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The MPEG-LA's Lock On Culture
jrepin writes in to recommend a piece by Eugenia from OSNews, which explores the depths of the MPEG-LA's lock on video. One part of the problem is that almost all video cameras, including ones that cost more than $12,000, declare in their manuals that they are for "personal use and non-commercial" purposes only. "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!""
What license agreement? The one in the manual? You don't have to agree to that. You aren't forced to sign anything. A lot of newer cameras don't even come with the manual in the box for fucks sake. How is that even enforceable from a legal perspective? This has less clout than a clickable EULA, and people expect it to hold up in court. Yeah. Good luck with that one. That being said, I read TFA, and I agree that we have certainly entered a legal quagmire, but how much of this stuff will hold up in court is truly questionable. If anything the theora codec developers have far more to worry about than the average consumer/company posting videos.
zosxavius photography
IANAL, but I believe you can use the actual, physical device to record any kind of movie but then if you distribute it commercially you become liable for patent infringement, as the camera maker only paid for a non-commercial h.264 license rather than the 'full' one.
If that's the case, then in theory it'd be possible to record the movie, transcode it to a Free format such as Theora or a closed one you *do* own a commercial license for, redistribute *that* file instead, and be legally in the clear. But as I said, IANAL, this is not legal advice and all that crap.
No problem is insoluble in all conceivable circumstances.
You film it in an MPEG format and convert it to Ogg Theora before distributing it. Might work.
That note in the manual won't hold up in court, but the licensing demands will. What this means is that the MPEG-LA will get your money and then you can try and get your money back from the manufacturer of the camera for not mentioning this unexpected limitation prior to the purchase (i.e. selling you a device which is not fit for the naturally intended purpose.) You'll probably get the price of the camera back, but not your "damages".
I recently scoffed at the 720p MJPEG codec used by my shiny new Pentax Optio camera.
Who knew that its ancient and inefficient CODEC is its saving grace when it comes to the topic of TFA.
But seriously, this is a case of Moores law making old stuff (mjpeg) work even for modern resolutions. I lacks the elegance of modern compression, but as long as the camera has fast/huge storage and fast raw processing power, we can use it and probably be happy with it too. The place where the fancy compression is always going to be key is distribution where the bandwidth is limited, be it spinning off a disk or streaming off the net.
MPEG-LA has insinuated in the past that they own so many patents around mpeg2 and h.264, that is simply not possible to build a video codec that it doesn't infringe on their patents.
This is blatant rubbish. A full MPEG 1 implementation can be implemented since all patents relating to that have expired. A number of the MPEG2 patents have expired so it may be possible to extend this using those. So that gives at the very least some basic space conversion and final compression algorithms that can be used. Even a few of the MPEG 2 patents have expired. We're not looking at a particularly modern CODEC yet, but this should at least give us better quality than an MJPEG stream.
And I'm also pretty sure the MPEG-LA doesn't want to see the issue end up in court, because they'd probably lose.
IANAL. Good point.
$ make available
Thankfully we don't have software patents in Europe, but does that mean we won't suffer from this?
The problem is that regardless of whether you agreed to anything, you never got a "commercial" license in the first place, so you can get sued. The manual just *informs* you of the fact that what you bought is a non-commercial license. That's very different from EULAs that take rights away from you. In this case, they just inform you that you never got the rights in the first place.
Opus: the Swiss army knife of audio codec
How does it make any sense? Isn't it the camera manufacture that needs a commercial license to use their codec in their commercial product, i.e. the camera? Without a codec the camera can't do anything, it is not useful.
It's like a calculator producer ships his calculators with a software but the customer don't get a commercial license with it, so he can't use the calculator in his business.
I'm using the camera not their codec. The camera gives me a video, which I can decode to watch, or decode to raw data and encode it to any other video codec. And a license to decode I'll get with the software that I buy. How can they restrict what I can do without me ever using their codec to encode anything?
http://www.mueller-public.de - My site http://www.anr-institute.com/ - Advanced Natural Research Institute
If Eli Whitney's cotton gin were still covered by patents, the business model would probably be to license based on the bales of cotton ginned in addition to the fee for each machine - in this way a self contained commune would still have to pay royalties based on how much they used the machine. The value of the cotton ginned would be a poor metric since the user could sell the cotton at a loss, or the cotton could end up in hundred dollar bills. If I chose to put my gin on display in a museum or a gin repair school, would Whitney be able to impose a new previously undisclosed licensing fee based on the revenues of my museum or school?
Photography and movie making are artistic endeavors; the contribution of the codec toward that end is not significant and license fees should not be based on the value of the product, but on the number of frames or length of the film or similar measure. Would anyone think it appropriate for the manufacturer of film or paints to make money from the photographs or paintings created by others? How would the manufacturer deal with collecting on second sale?
Since the consumer is obligated to meet the terms imposed in a license agreement, isn't the manufacturer obligated to disclose the full terms? Failure to disclose fees outside of the original terms strike me as unconscionable, and basing those fees on the commercial value of the end product doubly so.
One question for the lawyers out there. If the license agreement is between Canon and me, and I violate that agreement, how does MPEG-LA have any standing to negotiate with me for fees?
The US government have made it clear that we have no inalienable rights; any we do not defend vigorously will be taken.
No copyrights would mean no Free Software.
Lawyers might not be the problem, but the problems are lawyers. Think about it.
Who comes up with the bizarre contracts, cowardly EULAs, and wacky tort ideas? Lawyers. Who decides that this nonsense is valid law? Usually judges, almost all of whom are lawyers. Who writes the law in the first place? Politicians, a great many of whom are lawyers. Who decides who is eligible to run? Sometimes lawyers (with the implicit threat of court battles).
There are many great lawyers out there, fighting for freedom and justice on the small (but very meaningful) scale. We need more of such people. Regardless, there is a particular variety that is causing mayhem in our political system. We really need to find a way to --err... dissuade them.
I won't join Slashcott. OTOH, If Beta goes live, I just won't be back until it's fixed. Sorry Dice.