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It's not just patent holders who care. Harmonic sells products where a large portion of the cost is derived from licensing codecs like AVC and HEVC. One of thei

It's not just patent holders who care. Harmonic sells products where a large portion of the cost is derived from licensing codecs like AVC and HEVC. One of their contribution encoders[1] has separate software licensing for a variety of subsampling ratios. 1: https://www.harmonicinc.com/media/2017/06/Harmonic_DS_ViBE-CP9000.pdf https://www.harmonicinc.com/media/2017/06/Harmonic_DS_ViBE-C...

shmerl 9y ago
> Harmonic sells products where a large portion of the cost is derived from licensing codecs like AVC and HEVC. So, wouldn't they directly benefit from switching to free codecs? It will increase their profits by removing their licensing costs.
- Digital-Citizen 9y ago
  Not among the powerful, no. The public gets great benefit from FLOSS codecs (Opus, VPx, AV1, etc.) and containers anyone is free to implement without patent hassles (such as Matroska and the smaller variant used in WebM). Patent holders usually try to wrangle control of everyone (Apple being a part of a media codec patent-holding group meant Apple pushed those codecs and back when people cared what Apple picked that meant more power for Apple). In this respect, it's a class issue. In 1990 IBM (in "Think" magazine, #5) said they got considerably more value from cross-licensing than fees (in other words, looking at this in terms of money is wrongheaded) because cross-licensing gives them access to ideas). So, it's the power to control one's competition at play as well. This arrangement means (as Richard Stallman pointed out in essays and talks years ago found online in https://audio-video.gnu.org/video/rms-vub-2011-02-22.ogv https://audio-video.gnu.org/video/rms-vub-2011-02-22.ogv ) that the entire temporary monopoly one ostensibly gets from the patent system is a sham, a myth. Organizations that hold a lot of patents can always find ways to economically compel smaller patent holders into cross-licensing, thus eliminating any real value of patenting ideas for most.
drmpeg 9y ago
They're not licensing codecs, they're licensing different versions of their software. The HEVC fee is only 20 cents per encoder, but I'll guess those video software options are thousands of dollars each.
- TD-Linux 9y ago
  While HEVC fees are only a tiny fraction of their encoders, they are far greater than 20 cents. Adding two of the pools together already nets up to $1.40, and there are more pools with unannounced pricing yet. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Efficiency_Video_Coding#Patent_license_terms https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Efficiency_Video_Coding#P...

shmerl 9y ago

> Harmonic sells products where a large portion of the cost is derived from licensing codecs like AVC and HEVC. So, wouldn't they directly benefit from switching to free codecs? It will increase their profits by removing their licensing costs.

Digital-Citizen 9y ago
Not among the powerful, no. The public gets great benefit from FLOSS codecs (Opus, VPx, AV1, etc.) and containers anyone is free to implement without patent hassles (such as Matroska and the smaller variant used in WebM). Patent holders usually try to wrangle control of everyone (Apple being a part of a media codec patent-holding group meant Apple pushed those codecs and back when people cared what Apple picked that meant more power for Apple). In this respect, it's a class issue. In 1990 IBM (in "Think" magazine, #5) said they got considerably more value from cross-licensing than fees (in other words, looking at this in terms of money is wrongheaded) because cross-licensing gives them access to ideas). So, it's the power to control one's competition at play as well. This arrangement means (as Richard Stallman pointed out in essays and talks years ago found online in https://audio-video.gnu.org/video/rms-vub-2011-02-22.ogv https://audio-video.gnu.org/video/rms-vub-2011-02-22.ogv ) that the entire temporary monopoly one ostensibly gets from the patent system is a sham, a myth. Organizations that hold a lot of patents can always find ways to economically compel smaller patent holders into cross-licensing, thus eliminating any real value of patenting ideas for most.

drmpeg 9y ago

They're not licensing codecs, they're licensing different versions of their software. The HEVC fee is only 20 cents per encoder, but I'll guess those video software options are thousands of dollars each.

TD-Linux 9y ago
While HEVC fees are only a tiny fraction of their encoders, they are far greater than 20 cents. Adding two of the pools together already nets up to $1.40, and there are more pools with unannounced pricing yet. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Efficiency_Video_Coding#Patent_license_terms https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Efficiency_Video_Coding#P...