controlling access to their property.