3 ms·
As a member of the H.264 patent pool[1], Microsoft makes money when people use H.264. If WebM becomes popular, Microsoft directly makes less money. [1] http://
by natrius 16y ago
As a member of the H.264 patent pool[1], Microsoft makes money when people use H.264. If WebM becomes popular, Microsoft directly makes less money.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MPEG_LA http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MPEG_LA
- jamesaguilar 16y agoDon't they also have to pay licensing fees to MPEG-LA? What's the overall impact on the bottom line? IMO it would have to be pretty substantial for it to really be a driving factor in the decision-making.
- kprobst 16y agoI'm fairly sure they pay more than they receive in this particular case.
- natrius 16y agoI doubt they pay more for their use of H.264 than they receive from everyone's use of H.264. Providing the codec may cost them money, but it's far from obvious that it's an unprofitable act.
- Someone 16y agoIf everyone in the patent pool is making money of H264, who is paying that money? What big player that sells H264 is not on the list at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MPEG_LA#H.264.2FMPEG-4_AVC_Licensors http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MPEG_LA#H.264.2FMPEG-4_AVC_Lice...? Also, MPEG-LA does have costs to pay. I guess that, for most of the companies on that list, it is a 'pay a bit to prevent legal troubles' scenario, where 'a bit' is a couple of millions. Some of that they will get back when MPEG-LA gets disbanded.