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I think the big question is whether people can put BPG pictures online without getting sued. edit Why am I being downvoted for saying this? Do the people down

by codexon 12y ago

I think the big question is whether people can put BPG pictures online without getting sued. edit Why am I being downvoted for saying this? Do the people downvoting me realize that BPG is using HEVC which is patented by many entities?

georgemcbay 12y ago
Not sure what the score looks like for your post, but this is certainly the big question for me too considering that one of the primary factors in the terrible stagnation of widely used media formats (which has consequences as terrible as people commonly and unironically using GIFs -- fuckin GIFS!!!! to share "videos") has been serious patent concerns associated with most new contenders.
wtallis 12y ago
How could distribution of the encoded images be infringing a patent? It's the distribution and possibly use of the encoders and decoders that would be within the scope of patent law, not the output itself. The encoded image isn't the invention. If I own a patented 3d printer, would you be worried that those patents could restrict my ability to distribute the objects printed by it? The javascript decoder would certainly be covered by the patents as much as any other decoder, so it doesn't solve the patent-related barriers to adoption even if it takes care of the practical issues with using the format.
- codexon 12y ago
  Err, because MPEG-LA and the other patent holders that didn't join knows that Fabrice Bellard didn't license the patent from them, so you used an unlicensed encoder. If you stick that poly-fill on your website they can also sue you for distributing the decoder to everyone that downloaded the javascript file.
  - reubenmorais 12y ago
    IANAL, and this might be a simple case of letter vs. spirit, but my understanding was that shipping the decoder's source is allowed, so with a JS implementation you're theoretically safe. This was one of the arguments around Broadway, the JS H.264 decoder.
    - tjohns 12y ago
      I'd argue there's a difference between shipping source code, and actually embedding it in your page via a <script> tag. Once you embed the script into your page for execution, you're building a derivative work -- not just publishing technical details. Otherwise JS would become a universal patent loophole, which I'm pretty sure a judge would find fault with. (IANAL also.)
- WildUtah 12y ago
  The usual technique is to claim the encoding technique, the decoding technique, and the data structures expressed by and expressing the technique. There's also equivalents and the doctrine of induced infringement. The patent courts and ITC have looked very unfavorably on First Amendment claims and on defenses based on lack of infringement within the USA and technologies with alternative non-infringing uses not being liable. The Supreme Court is less extremist than patent courts on insisting that patents pre-empt the Constitution, but the Supreme Court takes very few cases and you'd already have spent millions to get there and -- most importantly -- the patent courts largely don't consider Supreme Court cases to be necessarily binding precedent next time around.
WildUtah 12y ago
Of course you can't use this compression technique without being sued. And that is the key reason software patents are really bad. You may hear a lot about trolls and grossly invalid obvious patents making millions in licensing and extortion by legal fees and I agree those things are bad. They are very bad. But the real problem is the apparently valid patents. Monopolizing a programming technique is a long-term barrier to invention that provides little or no incentive to create anything new compared to all the invention it prohibits. It's the same in any field where experimentation doesn't require billion dollar research teams and each new idea is built on thousands of others. No new work you do in video, audio, or image processing or encoding will be legal without a mountain of licensing agreements. Anything beyond common established software applications will be unlicensable and effectively outlawed. Google had to fight for years with a giant legal team to get permission to release WebM and you don't have that kind of power.
- bsdetector 12y ago
  > It's the same in any field where experimentation doesn't require billion dollar research teams and each new idea is built on thousands of others. So how little money do you believe has been spent creating MPEG, H.264, H.265, and all the other codecs? Do you think these were created by a handful of people in a garage over a weekend? Meetings for these codecs were more than 300 people and those were just representatives of larger groups. This is research that does require billions of dollars and thousands of experts working for years. That's not going to happen as a charity or by weekend hackers. Linus isn't going to get frustrated at the size of video files and take a week off to come up with a better codec. Software patents created these video codecs by funding the research and development, and patents aren't long-term barriers as many of the early formats have expired or are expiring now. You want to use MPEG-1? Go ahead. Or if you want to leverage hundreds of thousands of man-hours experts put into improving on it for the next generation then for a few more years you'll need to pay for it to cover those costs. That's exactly how patents are supposed to work.
  - domlebo70 12y ago
    > That's not going to happen as a charity or by weekend hackers. Linus isn't going to get frustrated at the size of video files and take a week off to come up with a better codec. That's kind of what he did with Git.
Daiz 12y ago
Distributing HEVC content is royalty-free, even commercially[1] - however, royalties come into play with distributing encoders and decoders, and it's the latter that could cause problems (similar to the case of Firefox and H.264 decoding support). [1] http://www.mpegla.com/main/programs/HEVC/Documents/HEVCweb.pdf http://www.mpegla.com/main/programs/HEVC/Documents/HEVCweb.p... - page 7, HEVC License Terms
throwawaykf05 12y ago
From the original link for the BPG format http://bellard.org/bpg/ http://bellard.org/bpg/: Some of the HEVC algorithms may be protected by patents in some countries (read the FFmpeg Patent Mini-FAQ [https://www.ffmpeg.org/legal.html https://www.ffmpeg.org/legal.html] for more information). Most devices already include or will include hardware HEVC support, so we suggest to use it if patents are an issue. The mini-FAQ contains some relevant information.

by codexon 12y ago

georgemcbay 12y ago

Not sure what the score looks like for your post, but this is certainly the big question for me too considering that one of the primary factors in the terrible stagnation of widely used media formats (which has consequences as terrible as people commonly and unironically using GIFs -- fuckin GIFS!!!! to share "videos") has been serious patent concerns associated with most new contenders.

wtallis 12y ago

How could distribution of the encoded images be infringing a patent? It's the distribution and possibly use of the encoders and decoders that would be within the scope of patent law, not the output itself. The encoded image isn't the invention. If I own a patented 3d printer, would you be worried that those patents could restrict my ability to distribute the objects printed by it? The javascript decoder would certainly be covered by the patents as much as any other decoder, so it doesn't solve the patent-related barriers to adoption even if it takes care of the practical issues with using the format.

codexon 12y ago
Err, because MPEG-LA and the other patent holders that didn't join knows that Fabrice Bellard didn't license the patent from them, so you used an unlicensed encoder. If you stick that poly-fill on your website they can also sue you for distributing the decoder to everyone that downloaded the javascript file.
- reubenmorais 12y ago
  IANAL, and this might be a simple case of letter vs. spirit, but my understanding was that shipping the decoder's source is allowed, so with a JS implementation you're theoretically safe. This was one of the arguments around Broadway, the JS H.264 decoder.
  - tjohns 12y ago
    I'd argue there's a difference between shipping source code, and actually embedding it in your page via a <script> tag. Once you embed the script into your page for execution, you're building a derivative work -- not just publishing technical details. Otherwise JS would become a universal patent loophole, which I'm pretty sure a judge would find fault with. (IANAL also.)
WildUtah 12y ago
The usual technique is to claim the encoding technique, the decoding technique, and the data structures expressed by and expressing the technique. There's also equivalents and the doctrine of induced infringement. The patent courts and ITC have looked very unfavorably on First Amendment claims and on defenses based on lack of infringement within the USA and technologies with alternative non-infringing uses not being liable. The Supreme Court is less extremist than patent courts on insisting that patents pre-empt the Constitution, but the Supreme Court takes very few cases and you'd already have spent millions to get there and -- most importantly -- the patent courts largely don't consider Supreme Court cases to be necessarily binding precedent next time around.

WildUtah 12y ago

Of course you can't use this compression technique without being sued. And that is the key reason software patents are really bad. You may hear a lot about trolls and grossly invalid obvious patents making millions in licensing and extortion by legal fees and I agree those things are bad. They are very bad. But the real problem is the apparently valid patents. Monopolizing a programming technique is a long-term barrier to invention that provides little or no incentive to create anything new compared to all the invention it prohibits. It's the same in any field where experimentation doesn't require billion dollar research teams and each new idea is built on thousands of others. No new work you do in video, audio, or image processing or encoding will be legal without a mountain of licensing agreements. Anything beyond common established software applications will be unlicensable and effectively outlawed. Google had to fight for years with a giant legal team to get permission to release WebM and you don't have that kind of power.

bsdetector 12y ago
> It's the same in any field where experimentation doesn't require billion dollar research teams and each new idea is built on thousands of others. So how little money do you believe has been spent creating MPEG, H.264, H.265, and all the other codecs? Do you think these were created by a handful of people in a garage over a weekend? Meetings for these codecs were more than 300 people and those were just representatives of larger groups. This is research that does require billions of dollars and thousands of experts working for years. That's not going to happen as a charity or by weekend hackers. Linus isn't going to get frustrated at the size of video files and take a week off to come up with a better codec. Software patents created these video codecs by funding the research and development, and patents aren't long-term barriers as many of the early formats have expired or are expiring now. You want to use MPEG-1? Go ahead. Or if you want to leverage hundreds of thousands of man-hours experts put into improving on it for the next generation then for a few more years you'll need to pay for it to cover those costs. That's exactly how patents are supposed to work.
- domlebo70 12y ago
  > That's not going to happen as a charity or by weekend hackers. Linus isn't going to get frustrated at the size of video files and take a week off to come up with a better codec. That's kind of what he did with Git.

Daiz 12y ago

Distributing HEVC content is royalty-free, even commercially[1] - however, royalties come into play with distributing encoders and decoders, and it's the latter that could cause problems (similar to the case of Firefox and H.264 decoding support). [1] http://www.mpegla.com/main/programs/HEVC/Documents/HEVCweb.pdf http://www.mpegla.com/main/programs/HEVC/Documents/HEVCweb.p... - page 7, HEVC License Terms

throwawaykf05 12y ago

From the original link for the BPG format http://bellard.org/bpg/ http://bellard.org/bpg/: Some of the HEVC algorithms may be protected by patents in some countries (read the FFmpeg Patent Mini-FAQ [https://www.ffmpeg.org/legal.html https://www.ffmpeg.org/legal.html] for more information). Most devices already include or will include hardware HEVC support, so we suggest to use it if patents are an issue. The mini-FAQ contains some relevant information.