One big issue is that research is getting privatized. In the past it was common that researchers would go to research institutes such as the Fraunhofer institu

One big issue is that research is getting privatized. In the past it was common that researchers would go to research institutes such as the Fraunhofer institutes, and do research there. The research would be published, patented, and licensed. From the fees, the Fraunhofer institutes fund themselves. Now this is being replaced by companies doing the research in-house, where it's often kept as trade secret, or, if it's patented, never licensed to competitors. This limits innovation. I'm not sure how we can protect the German research societies, but it'd be a shame to see this continue. Research done by companies is inherently unfair, and gives them a competitive advantage. In this case, of course, Google opened their codecs, but for example with Waymo's self-driving technology, that won't happen. Ideally, every carmaker could license the best selfdriving technology as soon as it exists. This is relevant to this discussion because the Fraunhofer group has previously created mp3 and AAC, and those patents have funded hundreds of further openly available research projects