4 ms·
It's a shame. As much as i wish this headline would be true, it does only seem to me that Google bent to MPEG-LAs will, a conglomerate of Apple, MS and what not
by buster 14y ago
It's a shame. As much as i wish this headline would be true, it does only seem to me that Google bent to MPEG-LAs will, a conglomerate of Apple, MS and what not..
From my point of view, the MPEG-LA needs to be shut down, not subsidized with more money. It shows every sign of a typical patent troll and will always choose the option that guarantees its members income, not the most innovative or best option, but the one where there the most money can be leeched out of people and companies.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- TheZenPsycho 14y ago"Google comes to comprimise agreement with MPEG-LA which satisfies no-one's tribal blood lust."
- gngeal 14y agoIt's like negotiating with a terrorist.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- lttlrck 14y agoShutting down the MPEG-LA is an absurd idea. Instead of one point of contact every licensee would have to deal with each patent holder individually raising the cost further and increasing the chance of litigation down the road. The reality is it has helped Google and many other companies adopt MPEG tech.
- buster 14y agoNot an absurd idea. The problem is the company and money driven structure not the MPEG-LA per se. Replace it with a consortium that has a general interest in innovation and not money.
- rayiner 14y agoWho would be in that consortium. Companies that have a "general interest in innovation and not money?" Sorry to tell you, but that set of companies is: {}.
- DannyBee 14y agoIf MPEG-LA was run the way it was actually required to be run by the DOJ (http://www.justice.gov/atr/public/busreview/215742.htm http://www.justice.gov/atr/public/busreview/215742.htm), we'd be better off. They are supposed to be getting independent experts, etc. The current "independent expert" has the following qualifications: "The expert helped form the MPEG-LA, helped in drafting the first MPEG-LA licensing agreements, answers questions from licensees on behalf of the MPEG-LA, has attended business settlement meetings on behalf of the MPEG-LA, and has testified before US congress on behalf of the MPEG-LA. Heck, he is listed on the MPEG-LA website as "MPEG-LA's US patent counsel"."
- nitrogen 14y agoYour set should at least look like this: {Mozilla}.
- pja 14y agoOn the one hand, MPEG-LA appears to have "won", because they got Google to licence their patents. On the other hand, the license Google has acquired is incredibly broad: MPEG-LA usually seems to offer broad non-commercial / small income rights but reserves the right to charge considerably more for large scale commercial use of codecs that they regard as infringing patents in their pool. They've given up on receiving any of that income from future use of VP8. Perhaps they regard VP8 as a dead codec, now that h.265 is on the horizon, so not worth the licensing effort?
- sjwright 14y agoThe agreement covers VP9 too.
- fpgeek 14y agoThe license agreement also applies to future codecs derived from VP8, most specifically VP9, so I doubt the MPEG-LA thought it was giving a license to a dead effort.
- pja 14y agoPoint. I think the general thought still stands: Perhaps MPEG-LA believes they have now established h.26[45] strongly enough that VP9 will never be a threat. Of course, if we knew how much Google had actually paid for these patent licenses we'd have a much better idea of who, if anyone, had actually "won"! I doubt we'll get that information though.
- fpgeek 14y agoThe alleged infringement was massive - every download of Chrome 6+ and every Gingerbread+ Android device (or at least the ones with the Google apps) to start. And all of it could easily have been willful - On2 and MPEG-LA had apparently tangled long before Google got involved. Given that, I think not finding out financial terms is a tell all by itself. As I've said elsewhere in this thread, I don't think Google would be able to hide the cost of an MPEG-LA win in their earnings reports.
- rayiner 14y ago> It shows every sign of a typical patent troll and will always choose the option that guarantees its members income, not the most innovative or best option, 1) It's members are the ones that invented h.264 (NTT, Microsoft). 2) Every company that owns something of value tries to maximize their revenue from it. MPEG-LA is a perfectly reasonable arrangement. It allows things like h.264 to be standardized while also offering an avenue for that R&D work to be monetized. The alternative would be people keeping new coding techniques secret and trying to compete with each other using them to offer better video quality in their own products. There is not a world where Microsoft, NTT, etc, are going to do R&D to help competitors like Google out of the goodness of their hearts, for the sake of "innovation." It should be noted here that Google makes a ton of money off video compression algorithms (they make Youtube possible in the first place), but has done jack shit to contribute to their development itself. Of course they want to get the license to something like h.264 for free, but why shouldn't they have to pay for it?
- fpgeek 14y agoThey did pay. Google spent over $100 million on On2 Technologies, the company behind the VP codecs. Did you expect more than buying a company and employing their developers?
- cremnob 14y agoWhat does that have to do with H.264?
- jkn 14y agoGP says Google wants something "like" h264 without paying for it. Somehow paying $100M for the company that developed the codec, and employing its people to continue development for years now, doesn't count. rayiner: I think you made some good points but the unfortunate rant at the end, that's just anti-Google bias...