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If the EU finds royalty-free patent ceasefire clauses to be anti-competitive, then the entire foundation of standards-based interoperability for the web is at s

If the EU finds royalty-free patent ceasefire clauses to be anti-competitive, then the entire foundation of standards-based interoperability for the web is at stake. These schemes underlie everything—even something as simple as addEventListener('touchstart'). And the entire realm of software encoding schemes has been poisoned by patent royalty schemes for far too long. I cannot think of anything worse for the state of media encoding on the web than regulator intervention to maintain that status quo.

dzhiurgis 4y ago
(Speculating) What is the codec requires proprietary hardware only available from Apple, Google and the likes? Is it free or not really then?
- pornel 4y ago
  AV1 doesn't require any proprietary hardware, and it's free for hardware vendors to implement too. This is unlike H.265, which requires patent license fees for every chip made.
  - kmeisthax 4y ago
    Correction: H.264 requires patent license fees. H.265 requires three patent license fees, since two other competing patent pools promised a handful of patent owners a deal on cross-licensing if they left MPEG-LA. AV1 may not require a patent license, because Google designs the codec to only use unpatented or royalty-free patented inventions. However, there's still considerations of submarine patents - i.e. an unrelated entity that invented the same technology before Google. Parallel reinvention is not a defense against patent infringement - there is no inverse to prior art. This is the same reason why Microsoft refused to support VP8/WebM early on in IE - patent pools were supposed to provide an incentive against that sort of trickery. Then Velos Media and Access Advance came along and broke this, which is why the naysayers started piling on into AOM.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
bryanrasmussen 4y ago
I honestly can't understand if you are for or against this: >If the EU finds royalty-free patent ceasefire clauses to be anti-competitive, then the entire foundation of standards-based interoperability for the web is at stake hmm, that sounds against Followed by >the entire realm of software encoding schemes has been poisoned by patent royalty schemes for far too long well, that sounds for but then >I cannot think of anything worse for the state of media encoding on the web than regulator intervention to maintain that status quo uh, against if they maintain status quo but for if they say it needs to change? Don't regulatory agencies normally look into things because they think they might need to say stuff needs to change? on edit: changed ugh to uh, as ugh is generally used as expression of disgust, whereas I was going for expression of confusion.
- chrisseaton 4y ago
  They’re against it. > the entire realm of software encoding schemes has been poisoned by patent royalty schemes for far too long That’s a statement against - not for. They’re saying the companies are doing a good thing and the EU trying to stop them is a bad thing. > I cannot think of anything worse for the state of media encoding on the web than regulator intervention to maintain that status quo Also a statement against - ‘can’t think of anything worse.’ (And they’re right.)
  - bryanrasmussen 4y ago
    yes, those things sound like against - like I said - but this >the entire realm of software encoding schemes has been poisoned by patent royalty schemes for far too long sounds like it's for, right? If it has been poisoned by patent royalty schemes, and regulators are looking at patent royalty schemes here they must be for? Also > I cannot think of anything worse for the state of media encoding on the web than regulator intervention to maintain that status quo >I cannot think of anything worse is against, but >regulator intervention to maintain that status quo I mean, regulator intervention generally happens upending status quo, because when regulator intervention happens it means you will regulate something that was not regulated and thus what was status quo under unregulated system will have to adjust, even though of course big companies often improve standing from regulator intervention because they have the resources to handle the regulations and after a period of transition may be doing even better than before it still is the case that generally regulator intervention upends the status quo. on edit: I mean tone is also against, so I normally just go by that, just some of the words don't seem to be as against as I would think from the tone.
yalogin 4y ago
I was confused reading the article, seeing your comment makes me at ease that I read the article correctly. I too don’t get why the EU needs to intervene when they are making things better.
- sdoering 4y ago
  Because others are loosing money and lobbied enough people to get the antitrust ball rolling. No government serves the people. But especially not the EU. That is always the facade. This is an act of war against free standards. Take German weather reporting for example. The tax financed weather service had a free app with weather warnings and weather forecasts. Without any tracking or advertising. The commercial weather services sued it and where granted the ruling that forecasting of weather data payed by the taxpayers offered for free is forbidden as it hinders the commercial interests of the competition. So either one pays for the app now or just has weather warnings in it. Antitrust for the win (from the POV of the commercial entities).
  - mschuster91 4y ago
    The general legal principle that a taxpayer-funded service may not be in direct competition with commercial services is pretty much long-standing EU tradition and not a "war against free standards", see e.g. the requirement for public broadcasters to take down content [1]. The US follows a different tradition, wherein all works created by government employees are in the public duty [2]. Personally, I believe both ways of traditions are reasonable. [1] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depublizieren https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depublizieren [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_status_of_works_by_the_federal_government_of_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_status_of_works_by_t...
  - dijit 4y ago
    There are some policies that the EU introduce which make some level of sense but have unfortunate consequences. I remember one such case with regards to Estonian air. For those that don't know, estonian air was losing a _lot_ of money, but the Estonian government kept bailing them out. In fact it was considered the "cost of doing business" and took it as a form of investment in tourism. Of course, this is still a private company, and subsidising the airline means that nobody can possibly compete at that price point. So the EU ruling is sound, but the effect is that people are having a lot harder time getting to Estonia now.. which is a net loss for Estonia overall. Saying the EU doesn't serve the people is a bit of a lie, but there are circumstances where the EU does something and a subset of people are worse off, even if it's a better idea.
IfOnlyYouKnew 4y ago
This is the nutgraph: “ The Commission has information that AOM and its members may be imposing licensing terms (mandatory royalty-free cross licensing) on innovators that were not a part of AOM at the time of the creation of the AV1 technical, but whose patents are deemed essential to (its) technical specifications," the paper said. This concern is certainly valid, i. e. it is logically consistent. I would tend to agree with the sentiment that standardization is net-positive, but I know next to nothing about the commercial aspects happening behind the scenes of these processes.
- heisenbit 4y ago
  Sounds like there are AV1 patents that are not free and are not interested in a cross licensing. Anyone knows what patents or parties are this? In principle such a thing is problematic when the heavyweights get together and de-facto force others to sell at a low price. It is seen unfair as the big one finance this squeeze with profits from other markets where they but not the niche player gain.

dzhiurgis 4y ago

(Speculating) What is the codec requires proprietary hardware only available from Apple, Google and the likes? Is it free or not really then?

pornel 4y ago
AV1 doesn't require any proprietary hardware, and it's free for hardware vendors to implement too. This is unlike H.265, which requires patent license fees for every chip made.
- kmeisthax 4y ago
  Correction: H.264 requires patent license fees. H.265 requires three patent license fees, since two other competing patent pools promised a handful of patent owners a deal on cross-licensing if they left MPEG-LA. AV1 may not require a patent license, because Google designs the codec to only use unpatented or royalty-free patented inventions. However, there's still considerations of submarine patents - i.e. an unrelated entity that invented the same technology before Google. Parallel reinvention is not a defense against patent infringement - there is no inverse to prior art. This is the same reason why Microsoft refused to support VP8/WebM early on in IE - patent pools were supposed to provide an incentive against that sort of trickery. Then Velos Media and Access Advance came along and broke this, which is why the naysayers started piling on into AOM.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

bryanrasmussen 4y ago

I honestly can't understand if you are for or against this: >If the EU finds royalty-free patent ceasefire clauses to be anti-competitive, then the entire foundation of standards-based interoperability for the web is at stake hmm, that sounds against Followed by >the entire realm of software encoding schemes has been poisoned by patent royalty schemes for far too long well, that sounds for but then >I cannot think of anything worse for the state of media encoding on the web than regulator intervention to maintain that status quo uh, against if they maintain status quo but for if they say it needs to change? Don't regulatory agencies normally look into things because they think they might need to say stuff needs to change? on edit: changed ugh to uh, as ugh is generally used as expression of disgust, whereas I was going for expression of confusion.

chrisseaton 4y ago
They’re against it. > the entire realm of software encoding schemes has been poisoned by patent royalty schemes for far too long That’s a statement against - not for. They’re saying the companies are doing a good thing and the EU trying to stop them is a bad thing. > I cannot think of anything worse for the state of media encoding on the web than regulator intervention to maintain that status quo Also a statement against - ‘can’t think of anything worse.’ (And they’re right.)
- bryanrasmussen 4y ago
  yes, those things sound like against - like I said - but this >the entire realm of software encoding schemes has been poisoned by patent royalty schemes for far too long sounds like it's for, right? If it has been poisoned by patent royalty schemes, and regulators are looking at patent royalty schemes here they must be for? Also > I cannot think of anything worse for the state of media encoding on the web than regulator intervention to maintain that status quo >I cannot think of anything worse is against, but >regulator intervention to maintain that status quo I mean, regulator intervention generally happens upending status quo, because when regulator intervention happens it means you will regulate something that was not regulated and thus what was status quo under unregulated system will have to adjust, even though of course big companies often improve standing from regulator intervention because they have the resources to handle the regulations and after a period of transition may be doing even better than before it still is the case that generally regulator intervention upends the status quo. on edit: I mean tone is also against, so I normally just go by that, just some of the words don't seem to be as against as I would think from the tone.

yalogin 4y ago

I was confused reading the article, seeing your comment makes me at ease that I read the article correctly. I too don’t get why the EU needs to intervene when they are making things better.

sdoering 4y ago
Because others are loosing money and lobbied enough people to get the antitrust ball rolling. No government serves the people. But especially not the EU. That is always the facade. This is an act of war against free standards. Take German weather reporting for example. The tax financed weather service had a free app with weather warnings and weather forecasts. Without any tracking or advertising. The commercial weather services sued it and where granted the ruling that forecasting of weather data payed by the taxpayers offered for free is forbidden as it hinders the commercial interests of the competition. So either one pays for the app now or just has weather warnings in it. Antitrust for the win (from the POV of the commercial entities).
- mschuster91 4y ago
  The general legal principle that a taxpayer-funded service may not be in direct competition with commercial services is pretty much long-standing EU tradition and not a "war against free standards", see e.g. the requirement for public broadcasters to take down content [1]. The US follows a different tradition, wherein all works created by government employees are in the public duty [2]. Personally, I believe both ways of traditions are reasonable. [1] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depublizieren https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depublizieren [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_status_of_works_by_the_federal_government_of_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_status_of_works_by_t...
- dijit 4y ago
  There are some policies that the EU introduce which make some level of sense but have unfortunate consequences. I remember one such case with regards to Estonian air. For those that don't know, estonian air was losing a _lot_ of money, but the Estonian government kept bailing them out. In fact it was considered the "cost of doing business" and took it as a form of investment in tourism. Of course, this is still a private company, and subsidising the airline means that nobody can possibly compete at that price point. So the EU ruling is sound, but the effect is that people are having a lot harder time getting to Estonia now.. which is a net loss for Estonia overall. Saying the EU doesn't serve the people is a bit of a lie, but there are circumstances where the EU does something and a subset of people are worse off, even if it's a better idea.

IfOnlyYouKnew 4y ago

This is the nutgraph: “ The Commission has information that AOM and its members may be imposing licensing terms (mandatory royalty-free cross licensing) on innovators that were not a part of AOM at the time of the creation of the AV1 technical, but whose patents are deemed essential to (its) technical specifications," the paper said. This concern is certainly valid, i. e. it is logically consistent. I would tend to agree with the sentiment that standardization is net-positive, but I know next to nothing about the commercial aspects happening behind the scenes of these processes.

heisenbit 4y ago
Sounds like there are AV1 patents that are not free and are not interested in a cross licensing. Anyone knows what patents or parties are this? In principle such a thing is problematic when the heavyweights get together and de-facto force others to sell at a low price. It is seen unfair as the big one finance this squeeze with profits from other markets where they but not the niche player gain.