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Both of those things are misleading or wrong. There's no reason why they would have to make it closed source, especially if they use x264. H264 patents don't re

Both of those things are misleading or wrong. There's no reason why they would have to make it closed source, especially if they use x264. H264 patents don't require everyone to pay to create content, you should read the MPEG licensing agreement.

bzbarsky 16y ago
> There's no reason why they would have to make it closed > source, especially if they use x264. That's not what the lawyers said. In the US, at least; things may be different in your jurisdiction. Note that this is the route Chrome used to take: Chromium did not support H.264, while the Chrome binaries, built from some source that was not public, did. > H264 patents don't require everyone to pay to create > content They do require you to pay to produce an encoder. Of course someone can then distribute said encoder for free if they want, so the end user doesn't technically _have_ to pay. But in practice they do. And if you use an unlicensed encoder, then you're infringing on the patents. So is anyone who views any videos that were produced with the unlicensed encoder, even if their decoder is licenced. And some other restrictions to do with the fact that encoders are typically not licensed for arbitrary use (e.g. the encoder in a typical digital camera doesn't give you the right to put the resulting video on a website that you make money from, via Google Adwords, say). You should in fact read the licensing agreements involved, or at least the excerpts in http://bemasc.net/wordpress/2010/02/02/no-you-cant-do-that-with-h264/ http://bemasc.net/wordpress/2010/02/02/no-you-cant-do-that-w...
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
- Locke1689 16y ago
  That's not what the lawyers said. In the US, at least; things may be different in your jurisdiction. http://mailman.videolan.org/pipermail/x264-devel/2010-July/007508.html http://mailman.videolan.org/pipermail/x264-devel/2010-July/0... Even if you decide to use a closed-source decoder, just because the decoder has to be closed source doesn't necessarily mean the entire browser has to be closed. What exactly was the lawyers' reasoning behind this? http://www.mpegla.com/Lists/MPEG%20LA%20News%20List/Attachments/231/n-10-08-26.pdf http://www.mpegla.com/Lists/MPEG%20LA%20News%20List/Attachme... They do require you to pay to produce an encoder. Of course someone can then distribute said encoder for free if they want, so the end user doesn't technically _have_ to pay. But in practice they do. And if you use an unlicensed encoder, then you're infringing on the patents. So is anyone who views any videos that were produced with the unlicensed encoder, even if their decoder is licenced. What are you talking about? The page you linked clearly says that non-commercial content is free. I didn't say that no one has to pay to create content, I said not everyone has to pay to create content.
  - bzbarsky 16y ago
    > doesn't necessarily mean the entire browser has to be closed. Right. I did say that #1 can be worked around. If you you you approach, you still get the Chromium/Chrome model, where you can't release the actual source to the binaries you ship, and worse yet others can't easily fork your "open-source" app while keeping the functionality or redistribute your binaries. > The page you linked clearly says that non-commercial content is free. "commercial use" in that context includes putting it up on a website that has ads. So yes, not everyone has to pay to create content. If you find someone who will give you a free encoder for which they paid the licensing fees, and you make sure that either you don't put your content on the web or if you do that there are no ads on the page and you don't charge for the videos, then you can get away with paying nothing. Quick; name me the places on the web where there are free videos and no ads. I'd love to know where this is!
    - Locke1689 16y ago
      "commercial use" in that context includes putting it up on a website that has ads. So yes, not everyone has to pay to create content. If you find someone who will give you a free encoder for which they paid the licensing fees, and you make sure that either you don't put your content on the web or if you do that there are no ads on the page and you don't charge for the videos, then you can get away with paying nothing. Quick; name me the places on the web where there are free videos and no ads. I'd love to know where this is! You completely misinterpreted that. First, the author pulled ads out of his ass -- there's no legal statement to support that theory. Second, the statement from MPEG-LA that I linked to trumps that article -- as long as you're not charging for H264 encoded content you have nothing to fear.
      - varjag 16y ago
        You are left here on benevolence of MPEG-LA consortium. If they ever change their mind, you'll have to shell out.
      - bzbarsky 16y ago
        You're misunderstanding the statement. That seems to be pretty common. H.264 has royalties that you need to pay to produce a licensed encoder. Then it has _separate_ royalties you have to pay to take content encoded with a licensed encoder and send it to someone else. Furthermore, whether an encoder is "licensed" depends on what you do with its output; the details are in the license that came with your encoder. The statement you linked to is that the royalties on sending to someone else don't have to be paid as long as you're giving it to them for free and sending it over the internet _and_ your encoder is licensed for whatever else is going on (e.g. if you're making money in the process then your encoder has to be licensed for that). I'm saying that to produce the content in the first place you have to pay money to the MPEG-LA. If you don't, then anyone you send it to has to pay money to the MPEG-LA. Here "has to" just means "they can sue you and will win if you don't, since the licensing terms don't allow you to do that". They might, of course, not sue you. That's up to them. Further, most encoders out there are not licensed to produce content you make money from (note that this is NOT the same as charging users money). So you'd have to buy your camera, then pay the MPEG-LA for an encoder license that allows commercial use. This is a one-time payment. Then you could stream the resulting encoded media as much as you want and not have to pay for each download that happens. The per-download fees are what they waived.
- blasdel 16y ago
  You are spectacularly incorrect about how Chrome and Chromium are built — the only difference between the two regarding <video> is which flags the bundled copy of ffmpeg's libavcodec was built with. There is no secret source code. When you build Chromium, you can just swap in a symlink to your system's copy of libavcodec, and then it magically supports whatever codecs that one was built with.

bzbarsky 16y ago

> There's no reason why they would have to make it closed > source, especially if they use x264. That's not what the lawyers said. In the US, at least; things may be different in your jurisdiction. Note that this is the route Chrome used to take: Chromium did not support H.264, while the Chrome binaries, built from some source that was not public, did. > H264 patents don't require everyone to pay to create > content They do require you to pay to produce an encoder. Of course someone can then distribute said encoder for free if they want, so the end user doesn't technically _have_ to pay. But in practice they do. And if you use an unlicensed encoder, then you're infringing on the patents. So is anyone who views any videos that were produced with the unlicensed encoder, even if their decoder is licenced. And some other restrictions to do with the fact that encoders are typically not licensed for arbitrary use (e.g. the encoder in a typical digital camera doesn't give you the right to put the resulting video on a website that you make money from, via Google Adwords, say). You should in fact read the licensing agreements involved, or at least the excerpts in http://bemasc.net/wordpress/2010/02/02/no-you-cant-do-that-with-h264/ http://bemasc.net/wordpress/2010/02/02/no-you-cant-do-that-w...

deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
Locke1689 16y ago
That's not what the lawyers said. In the US, at least; things may be different in your jurisdiction. http://mailman.videolan.org/pipermail/x264-devel/2010-July/007508.html http://mailman.videolan.org/pipermail/x264-devel/2010-July/0... Even if you decide to use a closed-source decoder, just because the decoder has to be closed source doesn't necessarily mean the entire browser has to be closed. What exactly was the lawyers' reasoning behind this? http://www.mpegla.com/Lists/MPEG%20LA%20News%20List/Attachments/231/n-10-08-26.pdf http://www.mpegla.com/Lists/MPEG%20LA%20News%20List/Attachme... They do require you to pay to produce an encoder. Of course someone can then distribute said encoder for free if they want, so the end user doesn't technically _have_ to pay. But in practice they do. And if you use an unlicensed encoder, then you're infringing on the patents. So is anyone who views any videos that were produced with the unlicensed encoder, even if their decoder is licenced. What are you talking about? The page you linked clearly says that non-commercial content is free. I didn't say that no one has to pay to create content, I said not everyone has to pay to create content.
- bzbarsky 16y ago
  > doesn't necessarily mean the entire browser has to be closed. Right. I did say that #1 can be worked around. If you you you approach, you still get the Chromium/Chrome model, where you can't release the actual source to the binaries you ship, and worse yet others can't easily fork your "open-source" app while keeping the functionality or redistribute your binaries. > The page you linked clearly says that non-commercial content is free. "commercial use" in that context includes putting it up on a website that has ads. So yes, not everyone has to pay to create content. If you find someone who will give you a free encoder for which they paid the licensing fees, and you make sure that either you don't put your content on the web or if you do that there are no ads on the page and you don't charge for the videos, then you can get away with paying nothing. Quick; name me the places on the web where there are free videos and no ads. I'd love to know where this is!
  - Locke1689 16y ago
    "commercial use" in that context includes putting it up on a website that has ads. So yes, not everyone has to pay to create content. If you find someone who will give you a free encoder for which they paid the licensing fees, and you make sure that either you don't put your content on the web or if you do that there are no ads on the page and you don't charge for the videos, then you can get away with paying nothing. Quick; name me the places on the web where there are free videos and no ads. I'd love to know where this is! You completely misinterpreted that. First, the author pulled ads out of his ass -- there's no legal statement to support that theory. Second, the statement from MPEG-LA that I linked to trumps that article -- as long as you're not charging for H264 encoded content you have nothing to fear.
    - varjag 16y ago
      You are left here on benevolence of MPEG-LA consortium. If they ever change their mind, you'll have to shell out.
    - bzbarsky 16y ago
      You're misunderstanding the statement. That seems to be pretty common. H.264 has royalties that you need to pay to produce a licensed encoder. Then it has _separate_ royalties you have to pay to take content encoded with a licensed encoder and send it to someone else. Furthermore, whether an encoder is "licensed" depends on what you do with its output; the details are in the license that came with your encoder. The statement you linked to is that the royalties on sending to someone else don't have to be paid as long as you're giving it to them for free and sending it over the internet _and_ your encoder is licensed for whatever else is going on (e.g. if you're making money in the process then your encoder has to be licensed for that). I'm saying that to produce the content in the first place you have to pay money to the MPEG-LA. If you don't, then anyone you send it to has to pay money to the MPEG-LA. Here "has to" just means "they can sue you and will win if you don't, since the licensing terms don't allow you to do that". They might, of course, not sue you. That's up to them. Further, most encoders out there are not licensed to produce content you make money from (note that this is NOT the same as charging users money). So you'd have to buy your camera, then pay the MPEG-LA for an encoder license that allows commercial use. This is a one-time payment. Then you could stream the resulting encoded media as much as you want and not have to pay for each download that happens. The per-download fees are what they waived.
blasdel 16y ago
You are spectacularly incorrect about how Chrome and Chromium are built — the only difference between the two regarding <video> is which flags the bundled copy of ffmpeg's libavcodec was built with. There is no secret source code. When you build Chromium, you can just swap in a symlink to your system's copy of libavcodec, and then it magically supports whatever codecs that one was built with.