Avanci demands streaming patent royalties

[hajj_3]

Royalty Rate:

% of Revenue 1.6–2.0%
Per user (per month): $0.12–$0.15
Fixed royalty: To be announced

https://www.avanci.com/video/

It is insane that they want to take 1.6-2% of all streaming revenue or an amount per subscriber. Netflix's revenue is $45bn so that would be $720m-$900m per year. They have 325 million subscribers which would be $39-$48.75m/yr. Not sure if netflix would get to choose which of these to have.

Lots of big companies like Apple, Dolby, Microsoft, Qualcomm and Samsung aren't even on the list of patent licensees.

[benwaggoner]

Royalty Rate:

% of Revenue 1.6–2.0%
Per user (per month): $0.12–$0.15
Fixed royalty: To be announced

https://www.avanci.com/video/

It is insane that they want to take 1.6-2% of all streaming revenue or an amount per subscriber. Netflix's revenue is $45bn so that would be $720m-$900m per year. They have 325 million subscribers which would be $39-$48.75m/yr. Not sure if netflix would get to choose which of these to have.

Lots of big companies like Apple, Dolby, Microsoft, Qualcomm and Samsung aren't even on the list of patent licensees.
1/6%-2% of revenue is in fact completely insane. Note the listed companies are "licensors" not "licensees" - they're willing to get paid by this company for their patents, not actually paying for them.

I don't recognize a single one of their leadership or board who has had any involvement in streaming that I recall.

[excellentswordfight]

1/6%-2% of revenue is in fact completely insane. Note the listed companies are "licensors" not "licensees" - they're willing to get paid by this company for their patents, not actually paying for them.

I don't recognize a single one of their leadership or board who has had any involvement in streaming that I recall.
I assume that this is the part that will be relevant for the big companies:

Fixed royalty To be announced

But those rates are crazy regardless... From the look of it Access Advance licensing terms looks way more reasonable.

This is not my specialty, but can does someone know the implications of MPEG-DASH being in there? Does that mean that someone would need to join the pool even if h264 is delivered? And given that they are also listing VP9 and AV1, it looks like the plan here is to target all OTT providers...

I guess im fine in general with video technologies having a licensing cost attached to them, but I think that this model is completely broken. We cannot have these "pools" popping in and out and changing the terms, and cost left and right.

[kurkosdr]

This is not my specialty, but can does someone know the implications of MPEG-DASH being in there? Does that mean that someone would need to join the pool even if h264 is delivered?
In order to answer that question, you need to know what the essential patents for MPEG-DASH are and which pools or standalone entities license them (and under what terms). Only then can you determine whether joining the Avanci patent pool makes financial sense for your particular case.

But guess what? None of this information is public, there was (https://web.archive.org/web/20240405003740/https://www.mpegla.com/wp-content/uploads/DASHAtt1.pdf) a patent list for MPEG-DASH years ago from MPEG LA, but it doesn't exist anymore, and even that list wasn't guaranteed to be exhaustive anyway.

Lo and behold, the beauty of ISO standards.

[ksec]

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This is not my specialty, but can does someone know the implications of MPEG-DASH being in there? Does that mean that someone would need to join the pool even if h264 is delivered? And given that they are also listing VP9 and AV1, it looks like the plan here is to target all OTT providers...



Is 2026 I thought HLS won and used together with CAMF and no one is using DASH. But I could be wrong.

And again, if anything H.264 soon to be patent free looks increasingly more attractive every single day.

[excellentswordfight]

Is 2026 I thought HLS won and used together with CAMF and no one is using DASH. But I could be wrong.

MPEG-DASH is still being used all over the place, and one of the biggest selling points of CMAF is for the sourcefiles to be used for both HLS and DASH.

[benwaggoner]

In order to answer that question, you need to know what the essential patents for MPEG-DASH are and which pools or standalone entities license them (and under what terms). Only then can you determine whether joining the Avanci patent pool makes financial sense for your particular case.

But guess what? None of this information is public, there was (https://web.archive.org/web/20240405003740/https://www.mpegla.com/wp-content/uploads/DASHAtt1.pdf) a patent list for MPEG-DASH years ago from MPEG LA, but it doesn't exist anymore, and even that list wasn't guaranteed to be exhaustive anyway.
Apple contributed the patents for the MPEG-4 file format, based on QuickTime, and those all have expired by now anyway. And DASH itself is based on Smooth Streaming, for which Microsoft licensed the IP. I've not heard of any actual royalty bearing essential patents on MPEG-DASH.

There's plenty I haven't heard about, of course. That's just my personal knowledge.