3 ms·
they can buy H.264 and give it away for free (open source it), which is impossible without making themselves bankrupt. As the discussion around H.264/Theora et
by lftl 17y ago
they can buy H.264 and give it away for free (open source it), which is impossible without making themselves bankrupt.
As the discussion around H.264/Theora etc has heated up I've started wondering about this. There are now at least 3 rather large players with relatively deep pockets that all have licensed h.264 for products they essentially give away. So what if Google, Apple, and Adobe all pooled together and purchased the patents for h.264 and licensed it for free (or possibly a free non-commercial license, and force any other big players using it to chip in). I wonder what the price tag on that would be.
- ZeroGravitas 17y agoI can't believe this number is correct, but one of the Xiph guys claimed that the MPEG 2 patents (i.e. DVDs), which are all still in force and built on top of for MPEG-4 part2 and part 10 (i.e H.264) took in $67 dollars for every person on the planet in 2008. That's half a trillion dollars in a year, and that's not even counting revenue they get from MPEG-4 or the audio codecs.