5 ms·

H.264 to Remain Fee-Less for Free Internet Video Through 2016 (via DF)

50 points by rads 17y ago

evdawg 17y ago
The same thing happened with .GIFs, royalties weren't actively pursued for a very long time, but when they were it became a problem. Let's not make the same mistake again.
- natrius 17y ago
  For the curious, a quick search yields claims of 2025 and 2028 as the last patent expiration date. This announcement shouldn't please anyone.
  - modeless 17y ago
    How can that be if the standard was ratified in 2003?
    - jws 17y ago
      Some of the patents may have been applied for, but not granted until after ratification.
      - modeless 17y ago
        For patents filed after 1995 the patent term is based on the filing date of the application, not the date the patent is granted.
    - wmf 17y ago
      Perhaps some of the patents cover optimizations that don't affect the bitstream format. Or maybe they're just bogus patents.
- deleted 17y ago
  [deleted]
- tedunangst 17y ago
  That's twisting the story quite a bit. Compuserve made GIFs (unaware of the patent) and Unisys had been charging companies for the patent for a long time (but were unaware of GIF). When Unisys found out, they started charging. It was hardly bait and switch. At no point did Unisys ever tell people to use GIF because they had no plans to charge for it.
  - haberman 17y ago
    "Unisys does not require licensing, or fees to be paid, for non-commercial, non-profit GIF-based applications, including those for use on the on-line services. Concerning developers of software for the Internet network, the same principle applies. Unisys will not pursue previous inadvertent infringement by developers producing versions of software products for the Internet prior to 1995. The company does not require licensing, or fees to be paid for non-commercial, non-profit offerings on the Internet, including "Freeware"." --Unisys 1995 (http://web.archive.org/web/19981203000955/http://lpf.ai.mit.edu/Patents/Gif/unisys.html http://web.archive.org/web/19981203000955/http://lpf.ai.mit....) Unisys has frequently been asked whether a Unisys license is required in order to use LZW software obtained by downloading from the Internet or from other sources. The answer is simple. In all cases, a written license agreement or statement signed by an authorized Unisys representative is required from Unisys for all use, sale or distribution of any software (including so-called "freeware") and/or hardware providing LZW conversion capability (for example, downloaded software used for creating/displaying GIF images). --Unisys 1999 (http://web.archive.org/web/20021203075728/http://www.unisys.com/about__unisys/lzw/index.htm http://web.archive.org/web/20021203075728/http://www.unisys....)
    - tedunangst 17y ago
      Crazy. I knew about the second version of their policy, but didn't realize they actually did say it was free at first.
nickyp 17y ago
I love the abundance of 'XXX is sued by MPEG LA' press releases on their 'media' page! I guess they designate lawyers using 'squad/platoon/battalion' instead of boring old 'department' ;-)
fnid2 17y ago
This is the drug dealer business model. "Sure, the first hit's on me. If you want more after that, you know where to find me."
- jackowayed 17y ago
  And taken to the extreme. Get the whole town utterly addicted before you start charging.
- stuaxo 17y ago
  Surely this only happens in films ?
  - pstuart 17y ago
    No.
wmf 17y ago
Dupe: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1098336 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1098336
sant0sk1 17y ago
It's a trap!
- timdorr 17y ago
  We can't compress video of that magnitude!
blasdel 17y ago
While MPEG-LA clearly has the prerogative to go after people who infringe its patents by distributing decoders and encoders, isn't this whole "Internet Video" fee thing only enforceable if you enter a contract with them? There's no way they have a valid patent on vanilla HTTP! I could see some of their patents covering some stuff like generating a seek table, but how the hell could they enjoin you from sending a blob in response to an HTTP request? Isn't it possible for a video site to never directly enter a contract with MPEG-LA? Is the shrinkwrap EULA on second-party encoder software valid?
- ajross 17y ago
  That might be true, if you could arrange things such that your site was solely copying around H.264 files it received from elsewhere. But in practice, any site serving video has to be doing at least some transcoding or analysis (think about normalizing aspect ratio or resolution, anonymizing, converting from mpeg2 camera files, etc...), and that requires licensed software.
  - blasdel 17y ago
    But you don't have to enter a contract with anyone to get that licensed software -- you can just buy it at retail. MPEG-LA would have to come after you somehow via the software's shrinkwrap EULAs (which have never been tested in court at all).
    - ajross 17y ago
      This isn't true at all. That EULA doesn't transfer patent rights, except as allowed by the patent holder. It's a license from the software manufacturer, not the party that is going to sue you.
      - blasdel 17y ago
        But the patents don't cover the process of making the files available to the public via HTTP supported by ads -- it would appear that these restrictions on that are a novelty of MPEG-LA's standard contracts for licensing the patents. They're obviously enforceable on the organizations that entered into those licensing agreements directly, but what if I bought an licensed encoder off the shelf? Is the on-disk format itself somehow patented, such that the files themselves are patented articles? Wouldn't that fail the machine-or-transformation test rather egregiously?
hedgehog 17y ago
Reading through the fluff On2/Google's VP8 codec still looks pretty interesting: http://www.on2.com/index.php?id=439&news_id=641 http://www.on2.com/index.php?id=439&news_id=641 It will be interesting to see if Google pulls it out as an alternative to H.264.
- MikeCapone 17y ago
  Anyone has hands on experience with that codec? Are those claims true?
  - sketerpot 17y ago
    If VP8 is half as good as they claim, Google could make it a very serious competitor to H.264. They own the codec, they own YouTube, they have a web browser and a smartphone OS and they're coming out with Chrome OS before too long. They have leverage.
  - jon_dahl 17y ago
    No hands-on experience, but VP6 was a pretty good codec - at least XviD/DivX/MPEG-4 level, and quite a bit better than Theora. If VP8 > VP6, and it was free, then it would definitely be worth using.
oomkiller 17y ago
Not long enough, offer a license that doesn't expire until 2030, then we might bite.

50 points by rads 17y ago

The same thing happened with .GIFs, royalties weren't actively pursued for a very long time, but when they were it became a problem. Let's not make the same mistake again.

natrius 17y ago
For the curious, a quick search yields claims of 2025 and 2028 as the last patent expiration date. This announcement shouldn't please anyone.
- modeless 17y ago
  How can that be if the standard was ratified in 2003?
  - jws 17y ago
    Some of the patents may have been applied for, but not granted until after ratification.
    - modeless 17y ago
      For patents filed after 1995 the patent term is based on the filing date of the application, not the date the patent is granted.
  - wmf 17y ago
    Perhaps some of the patents cover optimizations that don't affect the bitstream format. Or maybe they're just bogus patents.
deleted 17y ago
[deleted]
tedunangst 17y ago
That's twisting the story quite a bit. Compuserve made GIFs (unaware of the patent) and Unisys had been charging companies for the patent for a long time (but were unaware of GIF). When Unisys found out, they started charging. It was hardly bait and switch. At no point did Unisys ever tell people to use GIF because they had no plans to charge for it.
- haberman 17y ago
  "Unisys does not require licensing, or fees to be paid, for non-commercial, non-profit GIF-based applications, including those for use on the on-line services. Concerning developers of software for the Internet network, the same principle applies. Unisys will not pursue previous inadvertent infringement by developers producing versions of software products for the Internet prior to 1995. The company does not require licensing, or fees to be paid for non-commercial, non-profit offerings on the Internet, including "Freeware"." --Unisys 1995 (http://web.archive.org/web/19981203000955/http://lpf.ai.mit.edu/Patents/Gif/unisys.html http://web.archive.org/web/19981203000955/http://lpf.ai.mit....) Unisys has frequently been asked whether a Unisys license is required in order to use LZW software obtained by downloading from the Internet or from other sources. The answer is simple. In all cases, a written license agreement or statement signed by an authorized Unisys representative is required from Unisys for all use, sale or distribution of any software (including so-called "freeware") and/or hardware providing LZW conversion capability (for example, downloaded software used for creating/displaying GIF images). --Unisys 1999 (http://web.archive.org/web/20021203075728/http://www.unisys.com/about__unisys/lzw/index.htm http://web.archive.org/web/20021203075728/http://www.unisys....)
  - tedunangst 17y ago
    Crazy. I knew about the second version of their policy, but didn't realize they actually did say it was free at first.

nickyp 17y ago

I love the abundance of 'XXX is sued by MPEG LA' press releases on their 'media' page! I guess they designate lawyers using 'squad/platoon/battalion' instead of boring old 'department' ;-)

fnid2 17y ago

This is the drug dealer business model. "Sure, the first hit's on me. If you want more after that, you know where to find me."

jackowayed 17y ago
And taken to the extreme. Get the whole town utterly addicted before you start charging.
stuaxo 17y ago
Surely this only happens in films ?
- pstuart 17y ago
  No.

wmf 17y ago

Dupe: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1098336 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1098336

sant0sk1 17y ago

It's a trap!

timdorr 17y ago
We can't compress video of that magnitude!

blasdel 17y ago

While MPEG-LA clearly has the prerogative to go after people who infringe its patents by distributing decoders and encoders, isn't this whole "Internet Video" fee thing only enforceable if you enter a contract with them? There's no way they have a valid patent on vanilla HTTP! I could see some of their patents covering some stuff like generating a seek table, but how the hell could they enjoin you from sending a blob in response to an HTTP request? Isn't it possible for a video site to never directly enter a contract with MPEG-LA? Is the shrinkwrap EULA on second-party encoder software valid?

ajross 17y ago
That might be true, if you could arrange things such that your site was solely copying around H.264 files it received from elsewhere. But in practice, any site serving video has to be doing at least some transcoding or analysis (think about normalizing aspect ratio or resolution, anonymizing, converting from mpeg2 camera files, etc...), and that requires licensed software.
- blasdel 17y ago
  But you don't have to enter a contract with anyone to get that licensed software -- you can just buy it at retail. MPEG-LA would have to come after you somehow via the software's shrinkwrap EULAs (which have never been tested in court at all).
  - ajross 17y ago
    This isn't true at all. That EULA doesn't transfer patent rights, except as allowed by the patent holder. It's a license from the software manufacturer, not the party that is going to sue you.
    - blasdel 17y ago
      But the patents don't cover the process of making the files available to the public via HTTP supported by ads -- it would appear that these restrictions on that are a novelty of MPEG-LA's standard contracts for licensing the patents. They're obviously enforceable on the organizations that entered into those licensing agreements directly, but what if I bought an licensed encoder off the shelf? Is the on-disk format itself somehow patented, such that the files themselves are patented articles? Wouldn't that fail the machine-or-transformation test rather egregiously?

hedgehog 17y ago

Reading through the fluff On2/Google's VP8 codec still looks pretty interesting: http://www.on2.com/index.php?id=439&news_id=641 http://www.on2.com/index.php?id=439&news_id=641 It will be interesting to see if Google pulls it out as an alternative to H.264.

MikeCapone 17y ago
Anyone has hands on experience with that codec? Are those claims true?
- sketerpot 17y ago
  If VP8 is half as good as they claim, Google could make it a very serious competitor to H.264. They own the codec, they own YouTube, they have a web browser and a smartphone OS and they're coming out with Chrome OS before too long. They have leverage.
- jon_dahl 17y ago
  No hands-on experience, but VP6 was a pretty good codec - at least XviD/DivX/MPEG-4 level, and quite a bit better than Theora. If VP8 > VP6, and it was free, then it would definitely be worth using.

oomkiller 17y ago

Not long enough, offer a license that doesn't expire until 2030, then we might bite.