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MPEG 4, Windows Media 9 At War
Andy Tai writes "According to this
News.com report, backers of MPEG 4 are protesting Microsoft's licensing fee structure for Windows Media 9, which is up to 50% less than MPEG 4's. They accuse Microsoft of blocking the progress to move to an 'open standard' (MPEG 4), posing unfair competition and threatening consumer choice. Of course, what is really needed is a third choice, a totally Free Software media codec solution that's competitive with both Windows Media and MPEG 4."
It's not often that people become angry because a corporation is selling things cheaply.
Rather than be mad at Microsoft for charging so little, I'd be mad at the MPEG body for charging what they do.
steve
Oh, you're not stuck, you're just unable to let go of the onion rings.
If a competitor offers a comparable product for a lower price than you do, he will sell more. The MPEG 4 people should rather lower their fees instead of complaining how evil MS is for making low prices.
If they're angry that Microsoft is selling WMA9 for 50% less than MPEG-4, imagine how pissed they'd be with a fully Free software solution, selling for 100% less than MPEG-4.
Let the MSFT-flaming commence.
Of course MPEG4 could be:
a) cheaper
b) better
or
c) all of the above.
I don't need another 'open standard' like MPEG2.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
I think that Microsoft is trying very hard to create the standard rather then accept a standard. As in the past, Microsoft wants to have ownership of important software and video is the next major software hurdle.
rejected (19) accepted (0)
Is there a psychological term related to getting your stories rejected on slashdot?
I can't believe that MPEG-LA would even consider airing this out publicly.
"You're killing innovation because you charge less than us"
Please... If you were really that worried about adoption of your standard you would either A) Drop your license rate, B) Open your codec completely or C) Make a better product than MS' and the cost is a moot point.
It's hilarious to see people cry foul at Microsoft when their business practices are practically the same.
--The space between my ears was intentionally left blank--
Let me get this straight... these folks say they're promoting an "Open Standard" that costs twice as much to implement as much as Microsoft's proprietary solution?
Did the definition of "Open" change while I wasn't looking?
How many standards based pieces of software has MS tried to extinguish. In most cases because it didn't fit with their assumption that it might just undercut their monopoly.
"posing unfair competition and threatening consumer choice" - Of course... Don't you think Intel would have said something like that when AMD started selling cheaper CPUs? (Not nessecarily better, just cheaper). And what about Star Office? Cheap or even for free at times. It's just plain ridiculous to start complaining about the opponents' pricing points, instead of pushing your own advantages. But, of course, as far as "consumer choice" is regarded, a free alternative would probably make both of the others go bonkers.
"If you go to the next town, going across a desert is a shorter way." - Pu-Li-Ru-La (Taito)
Since when does open == free?
Most open standards cost nothing right? I mean, that's what I thought TCP/IP, XML, C/C++, and so forth were all about. So what's with calling something that requires a license fee to use an open standard?
If they were really open, at least in the sense that I have come to expect, then MS couldn't possibly undercut them.
Curmudgeon Gamer: Not happy
They don't want Microsoft to block progress to an open standard? Then they should get rid of that stupid MPEG-4 licensing fees! It should be free for anyone. The licensing fee issues have blocked the progress of a lot of open source MPEG-4 codecs, like XviD.
Have you not followed the entire Monopoly cases? Microsoft undercuts its competitors to the point where the competition simply CANNOT sell any lower because they dont have the BILLIONS in resources to stay in business like Microsoft can, their strategy is to out live the competitor. They (MPEG) will eventually go belly up, like most of Microsofts competitors. This is standard Microsoft Monopolistic tactics. Find market to take over, then release a product far cheaper than competitor with NO INTENTION of making a profit, watch competitor unable to compete with price wars, watch competitor fold shop. Microsoft wins!
As many such issues get ironed out, supporters of MPEG-4 want to ensure that it has room to prove itself in the market.
yes, as I recall, there was a college kid who coded a peer to peer network so that he could swap mp3s with his buddies. he called it Napster. the guy had absolutely no room to prove himself in the market and until the lawsuits rolled out, he was dominating it.
another college kid coded a windows gui for playing mp3s. he called it Win-Amp. he eventually got his product bought by AOL-TW for several million and with virtually no marketing, winamp is one of the most preferred mp3 players out there.
point is, you don't need "room to prove yourself". if your product is superior, the market will MAKE room for it.
The World's Worst Webcomic!
It is true that MPEG-LA is being ridiculous. I have no sympathy for them and we can all see what 'reasonable and non-discrinatory' type licensing schemes get you.
That being said, keep in mind that what is true today may not be true tomorrow. It may not even be true today. Er...
Anyway:
1. WMP9 may be cheaper _right now_. MS can change that tomorrow. WMP10 may be 2x as much.
2. Just because the CODEC is cheaper doesn't mean its cheaper to implement Windows Media Streaimng over a solution streaming MP4.
3. WMP9 limits (to what degree is debateable) your audience.
4. Both of these technologies are on the path of the Dodo, IMO. Just as Real Technologies has fallen from techno-marvel to techno-garbage, so will these.
The past has shown that a truly open standard usually emerges in these areas, via governmental intervention or not. NTSC for North American television. Whatever guage the current railroad system runs on. An RJ-11 phone jack. Streaming video is just too young to be at that stage yet.
Kraft is protesting Shur-Fine Brand Macaroni and Cheese because it sells for 50% less.
They think MS should be required to sell for more. How the hell does this help consumers? It doesn't. They're simply trying to ride on anti-MS sentiment and maintain the rate which they can fleece the public.
Unless MPEG-4 is significantly better than Windows Media, they should drop their prices and be competitive. Suggesting that the consumers should be forced to pay more for similar service JUST because it's not MS is ridiculous.
If they think their product is so much better that it warrants a higher price do what Kraft does and market the damn thing as such. If it's not, cut the price. That's the way a free economy works, you have a right to charge whatever you want, but don't have the right to mandate what your competitors charge.
I'm confused. If the standard is "open" it means the format of the data and the algorithims used to produce it as disclosed, right? (Among other things...)
But for MPEG-4 someone wishing to write code which is compatiable has to pay money to license the technology for every copy distributed, correct?
What is the good of that? A "closed" system couldn't be legally reversed (DMCA.. grrr...) but any implementor's could license the spec from the owner and then do it.
So what has been gained? The ability to go to jail for writing the application rather than for cracking the format?
Think about it.
I agree that it's silly in a capitalist society to be complaining that someone's selling something for less than you.
Microsoft has a significant other source of income. They can afford to LOSE money selling their codec licensing, as it will strenghen the hold of their OS on the market.
the mpeg4 people, as far as I know, only do that, and can't really afford to lose money on it.
Look at the xbox. MS lost massive quantities of money on it, and didn't care, because it gave them a foothold into a new market that they wanted to dominate.
Yes, on the surface, it's a stupid and silly request. But when you consider the above, it's bordering on unfair competition.
just my thoughts.
"You worthless post!"
-Shakespeare, 2 Gentlemen of Verona, 1. 1. 147
well, there's always the convience of being able to do EVERYTHING at the computer. if I want to watch a DVD, I'll toss that in my DVD drive. if I want to listen to some music, I'll pick a few thousand songs and throw them in winamp (yes, they're all legal copies:p) my best friend is pretty much the same way, except he plays his gamecube games using a wave-bird IR controller and the video in for his PC. not to mention the overwhelmingly large amount of stuff that we can do on computers that can only be done on a computer.
it's really a matter of personal opinion. if you view your box as a tool and your other electrionics as fun, then you'll naturally gravitate to your other electronics. however, I tend to view my computer as fun and something that I just so happen to be able to get work done on. so I'd rather be on a computer.
The World's Worst Webcomic!
This is like some bass ackwards logic here. After reading it a few times you could read into it as "Welp, ours costs this much, so should yours, if not we cry foul." Thats like Porche saying "Hey wtf!! Ford just put out a sports car for only $20k and ours costs $100k!! Your killing the market and its inovation!" Seems to be the new trend lately though. If your losing either sue on some odd off beat related basis or cry foul cuz the other company is bigger. Instead of making a product BETTER (gasp!) they put up a smoke screen, make people look over there (dont look at our product, look at how much worse/expensive/etc.. there is) and hope and pray that people still buy their product. Inovation is gone. Welcome to the world of smoke and lawyers.
Apple warned them that their rates were too high. They had to fight tooth and nail to get MPEG-LA to drop its rates to their current level, maybe now they'll listen...
1) Drop the license rate.
MS called it "cutting off their air supply" if I recall correctly.
2) Open your codec completely
Then how can you get any license revenue from it?
3) Make a better product
It was widely regarded that the versions of NS were far superior to IE up to 4.0 (and there it's a debate).
The foul is something called dumping. The practice of below cost in an effort to drive competitors out of the market.
Now whether MS was dumping or MPEG-LA was gouging is something to be decided by the courts.
--- I wish I could hear the soundtrack to my life. That way I'd know when to duck.
Of course not. Nobody who doesn't have a $40 Billion war chest and a direct distribution back door hook (Tools->Windows Update) into 95% of the world's computers could possibly compete.
That's why we have laws that are theoretically supposed to prevent this kind of market abuse.
MPEG4 should be free (as in beer) because, at the end of the day, it's only an algorithm. Imagine if the Greeks charged us every time Pythagoras' Theorem was used or quoted.
In the computer age intellectual property is like the Emperor's new clothes. In the nanobot age, tangible property will be the same (you like your neighbour's BMW...fine, just make a quick copy), but I won't go into that now...
When I am king, you will be first against the wall.
Let me see if I get this straight. Theres a consortium of companies called MPEG-LA that is currently charging waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too much for a video codec. Microsoft releases a cheaper alternative which may destory MPEG-LA's business model. This is a bad thing ? Does anyone remember that browsers didn't use to be free until Internet Explorer came along ? Yes its true, the evil MS destroyed the good Netscape, but in the end we the consumers ended up with free web browsers. How many of you would have preferred that Netscape survived, but you had to _pay_ for a browser? Its just competition. Theres only a few ways this can pan out. MPEG-LA can lower their prices, which will means savings to us. MPEG-LA can make their stuff free, which will mean savings to us Everyone can switch to the MS format, which will mean savings to us. If the MS format turns out to be crap or have spyware or DRM etc. built in - then an alternative _will_ come up.
Of course, what is really needed is a third choice, a totally Free Software media codec solution that's competitive with both Windows Media and MPEG 4
There is.... It's called XVID
This would be like Shur-Fine Brand Mac and Cheese protesting Kraft for selling for 50% less. The issue would be if Shur-Fine could prove that Kraft's selling price is actually below the cost.
There is a huge difference between arguing about premium priced products versus below-cost products. MPEG-LA would have to prove that MS is actually selling their codec below cost.
BTW, you don't have a right to charge whatever you want in the US. There are anti-gouging and anti-dumping laws that keep things in check.
--- I wish I could hear the soundtrack to my life. That way I'd know when to duck.
Computer playback is a relatively minor aspect of MPEG-4. MPEG-4 projects are in progress on integrating playback in everything from replacing the GSM codecs for audio transmission in cell phones, to HD DVD with red laser, to replacing MPEG-2 in set top boxes, to replacing Flash for interactive presentations.
MPEG-4 is really meant to replace MPEG-1 and MPEG-2, not QuickTime, Real, and Windows Media. Of course, given those open standards (with HIGHER licensing fees) are responsible for probably 98% of all digital video watched worldwide, that's the real game. MPEG-1 and MPEG-2 are used in VideoCD, DVD, digital cable, etcetera.
Windows Media 9 is incredibly good for computer-based authoring and playback, but is a Win32 only system right now. MPEG-4 already works on all kinds of devices.
My video compression blog
What we have here is two greedy organizations battling it out. If we want to avoid getting dragged into this, we really do need open video standards.
Open source != open standard.
An open source codec that implements an open standard without licensing fees, now that would be sweet...
I'd say MPEG-4 is Open, but not Free, in FSF terminology. Different strokes for different folks. MPEG-4 probably has more engineer-hours in it that the Linux kernel, and a lot of those companies wouldn't have participated if they hadn't thought they'd get money back on licensing terms. But yes, more flexible licenses would certainly help. We'll see what happens.
And I expect a lot of "black sheep" apps ala MP3, to exist for Linux. Check out MPEG4IP for a LAME-equivalent.
As for Theora, who knows? It isn't even in beta yet. It's VP3 based, and unless they enhance that code a LOT, it isn't going to be quality competitive with the best MPEG-4 implementations. But maybe they are enhancing it a lot.
Video codecs are a lot harder than audio codecs. And the new MPEG-4 audio codec (AAC-SBR) is a LOT better than Vorbis.
My video compression blog
Indeed... in fact Alan Cox himself has said that the licensing of the code doesn't matter so much as open interfaces, so if people want to charge for implementations that's fine by me as long as free implementations are allowed as well...
And I expect a lot of "black sheep" apps ala MP3, to exist for Linux. Check out MPEG4IP for a LAME-equivalent.
Yes, well that's the worry isn't it - it's open now, and hopefully it'll stay open, but can the licensing be changed in future? Everybody thought you didn't need a license to decode MP3s until recently, and now people aren't so sure. That kind of legal vagueness is something to be warey of.
As for Theora, who knows? It isn't even in beta yet. It's VP3 based, and unless they enhance that code a LOT
According to the FAQ they have replaced the fixed lookup tables with dynamic ones that they can vary and tweak after Theora is actually released, and can possibly be altered on the fly. I don't know enough about codecs to say, but this approach seems to have worked well for Vorbis with the codec approaching and then surpassing MP3 for compression quality (though not by a huge amount).
So what would be a fair price? This does seem to be a little suspicious -- the very low price -- but how much is something like that worth? For that matter, how much is any piece of software worth. I never understood those people who were trying to get money back from MSFT for overpricing Office. I mean, how can you even determine what the price is for something like that? Isn't it whatever the market can bear?
-- Hobbits suck!
There is a lot to be said about what the "users" like and what corps push. Granted, often they are one in the same but not always.
/. is full of OSS and GPL guys, I myself am one too. Bottom line is users want something that works and is easy for them to install. They don't care if the format is open or not. However, what we could help do is help educate them on the reasons for using open standards and OSS. Users also see price tags. So using a GPLd open standard that is free for everyone to use will, in the end, make the users happy.
.GIF files. Unisoft may have made millions in licenses and fees, but they also helped to push to .PNG format. I for one don't use any .GIFs at all. Moved my MP3s to OGG etc. Just one person, but I also have a large "user" base that I infulence.
I realize that
Just like the issues with
Anger meets MPEG-4 licensing scheme
Companies fear costly MPEG-4 licenses
Apple backs MPEG-4 despite fee dispute
MPEG LA claim that Microsoft is blocking progress? As my dear old grandmother used to say, bitch please.
This is RAND licensing, folks. The same fine mess the W3C wants to get into. It hinders adoption, plain and simple, and locks out the Free Software community. I don't mind so much if companies want to keep intellectual property to themselves, but don't go around claiming it's a fucking "standard" if I can't implement it without paying you a fortune for the right to do so.
A post earlier seemd to suggest that Microsoft should be congratulated on charging a lower price and that the MPEG 4 people should be ashamed for charging such a higher price.
Here's a quick lesson in economics: Microsoft has the ability to charge the price they choose because the economies of scale for WMP 9 allow them to do so. The MPEG 4 group does not have the same luxury. If both companies charged a similar price, competition in the marketplace plays the role of lowering the price over time.
The exploitation of economies of scale is what allows a monopoly to maintain a stranglehold - Microsoft should certainly NOT be given an "atta-boy" for engaging in monopolistic behavior!
Has Microsoft ever, in its entire history, made a better product than the competition, sold it for a better price, and made a profit doing so? I'm not trolling; I'm genuinely curious to know if this has ever happened.
yes and no--
What Microsoft has generally done through the DOS and Windows market has been to commoditize the hardware market and have a large volume, low cost model (compare the cost of a PC with Windows to a Mac). This has not really resulted in a better product, but it has really resulted in a better price. This in turn has helped to lead to:
1) the near ubiquity of personal computing and
2) tremendous profits for Microsoft.
Unfortunately they have also been extremely anti-competitive towards competitors, such as Digital Research (which did produce a better product-- DR-DOS), and quasi-competitors such as Netscape (whose ubiquity was threatening Microsft's control on the OS). I suspect that this latest spat with MPEG-4 vs WMA9 is the same sort of pattern.
The fundamental problem for Microsoft though is that unlike the telephone companies, there isn't a large physical infrastructure that they control, and unlike the power companies and LATA-based telecoms, there is no natural division of any infrastructure that they can control, so this monopoly is not natural. Controlling formats is how they try to make this up.
There are two problems which make the Microsoft monopoly impossible to maintian in my opinion. The first is Moor's Law, which is resulting in longer lifespans for computers as the computers are now powerful enough to meet business needs for a longer period of time. This results in fewer sales of Microsoft OS's because the upgrade cycle is lengthened. Why do you think they are pushing subscription licensing?
The other is a more subtle problem. The growth of the internet has made it more possible to effectively collaberate on large software development projects between companies, and with developers across the world. This has made developments like OpenOffice, GNOME, KDE, and Linux possible, and it is in part due to the ubiquity of personal computing which has been one of the hallmarks of Microsoft's success. Open Source software has a lower cost model than Microsoft, and is able hence to win at Microsoft's own game. I am sure that a video codec is probably in the works to compete with WMA and MPEG-4. In the end, I am confident that, except for niche markets, that open source software (and similar systems) will eventually take over most markets.
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