Magazine quote about XviD

[vio_man]

This month (January 2004) the Portuguese computer magazine "BiT" reviews 2 stand-alone DivX players. In the end they have a small note about XviD and I quote (translated):

It is supported by a great number of new players, despite of the legal problem which forbids its use in the USA and Japan, due to patent violation

Is this true?

[temporance]

The patent problem is not just limited to the USA and Japan, it could affect virtually any country that is a party to the WTO (including all EU countries).

Lots of patented technology is implemented in xvid but no-one has ever paid to license the patents. Even if so called "software patents" are not legal in your country, you can still infringe by running xvid on a PC.

In principle, any user or distributor of xvid could be sued for patent infringement by MPEGLA or an individual patent holder. But individual users really don't need to panic: would the lawyers really take a trip to your study / bedroom to check what's on your PC?

Stand alone DivX players: If a player is DivX certified then the MPEGLA license fees will have been paid and the player will be legal.

So enjoy xvid: and enjoy using it more because you are doing someting a little bit illegal!!

IANAL

[trbarry]

It is supported by a great number of new players, despite of the legal problem which forbids its use in the USA and Japan, due to patent violation.

That's not completely true, or at least a bit confusing. Any players presumably have taken care of the patent licensing issues for making an MPEG-4 player. Now Xvid makes MPEG-4, so having a player for Xvid presents no additional problems.

But there are issues actually using the Xvid binaries to do anything useful. And there also can be issues doing almost anything commercial with MPEG-4 content, no matter how you made it.

- Tom

[sysKin]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but if a user bought the licence for a single mpeg-4 encoder from MPEG-LA he could compile and use xvid 100% legally.
This licence automatically gives permission to use all patented alghorithms needed.

Broadcasring of mpeg-4 material is also subject to some fees as far as I know - but private distribution among users is not.

I'm just reading the FAQ from http://www.mpegla.com/mpeg4v/m4v_qa.html and I'm a bit confused - a company only pays for the licence to *sell* encoders and decoders. As it seems it doesn't have to pay for using them.

Also, any company can sell 50 000 decoders and encoders without paying anything each year.

If I understand correctly (I'm not a lawyer, and this is only FAQ) this means that if you build mpeg-4 encoder from xvid sources you can use it without paying anything, because you can only buy the ability to *sell* it, and you're not selling the build.

I think it's been discussed a lot here and there.....

Radek

[Mango Madness]

which makes me wonder about some things brought up in the matroska irc channel. couldn't we follow a course that vorbis set out on, which is, to make an open source solution and just hammer away at niche hardware makers to gain market acceptance? just a thought.

edit: i'm sure Chris would LOVE to brute force market an open source codec coupled with matroska ;)

[temporance]

Originally posted by sysKin
Correct me if I'm wrong, but if a user bought the licence for a single mpeg-4 encoder from MPEG-LA he could compile and use xvid 100% legally.First of all, I don't think it's possible for an end user to buy a license direct from MPEG-LA. I doubt the license that covers the DivX codec and DivX/MPEG-4 standalones would cover use of MPEG-4 outside of those products. It all depends on the licenses negotiated with MPEGLA and other patent holders - and legal people tend to be very tight with the scope of these things.



If I understand correctly (I'm not a lawyer, and this is only FAQ) this means that if you build mpeg-4 encoder from xvid sources you can use it without paying anything, because you can only buy the ability to *sell* it, and you're not selling the build.A license is a permit to do something that you are otherwise forbidden to do. In other words, if you don't have a license agreement that explicitly covers what you want to do, then you are not allowed to do it if it would infringe patents. Patents are infringed not only by selling, but by making and using. It's interesting that MPEGLA doesn't give permission to actually use its technology :eek:

In practice, I really don't think xvid users and distributors have anything to fear - unless they are megarich. Morally at least, if you have paid for an MPEG-4 product, e.g. DivX 5 Pro or Recode 2, you can feel like you aren't ripping anyone off by using xvid.

IANAL