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To be fair, as much as I dislike it, the commission may have a point. Basically AOM is using its size to make itself unavoidable and force free cross-licensing
by WastingMyTime89 4y ago
To be fair, as much as I dislike it, the commission may have a point. Basically AOM is using its size to make itself unavoidable and force free cross-licensing on what used to be non-members. This is mostly advantageous to the founders who know avoid paying fees to license the tech. From afar, it does indeed seem to hinder competition.
- JoshTriplett 4y agoPatents hinder competition; this is a sensible response to take patents out of the picture. It's advantageous to anyone making use of media and looking to avoid the gatekeeping associated with MPEG formats. At one point, copyleft was under fire on antitrust grounds, based on similar arguments. Fortunately that was defeated on the basis that it wasn't actually bad for consumers, quite the opposite in fact. Hopefully this attack will be defeated similarly.
- lokar 4y agoEU antitrust does not depend only on consumer harm.
- JoshTriplett 4y agoAnd if it makes the wrong decision in this case, it will cause consumer harm.
- cryptonym 4y agoIt would encourage competition by allowing other actors to create alternative solutions and get money from it. Competition can be good for consumer if new format technically superiors can emerge. Might be harder if this market is locked by huge companies that don't want to pay and push an inferior but artificially free solution. That's an argument, not my opinion, I don't know what to think about this issue.
- mort96 4y agoPreventing interoperable media codec standards is consumer harm. The status quo, which AOM is fighting against, is insanely harmful to the consumer.
- WastingMyTime89 4y agoIs it really? Because all the members of AOM are posting insane profits including on their media part and media codec is an insignificant part of a smartphone price. Honestly the whole thing looks mostly like a play from big players to pay less on the encoding side. It’s mostly irrelevant to consumers.
- JoshTriplett 4y agoSmartphones are hardly the only thing that cares about codecs. So does anyone embedding a video online, anyone building video editing software, any browser engine, any video call system, anyone building tools that play with video (e.g. AI/ML and every random "make you look like a cat" system), and a thousand other things that want to innovate around video.
- kasabali 4y ago> Competition can be good for consumer if new format technically superiors can emerge. Industry has had its chance and they choose to nickel and dime everyone to the degree that noone who uses HEVC can be sure they're not infringing someone's patent even if they've payed up every single patent pool. AOM is others response to this ridiculous status quo, within the same pate t framework. So if you don't hate the game, don't hate the new players, either.
- fomine3 4y agoI don't know every patents are anti-competitive. Generally I against software patent because some ideas are seems to obvious, but some algorithm/encoding technique could be worth patented (or say inventor should be rewarded), though it's pain to pay for each.
- mort96 4y agoThe only things patents achieve are to give huge companies the rights to squeeze small competitors out of the market, and to let patent trolls siphon money off of companies which actually make stuff. They need to go. This isn't limited to software patents. Patents don't protect the little guy. They certainly don't help the individual inventor, even though protecting the inventor is always the given rationale.
- brigade 4y ago...is the argument that these companies that didn't participate in the development of AV1 now can't avoid using AV1, and thus are forced to license essential AV1 patents under the terms offered? (so, is the EU also saying that once a standard becomes big enough, every essential patent must be licenseable under terms the EU finds acceptable, even if the patent holder didn't agree to that beforehand or possibly even participate?)
- WastingMyTime89 4y agoThe issue is more than they can’t avoid using AV1 and are therefore forced to license their patents for free to the rest of the consortium while AV1 probably infringes.
- brigade 4y agoIf they don't have to license AV1 patents, then how exactly are they being strong-armed into granting licenses to their own patents?
- hnbad 4y agoThe comment you replied to literally said that they can't avoid AV1. Other commentors here have called AV1 an "open standard". Note that the EU isn't claiming that the standard itself is bad. They're saying the cross-licensing terms are anti-competitive. The cross-licensing may have made sense for major companies like Apple, Google and Meta but it significantly disadvantages smaller companies which may need to rely on their patent arsenal as a deterrent but also face economic pressure to adopt the standard.
- brigade 4y agoSo which company is large enough to have patents that supposedly are essential to AV1 despite not participating in the process, is small enough that AOMedia overlooked those patents during the standardization process, yet is large enough to rely on those patents as a deterrent against AOMedia licensees, and obviously can’t be an NPE since they feel pressure to ship AV1?