4 ms·

Introducing the WebM Community Cross-License Initiative

39 points by yanw 16y ago

dmaz 16y ago
Nice to see Samsung and LG on board with this, they're two of the AVC/H.264 patent holders. http://www.mpegla.com/main/programs/AVC/Pages/Licensors.aspx http://www.mpegla.com/main/programs/AVC/Pages/Licensors.aspx
ChuckMcM 16y ago
It has been interesting to see the evolution of rent-seeking behavior. Some of the downsides are becoming more apparent (poor adoption rates for less obvious ideas). The MPEGLA site has this caveat " Up to and through date of last patent expiration" and I'm wondering if anyone knows that date? I couldn't find the definitive list of patents in the license product on any of the 'open' pages.
- OpieCunningham 16y ago
  The MPEGLA site has this caveat " Up to and through date of last patent expiration" and I'm wondering if anyone knows that date? I couldn't find the definitive list of patents in the license product on any of the 'open' pages. On each pool, there's a prominent link for the patent list applicable to the pool. For example, the patent list for the AVC pool is here: http://www.mpegla.com/main/programs/AVC/Pages/PatentList.aspx http://www.mpegla.com/main/programs/AVC/Pages/PatentList.asp... It's not secret, or 'closed'.
  - ChuckMcM 16y ago
    Thanks for the link. Now I just need to grep the international patent databases for issue dates, add the jurisdictional expiration date, and voila. I wish the MPEG LA folks would do that in their documents.
noahl 16y ago
So presumably there is an implied threat that if anyone else owns patents that apply to WebM and tries to sue someone over it, one of these companies will be able to retaliate? I imagine that group of companies has enough patents to attack anyone who works in video, but that wouldn't help against a patent troll.
- randall 16y ago
  This is more about staring down Apple and MPEGLA, who both have commented that they think WebM is broadly patent encumbered.
  - msbarnett 16y ago
    Wouldn't the need for a patent cross-licensing initiative seem to confirm that WebM is broadly patent encumbered?
    - kenjackson 16y ago
      Yes. They've basically just formed an MPEG-LA like patent pool with no royalty. This is effectively what MPEG-LA requested, except of course they running the pool. This is a good move on Google's part, although I am still skeptical that during this process they may hit patents that are already in one of the MPEG-LA pools.
    - ZeroGravitas 16y ago
      That's the beauty of the political process that decides these "technical" decisions. If you give protection then you're admitting there's a problem, if you don't then they can attack you for not being prepared. It's a catch-22 that people are happy to attack you with while claiming they just want the technically superior codec to win.
kierank 16y ago
They've dealt with one of the criticisms which was only libvpx was given a patent licence. The other major criticism was that they are still in control of VP8, unlike H.264 which was developed and is in control by a multitude of different organisations.
- kkowalczyk 16y ago
  iPad was also developed and controlled by one organization, and yet it's a smashing success. Argument by correlations are weak. In your case, the argument is "standards controlled by a single organization are worse than those created by multiple organizations hence WebM is worse than h264". It's a weak argument because you can compare WebM and h264 directly on any quality you want, you don't have to use a proxy of how it was developed. Not to mention that the premise ("standards controlled by a single organization are worse than those created by multiple organizations") is easily shown to be false: there are plenty of bad standards developed by multiple parties and plenty of good standards developed by small groups. That's the origin of the "design by committee " pejorative. h264 is good not because it was developed by many companies but rather despite it.
  - kierank 16y ago
    I didn't say anything about how the quality of a standard was affected by whether it was developed by committee or not. Google claims that VP8 is "open", yet they are in full control of it. This is unlike H.264 which is not controlled by any single person. libvpx is the main reference for the standard that is VP8 including bugs. An open standard would have allowed these bugs to be corrected before launch.
extension 16y ago
Without royalties, what is the incentive for these companies to be part of the pool? Especially those already in the h.264 pool. I don't think I understand why this worked.
- kkowalczyk 16y ago
  None of them, except Google (presumably), has patents on those technologies in the first place, so they would get no royalties. This is a clever defense of companies that use WebM against someone else (like mpeg la) trying to form a patent pool for it and attack them. They would score big if they convinced some of the h264 patent holders to join them.
  - extension 16y ago
    So these companies are agreeing to cross-license patents that they don't have? What's the point? How would this help defend against those who do have patents?
tintin 16y ago
Via this page: http://ie.microsoft.com/testdrive/graphics/videoformatsupport/default.html http://ie.microsoft.com/testdrive/graphics/videoformatsuppor... I installed the player for IE9. Strange thing is, the right top movie (WebM) looks a little nicer in Opera, Chrome and Firefox. The blue text on white it very crisp in IE9 and smooth in the other browsers.

39 points by yanw 16y ago

dmaz 16y ago

Nice to see Samsung and LG on board with this, they're two of the AVC/H.264 patent holders. http://www.mpegla.com/main/programs/AVC/Pages/Licensors.aspx http://www.mpegla.com/main/programs/AVC/Pages/Licensors.aspx

ChuckMcM 16y ago

It has been interesting to see the evolution of rent-seeking behavior. Some of the downsides are becoming more apparent (poor adoption rates for less obvious ideas). The MPEGLA site has this caveat " Up to and through date of last patent expiration" and I'm wondering if anyone knows that date? I couldn't find the definitive list of patents in the license product on any of the 'open' pages.

OpieCunningham 16y ago
The MPEGLA site has this caveat " Up to and through date of last patent expiration" and I'm wondering if anyone knows that date? I couldn't find the definitive list of patents in the license product on any of the 'open' pages. On each pool, there's a prominent link for the patent list applicable to the pool. For example, the patent list for the AVC pool is here: http://www.mpegla.com/main/programs/AVC/Pages/PatentList.aspx http://www.mpegla.com/main/programs/AVC/Pages/PatentList.asp... It's not secret, or 'closed'.
- ChuckMcM 16y ago
  Thanks for the link. Now I just need to grep the international patent databases for issue dates, add the jurisdictional expiration date, and voila. I wish the MPEG LA folks would do that in their documents.

noahl 16y ago

So presumably there is an implied threat that if anyone else owns patents that apply to WebM and tries to sue someone over it, one of these companies will be able to retaliate? I imagine that group of companies has enough patents to attack anyone who works in video, but that wouldn't help against a patent troll.

randall 16y ago
This is more about staring down Apple and MPEGLA, who both have commented that they think WebM is broadly patent encumbered.
- msbarnett 16y ago
  Wouldn't the need for a patent cross-licensing initiative seem to confirm that WebM is broadly patent encumbered?
  - kenjackson 16y ago
    Yes. They've basically just formed an MPEG-LA like patent pool with no royalty. This is effectively what MPEG-LA requested, except of course they running the pool. This is a good move on Google's part, although I am still skeptical that during this process they may hit patents that are already in one of the MPEG-LA pools.
  - ZeroGravitas 16y ago
    That's the beauty of the political process that decides these "technical" decisions. If you give protection then you're admitting there's a problem, if you don't then they can attack you for not being prepared. It's a catch-22 that people are happy to attack you with while claiming they just want the technically superior codec to win.

kierank 16y ago

They've dealt with one of the criticisms which was only libvpx was given a patent licence. The other major criticism was that they are still in control of VP8, unlike H.264 which was developed and is in control by a multitude of different organisations.

kkowalczyk 16y ago
iPad was also developed and controlled by one organization, and yet it's a smashing success. Argument by correlations are weak. In your case, the argument is "standards controlled by a single organization are worse than those created by multiple organizations hence WebM is worse than h264". It's a weak argument because you can compare WebM and h264 directly on any quality you want, you don't have to use a proxy of how it was developed. Not to mention that the premise ("standards controlled by a single organization are worse than those created by multiple organizations") is easily shown to be false: there are plenty of bad standards developed by multiple parties and plenty of good standards developed by small groups. That's the origin of the "design by committee " pejorative. h264 is good not because it was developed by many companies but rather despite it.
- kierank 16y ago
  I didn't say anything about how the quality of a standard was affected by whether it was developed by committee or not. Google claims that VP8 is "open", yet they are in full control of it. This is unlike H.264 which is not controlled by any single person. libvpx is the main reference for the standard that is VP8 including bugs. An open standard would have allowed these bugs to be corrected before launch.

extension 16y ago

Without royalties, what is the incentive for these companies to be part of the pool? Especially those already in the h.264 pool. I don't think I understand why this worked.

kkowalczyk 16y ago
None of them, except Google (presumably), has patents on those technologies in the first place, so they would get no royalties. This is a clever defense of companies that use WebM against someone else (like mpeg la) trying to form a patent pool for it and attack them. They would score big if they convinced some of the h264 patent holders to join them.
- extension 16y ago
  So these companies are agreeing to cross-license patents that they don't have? What's the point? How would this help defend against those who do have patents?

tintin 16y ago

Via this page: http://ie.microsoft.com/testdrive/graphics/videoformatsupport/default.html http://ie.microsoft.com/testdrive/graphics/videoformatsuppor... I installed the player for IE9. Strange thing is, the right top movie (WebM) looks a little nicer in Opera, Chrome and Firefox. The blue text on white it very crisp in IE9 and smooth in the other browsers.