Why Our Civilization's Video Art and Culture is Threatened by the MPEG-LA

[@MeGui]

Interesting...

"We've all heard how the h.264 is rolled over on patents and royalties. Even with these facts, I kept supporting the best-performing "delivery" codec in the market, which is h.264. "Let the best win", I kept thinking. But it wasn't until very recently when I was made aware that the problem is way deeper. No, my friends. It's not just a matter of just "picking Theora" to export a video to Youtube and be clear of any litigation. MPEG-LA's trick runs way deeper! The [street-smart] people at MPEG-LA have made sure that from the moment we use a camera or camcorder to shoot an mpeg2 (e.g. HDV cams) or h.264 video (e.g. digicams, HD dSLRs, AVCHD cams), we owe them royalties, even if the final video distributed was not encoded using their codecs! Let me show you how deep the rabbit hole goes...."

More, here

http://www.osnews.com/story/23236/Why_Our_Civilization_s_Video_Art_and_Culture_is_Threatened_by_the_MPEG-LA

[bob0r]

You can use x264 for free and nobody who can touch you!

[@MeGui]

Today's...

"There is a new article up on Microsoft's IEBlog explaining why IE9 will only support H.264:

'First and most important, we think it is the best available video codec today for HTML5 for our customers. Relative to alternatives, H.264 maintains strong hardware support in PCs and mobile devices as well as a breadth of implementation in consumer electronics devices around the world, excellent video quality, scale of existing usage, availability of tools and content authoring systems, and overall industry momentum – each an important factor that contributes to our point of view. H.264 also provides the best certainty and clarity with respect to legal rights from the many companies that have patents in this area.'"

http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2010/05/03/follow-up-on-html5-video-in-ie9.aspx

[zn]

@bob0r,@rosiejons5
your messages are *completely* unrelated to this issues

MPEG-LA have rights on format, it doesn't matter what encoder is used (open source x264, commercial sony product, hardware camera encoder)

Basically if you shot something on digital camera, even after you encode it to any other format (or re-encode with x264) - you still owe them royalties.

The only way to avoid this problem - to use alternative formats (or analog celluloid film cameras). The only known and good alternative is:
Red Ray (http://reduser.net/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=40) from Red (http://red.com/) (which can produce 4k resolution in 10mbit), or old MJPEG camera (as mentioned in first article)

[2Bdecided]

Basically if you shot something on digital camera, even after you encode it to any other format (or re-encode with x264) - you still owe them royalties.They claim that, and they have a licence that says that.

But until it's tested in court, I don't think it's accurate to state that pro use of consumer gear would be successfully prosecuted as a licence breach in court.

It's an aspiration of MPEG-LA. They haven't (yet) defended it and proven that it's a valid legal right.

(Not to say they couldn't - but just that it's not 100% certain. IMO. IANAL!).

Cheers,
David.

[kieranrk]

The only way to avoid this problem - to use alternative formats (or analog celluloid film cameras). The only known and good alternative is:
Red Ray (http://reduser.net/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=40) from Red (http://red.com/) (which can produce 4k resolution in 10mbit), or old MJPEG camera (as mentioned in first article)

Red Ray is complete vapourware.

[Ghitulescu]

They own the copyright and some patents. That means one can only use their technology if they agree (on price :p). The rest is speculation.

Of course one can use freely the H.264 codec, until brought before a trial, which is unlikely but possible, a trial costs them money and they use it only as a threat.

Remember, there is no commercial/non-commercial separation in the case of copyright, as it is in the case of a patent (which is why they do both :rolleyes:). One can have fair-use for pure commercial projects and one cannot do something even for private use.

[MasterNobody]

Here is the article with answers which makes more clear when and who must pay royalties to MPEG-LA (and answer on topic starter article also):
http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/04/know-your-rights-h-264-patent-licensing-and-you/?s=t5

[nurbs]

I read that Engadget article too. Turns out the OSNews article is mostly half-truths and FUD, basically what you can expect in any OSNews article concerning H.264.

[Gser]

Here is the article with answers which makes more clear when and who must pay royalties to MPEG-LA (and answer on topic starter article also):
http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/04/know-your-rights-h-264-patent-licensing-and-you/?s=t5

Well according to that the distributers of x264 would have to pay licensing fees, wouldn't they?

[nurbs]

If they distribute more than 100.000 executables per year, yes. Source code doesn't count.