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MPEG-LA Considering Patent Pool For VP8/WebM
An anonymous reader writes "Well, that didn't take long. Larry Horn, CEO of MPEG-LA, the consortium that controls the AVC/H.264 video standard, says the group is looking at creating a patent pool license for VP8 and WebM, Google's new open source, royalty-free HTML5 video format... So much for a Web video standard unencumbered by patent issues." We talked about VP8/WebM a couple of days ago when Google open sourced it. Reader Stoobalou points out another late-night email from Steve Jobs, who was asked to comment on VP8 vs. H.264. Jobs laconically sent a pointer to the technical analysis we linked before, where the poster says "VP8 copies way too much from H.264 for anyone sane to be comfortable with it, no matter whose word is behind the claim of being patent-free."
The thing is, MPEG-LA ensures that H.264 and you are free from any patent violations. Google doesn't offer anything such, they actually say they don't take responsibility on any such tthing, so it's a patent bomb waiting to happen and any company that uses it takes risks. That's why it might make more sense to just use H.264 and save yourself from future problems.
That and the fact that H.264 is already on every device on the planet.
In other words, people are not quite as honest as expected. Depressing, yes. Surprising, no.
I do not have a sig. You are hallucinating.
Sounds good: Let's get the patents that MPEG-LA claims might affect VP8 out in the open. Let's get an explicit listing of exactly where they think it infringes. And then we'll fix it.
This as opposed to Microsoft's approach to everything else, and Apple's approach so-far, of obliquely threatening that someone may someday find something that vaguely infringes some potential patent by some unknown party.
When do the patents expire and the invention fall into the public domain?
- "Sometime after both you and your grandchildren are dead."
Well that's a bad plan.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
AV is really the area worst affected by software patents. The media talks a lot about "silly patents", but they're *not* the real problem. MPEG-LA holds over 1000 patents - no amount of raised standards will solve this problem. Patents on playing video have to be declared null and void.
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This is why no one is going to seriously use the HTML5 video tag. What advantage does HTML5 offer over Flash for web designers when you have to worry about supporting multiple codecs because no one can agree on a standard codec to use. On the other hand, if you use Flash, pretty much everyone (except those subject to Steve Jobs' Dictatorship) can view your video and you don't have to worry about supporting multiple codecs. So now you have to worry about The HTML 5 tag is a poor standard; a typical result of a standard by committee. The whole point of the web is to be able to display the content on any platform. Allowing people to use proprietary patent-encumbered codecs as part of the official standard goes against that whole concept. The tag is something I would expect to see from Microsoft, not the W3C.
It is beginning to look like it to me. Apple is acting exactly like Microsoft. Apple feels threatened by Google. Instead of competing by making a better product, it's just lawsuits and Tonya Harding tactics.
I am quickly losing respect for Apple.
"That's why it might make more sense to just use H.264 and save yourself from future problems."
Sure. Provided this statement is a cash-guarantee to everyone who wants to implement it: You'll pay roll all the licensing fees, yeah?
Maybe I'm thick, but I don't understand why, if Google's so interested in freeing up a video codec for use as a standard, they don't just apply some of their legendary minds to fixing OGG Vorbis. Is it so fundamentally flawed that not even Google and their legions of high-powered open-source minds can't make it better than H.264?
In countries where information processing patents like the H.264 patents exist (namely USA, Germany, and the Republic of Korea), these tend to be broader and harder to work around than patents on hardware, especially when the codec's spec specifies what sorts of processing a decoder shall use. You don't want a decoder "with differing end results" because then you can't decode conforming bitstreams.
Will this replace their MPEG2 revenue stream which has its patents running out soon?
You know, On2 has been around a while now in the video codec game. I wonder how many patents they hold that MPEG-LA are violating with their video codecs. If MPEG-LA goes up against Google/On2 chances are they'll retaliate with patents that MPEG-LA is infringing upon.
I'm surprised no one has thought of this (at least all the news posts I've seen), that MPEG-LA may be opening themselves up to some pretty serious patent retaliation.
From wikipedia: The following organizations hold one or more patents in the H.264/AVC patent pool: 1. APPLE INC.
Magically, apple wants to enforce their HTML5 patents after trying to force people away from Flash? HAAA HAAA.
stuff |
Let's get the patents that MPEG-LA claims might affect VP8 out in the open.
The last article linked to an analysis of VP8 that pointed out its striking similarity to H.264 Baseline. So I guess you can start with the H.264 patent list on mpegla.com. Removing these patented parts would turn it into Theora, which is closer to DivX (MPEG-4 Part 2).
Again, more proof that the patent system is broken. A reboot is needed.
Come on Google, how can you flip h.264 the bird with one hand and jerk off Adobe/Flash with the other?
If someone outside the pool asserts a patent, sorry, that's not covered.
As AC pointed out, the whole idea of a pool is that it will be easier for an entity outside the pool to join the pool and claim its share of the royalty than to litigate on its own.
The Republic of Korea has information processing patents?
Have you any links about this, or any information that someone could use as a starting point to learn more?
I've pretty much no info about Korea, but it's all welcome here:
http://en.swpat.org/wiki/South_Korea
Thanks.
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Consider how long Theora has been out, there is no patent claim against it yet, and the efforts Xiph made to avoid any patents, it seems very unlikely that any legitimate claim will surface in the future.
Especially given that MPEG/LA have many solicitors who know EXACTLY what they have patents on and still have not found any patent violations in Theora (or VP8).
But Google has already licensed the MPEG-LA patents so they have nothing to worry about.
With or without the authority to sublicense these patents?
They could crush Google like nothing.
How about adding something like this to the TOS of an unrelated, widely used Google service: "By entering a query into Google Search, you agree not to sue users of WebM multimedia technology for infringement of any patent that you believe is essential to WebM multimedia technology."
Some folks just resist change, especially when they are not in the spotlight on it. Jobs needs to suck it up, and stop commenting where not needed.
Jobs laconically sent a pointer to the technical analysis we linked before, where the poster says "VP8 copies way too much from H.264 for anyone sane to be comfortable with it, no matter whose word is behind the claim of being patent-free."
These hand-waving assertions are frankly weak. Whatever happened to Jobs' mysterious lawsuit against Theora? Has there been any confirmation of any such thing? The Xiph.Org Foundation says no one's bothered to contact them about it.
I don't see much value in listening to scare mongering from Jobs or from Dark Shikari. Neither have provided any specific, direct, detailed evidence that there are patent violations. All both have to say is "Well, gosh! It seems pretty similar!" and that's just not enough. The thing is when it comes to codec patents the specific details matter. It's not enough to be "similar", it has to be very narrowly and very specifically the same.
Only really in America...oh, and Germany as of recently.
But how many refugees from the patent regime in America and Germany are other countries ready to absorb?
When did Apple become MPEG-LA? They hold a very small number of the patents that is in the H.264 pool (I seem to remember it is only 1). When it comes to video codecs, Apple is just a company that tries to protect itself against patent suits.
Uh, it's still better than MPEG2 and that was once the dog's bollocks in compression. So suddenly it's worthless when a slightly better product comes along?
So what was your licensing for H.264 worth when H.269 come along and 264 is the Theora of the age?
The bitrate disparity is minimal, the only place it matters in the slightest is on limited CPU power systems. Apart from that, there's NOTHING wrong with Theora and one HUGE thing right: it's free to implement.
I try to avoid "See I Told Ya So" types of posts, but in this case SCNR: WebM/VP8 patent risk for software developers" (and I previously made that suggestion on my blog in this post on video codecs)
I'm all for open-sourcing useful program code but the question here is whether it's fair for Google to expose an entire community, including the commercial adopters of open source, to this kind of risk. The situation surrounding Android serves as a warning. Google is unfortunately in favor of software patents and doesn't do anything against the problem. They're entitled to their patent strategy. But it's important that third parties don't run into patent problems in reliance upon Google's vague promises.
If Google really believed that WebM/VP8 was safe from a patent perspective, then why in the world don't its WebM license terms contain a hold-harmless clause or at least some basic indemnification (less value than holding harmless but better than nothing) in favor of developers adopting it?
People should think twice (at least!) before relying on any vague promises and they should also consider that Google isn't the patent powerhouse that could start a "pissing contest" with the major contributors to the MPEG LA pool. I explained Google's limits in that regard in this recent slashdot comment, The idea of Google countersuing isn't realistic.
Microsoft wrote Dos, Windows 3.x, Windows NT, and Windows 95 without patents.
Microsoft's whole patent portfolio in 1995 was five patents (and they might not even have been MS patents - they might just have been acquired when buying some company). How can you explain the investment to write all that software without your "guarantee of return" from patents? Was it charity?
Another example is GNU/Linux - even more software which is still being written without patents.
Another example: the 60s, 70s, and 80s. Where did software come from? Did it get invented in the 50s and stagnate until software patents appeared in the 90s?
The "needed to encourage investment" idea is completely bankrupt.
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There are ways to fight software patents within the current legal system.
Create a very large patent pool, but one that isn't defensive. All it takes is for every single company with commercial interest in free software to pool their patents together. Let's call this the good-pool. The companies donate legal fees to this entity. Now,
1. Wait for _ANY_ other software patent licensing pool to be created, such as the MPEG-LA. Call this the bad-pool. Such a group basically consists of companies that have 'donated' their software patents for threatening/suing others and getting paid. Once such a pool is formed, go after the member companies by asserting relevant patents from the good-pool. Don't wait to defend, but go on the offensive. Also, if any individual company threatens/sues another company with software patents, the good-pool again goes on the offensive.
After some time, no company will dare join a pool, or threaten another company again. This works, except for patent troll companies that have no valid business, but that of suing others. We'll come to this in a moment.
2. Software engineers in the community *read the patents in the bad-pool*, and engineer methods very similar to such patents, but those that do not infringe claims in the patents. This is not so tough. Most software patents are ridiculous. Create a wiki and provide alternative methods to avoid each patent.
After some time, no company will dare join a pool again.
In the case of patent trolls, where the company's only reason for existing is to sue others, follow the money. Find out who's behind the company. Even if litigation happens, and there's a payout, the matter doesn't end there. Find out who is benefiting. These people definitely have investments in other companies. Use the good pool to sue these other companies.
Note that this approach is much like the MPEG-LA licensing pool and does not involve companies giving up patents to the pool.
Banu
.. striking similarity to H.264 ...
Amazing! If only the VP8 designers or Google had thought of such a thing... Or you're another bloody Slashdot commenter who thinks that vague similarity to the overview of a patent implies infringement.
For a response from someone both more qualified and less inflammatory than I, try: http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2010-May/047795.html
Yet another reason software patents should not exist. Someone develops software it should be a copyright, period. Patents for what is blatantly obvious is just plain wrong. There will be a point where every bit of software is patented and no one will be able to develop anything better. For the US and any other country with software patents they are screwing themselves. New and better things will be developed outside of these countries and be sold outside of these countries and that patent protection becomes detrimental. It prevents innovation not encourages. Companies with the patents become complacent and do not innovate because they think they don't have to.
Mod up... it's the Florian Mueller of European software patent fame.
Have you got your LWN subscription yet?
take the meaning any way you want to take it
Or you're another bloody Slashdot commenter who thinks that vague similarity to the overview of a patent implies infringement.
The codecs are similar enough that I would bet money that at least one of the thousand-plus patents on H.264 covers VP8. I don't feel like going into more detail on May 21, 2010, because I have a paying job other than dissecting patent claims.
And wouldn't that be a reason for H/264 too? In fact, worse, since they are making noted money from the patents and have pots of money. A patent troll going after MPEG/LA would be able to grab much more money than going after Xiph.
banish those people who seek to monopolize and control your lives. banish patent trolls, their ceos, their supporters from your life, from your contracts, your websites, your posts, everything. cast them out.
they get bolder and bolder as we treat them equally like decent people, and start to increase their grip on our lives for their own personal profit.
Read radical news here
People should think twice (at least!) before relying on any vague promises
Yet they trust the MPEG-LA promise that after 2015, they'll continue to allow H.264 for non-commercial use for free. Suuuuuuuuuure.
That and the fact that H.264 is already on every device on the planet.
The only devices I own that will play h.264 are my computers. Only in the past 2 years have devices come out that can play h264. Of those, there are even fewer that you would actually want to watch stuff on. Most of those devices have only come out in the past year
And if your talking about web connected devices that can play h264, you have an even smaller pool.
It is defiantly used a lot, but it's impact in the mobile device space is not this huge entrenched market that some think.
Maybe some of the players (Google, DPL, etc) with a basic enough patent (something that everyone or every major player break) could bring some kind of halt to the civilized world unless this kind of patents get revoked. Imagine that Google have a patent on, don't know, moving a pointer, using html to display dynamic data or something as basic, and terminates the right of facebook, the US government, and/or Microsoft products, to touch web, and that, starting tomorrow (so not time to adapt), something that shows in practice how much damage could do the existence of this kind of patents to everyone.
How much would it cost one to just buy a h.264 license for the whole GPL? And would that fit into the GPL?
What?
A major part of On2 business was taking patented technologies and implementing them in a way that wasn't patented. Don't think these patents are somehow a total surprise to VP8 designers.
This is just like all those anti-gun politicians who won't go anywhere without their armed bodyguards. Hey, they don't believe in carrying guns personally, but you know, there are bad people out there...
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
the WTFPL licence.
Yet they trust the MPEG-LA promise that after 2015, they'll continue to allow H.264 for non-commercial use for free. Suuuuuuuuuure.
I would say the same about MPEG LA: don't trust vague promises. However, concerning future increases of royalty fees, they've made a very clear statement concerning the maximum level of increase, which is discussed in this article.
Apart from that, the risk if MPEG LA started to charge for non-commercial use of H.264 after 2015 is that one has to pay or has to cease using it for such purposes, while the WebM/VP8 patent problem could affect every adopter of that technology anytime now and have some really nasty consequences (cease-and-desist, injunctions, damages/backroyalties, future royalties).
It is a BSD style license, and also licenses you to use the patents on it royalty free, however it is revoked in the event you file a patent claim against VP8. Well this implies two things:
1) If you go after VP8, you can't use it in any form in any of your stuff. So say Sony sues over an H.264 patent they hold that they say VP8 infringes on. Ok now all their hardware can't legally play VP8 anymore, their license has been revoked. However that hardware may have the ability to do so because it is part of the TI chip they use (Google is working with chip makers). So now they have to recall existing hardware and redesign using a new chip, or face counter-litigation. Oh, and of course even if they do it means they can't play VP8 content anymore, which means their devices aren't as attractive.
2) Google has patents on VP8, that they got when they bought On2. If any technology the company filing suit makes use of infringes on those, well then they can count-sue. Perhaps one of the VP8 patents applies to H.264 as well. So you could risk getting nailed with a similar suit and finding yourself unable to sell hardware using H.264. Remember: MPEG-LA only says that their members can't sue you if you have a license. If anyone else who's not a member has a patent, well you are on your own.
Google is not stupid. They have a lot of smart people working there. They also, as with any company, have a plenty large legal staff. Given that they bought On2 some time ago, this is clearly not a spur-of-the-moment kind of decision. They've considered this. Well that tells me that they have come to the conclusion that either VP8 doesn't infringe, or that they have the resources to fight it.
Something else to remember is that while it might infringe on some patents, perhaps those patents are invalid, perhaps there's prior art. Now, who would be able to find that sort of thing the best? Probably someone who had access to a lot of information and was good at data mining. Well, that would be Google. They are the kings of data mining, they have access to more information than, well, probalby anyone except maybe the NSA.
So perhaps they looked at the MPEG-LA patents and said "Well, all of the ones VP8 might infringe on have prior art out there, so we can get them shot down."
Whatever the case, I bet this was a reasoned, thought out, move. They didn't just say "Hey, let's open source some shit for fun!" Also please note the coincides with their Google TV stuff. Google wants in to the video distribution market in a big way, they've been working on this and planning.
Now that doesn't mean they'd be successful. This could all get fought in court, Google could lose, etc. However they have the resources, in terms of money, brainpower, technology, and so on to fight. I'm guessing they think they can win.
Apple is just scared because they were starting to believe they were going to become the kings of all media, that everything would have to come through their devices, and Google is now threatening to take that away.
Seems like MPEG-LA will claim patents on any decent video codec if it looks remotely threatening, and they have the lion's share of the video market. Seems like a perfect fit for DoJ intervention.
Because that wouldn't stand up in any court of law?
Intel had given them the licenses because IIRC IBM required multiple sources for the 8086 on the original PC. Part of the reason for not calling the Pentium "586" was so that they didn't have to license its design.
Sorry for my ignorance here. Wouldn't Google's acquisition of On2 Technologies mean they acquired some relevant patents too? I mean, did they do it for the finished products only and all the time On2 were developing codecs they never came up with anything new, and therefor patenteable?
Since software patents are only "enforceable" for 20 years (unsure of when the period actually starts though, date of filing, date or approval, etc) and On2, formerly The Duck Corporation, has been "at it" since the 90s, and especially since they were apparently regarded as a top-notch video-codec-producing company, it would seem odd if they hadn't amassed some Imaginary Property (sorry for the bias, hate the concept) of their own as a natural byproduct of their work.
I'm just saying.. You seem very convinced Google has no patents they can use to countersue should the need arise, but Google (like Microsoft and Apple before whenever expanding into another field) has acquired quite a few companies and products. It would seem, like Apple and Microsoft before, that a big company like Google would do stuff like that far more for the potential value of the IP that would come with the deal than for any actual product, even though the product may be useful to them too (as is the case of VP8 or YouTube or a bunch of other techs/products they bought and integrated).
Why doesn't MPEG/LA do the same? They only guarantee against their own patent pool, not anyone else's. So why don't MPEG/LA guarantee to pay up if someone not in the pool comes along with a patent threat against your video encoder for H.264?
AFAIK VP8 was designed with avoiding infringing patents in the first place. The easiest way to do that is to exactly like h264, while changing enough so as to be different from at least one claim of each patent. IIRC if you can show you're not doing something exactly like the claim, you're not infringing. That doesn't work when the patent is too vague, but then the patent owner faces the risk of having his patent rejected and/or having prior art.
Wouldn't Google's acquisition of On2 Technologies mean they acquired some relevant patents too? [...] You seem very convinced Google has no patents they can use to countersue should the need arise, [...]
Just to clarify, I didn't say that I rule out Google has any patents that may read on H.264 or on some products of MPEG LA contributors. But Google as a whole has far too few patents to even take on one of the major MPEG LA members, let alone all of them. If they start that kind of "pissing contest", they'll face a very serious problem.
If Google had the necessary patent power, it would have come to the aid of HTC as well. However, HTC determined it had no alternative to paying royalties to Microsoft and Apple sued HTC (which provoked a complaint by HTC to the US International Trade Commission, but that one looks very weak).
Yup. The only reason we have software patents at all is because software companies realized how easily their work could be reverse-engineered and duplicated by someone else--then sold for half the price. Just get patents on the key algorithms of your application and threaten anyone who tries to do what your application does. Easy money! And you get to keep your customers locked into your software, too!
That is obviously MPEG-LA's intention, so that no one can implement a video codec that isn't covered by at least one patent. Even infringing one measly video patent would be enough to wipe out a nascent software company if they achieved any degree of popularity. If anything, that kind of minefield is stifling to innovation, which is in direct opposition to why we have patents in the first place.
Check out my world simulator thingy.
(Warning: Contains far more than usual amount of fuming.)
There's only one chance to make a first impression. MPEG-LA just used theirs, in relation to the WebM. And good grief, what did that reveal.
The MPEG-LA wants patent-encumbered video format as a web standard. That'd allow them to rake in the money. The whole "H.264 is free of charge for time being" thing is a giant big smokescreen. Google is already allowing VP8 to be freely used in perpetuity; in light of that, what other purpose than long-term plan to start charging for the whole thing would MPEG-LA's patent pool have than to start charging for the stuff after all? If they really wanted a free standard, they'd just leave Google alone.
This attitude alone, in my opinion, weighs far more than any technological merit H.264 has. MPEG-LA not in to produce any sort of amicable, altruistic solution to the whole thing. They're not interested in creating a standard that could be used royalty-free. Take any further tokens of niceness with a grain of salt.
Pardon me for getting a little bit cynical here: Part of me wants to say "December 31, 2015 is the day people will start paying for H.264 Internet production and streaming", but since the chance that we'll ever see a HTML5 video standard due to bullshit just like this is close to zero, it's all academic anyway and nothing remarkable will ever happen.
You can however demand a license.
That's how most licensing is done, isn't it?
Unlike Q-Pel which is part of MPEG4-ASP and universally hated because of serious performance degradation in mobile World of today, B-Frames and Adaptive Quantization are seriously big deal for any codec shipping to this crazy World where people buys mobile devices and expect them to output 720P or even 1080P to their TV sets.
You must be a real Google or VP8 fanatic to ignore these as they exist since MPEG-4 ASP (not h264) standards in professional encoders/advanced open source encoders.
Here is one of the most advanced mpeg4-asp encoders in existence today, look at the "encoder" section for a reference. Note that is not even H264 which has its own extra features. A company sized as Google should come up with a way better codec if they want to replace h264. That is for easily updated desktops only, we haven't heard anything about custom chips yet. I mean there isn't anything like Broadcom Crystal HD (ships now) for VP8.
Steve Jobs may have his own agenda but seriously, you can't impress Steve Jobs with VP8 today. Guy rolled out H264 on Quicktime 7 years ago, while nobody cared. Same thing happened with mpeg4-sp.
I wonder why we should be understanding to the lack of very important and standard features on VP8?
Google, just like Apple is a huge company with amazing amount of cash in hand. If they dare to replace H264, they better surpass it let alone barely having 10% of the important features of it.
I was mad to Apple for years for not supporting mpeg4-asp features on quicktime player/plugin but Apple wasn't really at shape of today and there was always an option like 3ivx/xvid components.
So, Google ships some junk (compared to others) and just because it is supposedly patent free, we will all support it right? Sorry but I'd care about some remote area guy having 1mbit shaky connection instead.
So, you're suggesting that H.264 and other MPEG implementations be developed for years at the cost of untold millions and then given away free, just because?
I agree that patent trolling is annoying shit, and I agree that it'd be nice to have a free option.
But here's the kicker: The open source community has not created a free codec worth a damn, and never will. The open source community DOES infringe on patents and DOES steal code and ideas. VP8 is almost certainly no different.
How long are you allowed to take to DO something? MPEG/LA have their own patents. They should know what they patented, yes? They haven't actually FOUND any infringement after what? Five years? Longer? If they HAVE found it, then why are they sitting on it?
Theora's been out for years, but nobody's using it. Patent holders are well within their rights to argue that it wasn't worth chasing at a time when virtually nobody used the format.
Remember that H.264 streaming is currently license free too. That doesn't stop the MPEG-LA from slapping on license fees at some point in the future, especially as they've openly said they will (and, likewise, they've openly said they're considering setting up a licensing regime for Theora.)
There's a difference between "Not filing a lawsuit yet", and "Saying it's OK". The MPEG-LA has not said it's OK to use Theora, they've said the opposite. What they haven't done, as yet, is set up a licensing regime. So far as I'm aware, they can decide to do that on the last day of the last patent's validity, and it'd still be valid.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
Fraunhofer said much the same thing about Vorbis shortly after it was developed. They later (and much less publicly) withdrew the claim.
I think that we have become so "networked" as a thinking species that most patents now actually harm innovation. I liken the situation to a small island where the costs of goods are high because not enough people will buy any goods being manufactured and sold. With the Internet, the cost of collaboration, mainly through the increased flow of information, has gone so much down that many things can get invented "accidentally", that is, someone invents B on the way to inventing A. This is because the knowledge density has increased. The chances of a parallel evolution of similar ideas has greatly increased.
However, you have any evidence this is a mistake? So far all I see is bitching/threats from MPEG-LA and Apple, both of whom have reasons to hate the idea of an open codec. Google's statement on the matter is: "We have done a pretty thorough analysis of VP8 and On2 Technologies (VP8's developer) prior to the acquisition and since then, and we are very confident with the technology and that's why we're open sourcing."
Personally, my money in on Google. They seem to have looked in to this carefully, they have the resources to do the kind of search needed, and they are confident they are good. MPEG-LA and Apple have done nothing of the sort, they are just making noise because they seem to believe that the H.264 patents cover any and every thing video related.
So, just as Google could be mistaken, so could they, and I'm betting Google isn't based on the available info and track record.
All it takes is for h.264 to infringe one patent that Goggle holds and they are stuffed. Google could then simply require for licensing their patent that any patents held by MPEG-LA against VP8 to not be enforced against any implementation of VP8.
If they don't agree then Google can file for an injunction to stop any infringing product from shipping, and collect large damages in the meantime.
MPEG-LA is not a company or a patent holder. MPEG-LA is just a clearinghouse for the companies that do own the patents, including Fraunhofer, Microsoft, Panasonic, and Sony . (Full list here WARNING: PDF)
The various companies that MPEG-LA represents don't necessarily implement h.264 or sell any products based around it. MPEG-LA itself does not own anything or sell anything.
This was to be expected and you bet that Google will fight and most likely win. After looking at the actual codec, VP8 seems different enough from H.264 not to be too worried. However, Dirac is becoming popular very quickly and there is a lot of talk about it now as well. It seems an excellent codec. Does anyone know how Dirac compares to VP8?
WHAT "untold millions"? The BBC wrote their own compression algorithm so as to avoid license costs for compression of the BBC archives. The BBC spent "untold millions" in that.
Well, as many as MPEGLA did: most of the work was done as mathematics and that is not patentable.
Apple is a member of MPEG LA and gets rolyalties from H.264. When Jobs talks about "some people getting ready to sue Theora" (and now VP8) he's talking about himself. But most of it is FUD, the parts of VP8 that are identical to H.264 are very obvious concepts, such as manipulating pixels in groups of 8x8 or 16x16. None of the really "original" parts of H.264 are in VP8 (which is why VP8 requires about 25% higher bitrate to deliver the same quality).
I thought the whole point of producing more efficient compression techniques was to disburse it to the masses. It doesnt make sense that someone can own an algorithm since its the same thing as saying you can own a mathematical theorem.
That brings me to an interesting point, / . is just "the ramblings of socially-inept, technology-literate news-mongers".
If Google really believed that WebM/VP8 was safe from a patent perspective, then why in the world don't its WebM license terms contain a hold-harmless clause or at least some basic indemnification (less value than holding harmless but better than nothing) in favor of developers adopting it?
For the same reason that no other format does. Because Google isn't aware of every patent in every country on the planet. Even MPEG LA doesn't guarantee that you won't be sued for using H.264, they can only guarantee that you won't be sued for infringing patents in their portfolio. If someone else turns up with a patent they don't hold, oops, they are screwed and so are you.
If you go to their website, they have a page asking anyone with any vaguely related patent to join them and collect toyalties too (instead of suing them, of course).
Let's get an explicit listing of exactly where they think it infringes. And then we'll fix it.
That's exactly what they don't want to happen. Their goal is to eliminate all competitors to their patent-encumbered formats, so that they end up with absolute control. Providing that information (if it exists) would help free alternatives, not hurt them.
Yes. Patenting algorithms is like patenting mathematics.
That brings me to an interesting point, / . is just "the ramblings of socially-inept, technology-literate news-mongers".
Any VP8 patent that applies to H.264 may itself get nailed on grounds of prior art.
It's almost a textbook definition of prior art when you already have a patent that covers the technology another patent is trying to cover.
H.264 streaming is currently license free too
This is not correct. Whenever you use H.264 in an application, you are supposed to use a license. It's just that for internet streaming video, you don't have to pay any royalty fees for the license.
As MPEG-LA puts it, "AVC Patent Portfolio License will continue not to charge royalties for Internet Video that is free to end users"
Just get patents on the key algorithms of your application...
Algorithms cannot be patented. It's the novel ideas that utilize the algorithms that can be patented. For example, if someone too the MP3 patent and swapped out the key algorithms, they'd be infringing the patent. Conversely, you can take the compression algorithm out of MP3 and use it in something else without violating the patent.
It's the novel parts of the design that are patentable. Not anything else - though it does still fall under copyright. That always seemed strange to me, that something can be covered by both copyright and patents. I think it should be either-or, not both, and frankly I'd much prefer software patents to software copyright.
Security is mostly a superstition... Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. - Helen Keller
That and the fact that H.264 is already on every device on the planet.
Depends on your definition of "is already on".
If you mean : Has the hardware capabilities to decode it, provided the correct GPU drivers and/or libraries which may or may not be part of the default installation.
Then yes, it's everywhere.
But so is also Theora, for which several implementation exist, including hardware accelerated decoder for embeds (such as smartphones) using SIMD+DSP.
If you mean : Works out-of-the-box. Then no. Older windows is an example that is often cited by Mozilla.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Unless you manage to design something of which the patented algorithm happens to be a sub-case.
Example : Patented arithmetic coding vs. range code.
By tweaking the parameters of range coding to set the range constantly on "[1;0]" you emulate the same thing as an arithmetic coding. But you could do much more.
Also, WebM is rather new. Nothing prevents an initial period, where the codec is optimized and enhanced.
I mean that the future "WebM version 1.0 - final release" won't necessarily be VP8 back compatible, but would nonetheless be a decend codec based on modern technologies.
(In fact the bitstream format evolved between the initial VP3 and the final release of Theora)
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
In fact, it is hard to speak about patents *at all* without engaging in the same FUD-because FUD is the medium of the existence of patent speculator industry(of which Larry Horn, CEO of MPEG-LA, is a known patent-troll par-excellence). One aspect of the fight against software patents is the desire to protect the *users* from being sued into oblivion by patent holding entities(either patent-trolls or companies engaging in patent-trolling). Yet claiming that *users* should be indemnified *is* the raison-d'etre of patent racketeering industry. So if you argue that Google is failing to protect *users* you are, in stating such, proving, providing, and furthering the self-justification that such patent rackets(MPEG-LA) use themselves. And in so doing your words of caution and concern are nothing more than additional weapons in the arsenals of thepatent rackets ideological propaganda. The laws concerning patents(what is patentable, the terms of patents etc.) will only change once the patent situation in general has been sufficiently defused so as to limit the actual perceived value of patents. By insisting that *uers* should be indemnified one is ratcheting up the perceived patent threat, artificially inflating the value of said patents, which directly works against the goal of eliminating software patents. As long as everyone is terrified of potential patent suits those who support software patents already have their case(ie. why we supposedly need software patents) made for them by the very perceived fear. We must break this cycle. Googles new license goes an awful long way towards defusing the actual FUD atmosphere.
Stating that Google is exposing the community to patent litigation is literally the exact opposite of what is really happening. By getting extremely broad industry support for webm within hours of launching webm and coupling this support with patent provisions in the license which state that any filing of patent litigation against webm(vp8) will result in termination of the usage rights envisioned by license, they have dramatically reduced the likelihood of any kind of patent litigation. The effect of this is unequivocally, a *defusing* of the already existing FUD-bases patent insanity. As of this writing those who promote software patents will have more difficulty justifying why we need such patents and the patent rackets are struggling to find some kind of rhetorical self-justification with which they can continue to sell their poisonous FUD.
Flo I really do respect you work. But you are wrong on this one. And not only are you wrong, but you are dangerously close to speaking out of both sides of your mouth. Choose which side you are on. If you raise FUD be aware of what master you are serving.
Errinere doch, wie Munchauesen sich beim eigene Schopf aus dem Sumpf gezogen hat.
OK. So, MPEG-LA's (and Apple, and Microsoft, and others) opinion that VP8 is a literal MINEFIELD of possible competing patents, and their inquiry into whether or not a patent pool should be provided up front (allowing anyone with a potential conflicting patent easy opportunity to come forward, as well as all those willing to leverage those patents, even if for free), thereby establishing legitimacy and some level of protection around that codec is a BAD thing?
Look, Google may own the patents it THINKS are valid, and may open source it to try to avoid H.264 royalties (which can not exceed 5M per year for any sized company, nor can it exceed certain profit margins on use fees or advertising revenue, and is generally considered a moderate of small license cost in terms of other licenses) does not mean this has held up in court, nor is the patent pool sanitized and safe. Anyone using VP8 without significant due diligence, and without backing guarantees of legal protection from googl e (which there are not, and it is ODD that there is not) is putting themselves up to be potentially (and likely) sued, to avoid a very small fee for a more powerful codec? Stupid.
The MPEG-LA is essentially throwing down the gauntlet to TRY to find those competing patents, this is a marketed plan to get them in the open and guarantee SOME level of legitimacy. If no one comes forward now, but does 5 years from now, then they'll have a VERY weak case in court, and that ALONE provides some protection for VP8, and actually makes it a safer codec and a stronger competitor. The MPEG-LA would only charge a fee for the pool if other in it (other than google) insisted, and if google agreed, otherwise VP8 will be challenged, and fail as a codec anyway. This is a VERY good idea, and anyone considering including VP8 in a product should love this. It could very well legitimize VP8 and cost MPEG-LA a lot of (possible, since they're not collecting it now) future revenue. Why would they do that if profit was their only motivation? There's already HEAVY suspicion that parts of H.264 already challenge VP8, and if they felt it did, they'd directly challenge VP8 instead of opening the door to potentially validate it....
There is no contest in life for which the unprepared have the advantage.
Depends the VP8 patent might predate the H.264 patent, but that assumes both sides have a patent on the same thing. What if they have patents on different things, that each other do? Then we are back to H.264 getting nailed to the ground. It is a *really* dangerous game to get into, more so for MPEG-LA than Google.
Note that if they have a patent on the same thing I would say that which was filed first is irrelevant because they both fail the test of "obvious to someone skilled in the arts"...
Actually, you're required to mitigate infringements in a timely manner no matter how "worth chasing" it was or not- or face estoppel on action against the infringers at a later date.
You DON'T have the luxury of doing what you're stating- period.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
It's funny nobody sees (as far as I read in those 1+ replies) there's no actual claim. This is just pure and simple scare tactics - somebody made by biggest loser of them all - AVC/H.264 - to threaten people who think about trying that other restaurant and it's free food.
AFAIK, those patents have some numbers attached, and also some names of "technologies". When you threaten without facts, that speaks volumes about your power.
http://opencm3.net, http://www.nongnu.org/gm2/
You may be unfamiliar with On2 (makers of VP8), formerly The Duck Corporation.
These guys were doing highly-compressed video in the early '90s, and they've been a background player for quite some time (funny enough, just around the lifetime of patents). Google's looking to do a very giving and unifying thing here (not to mention, cost-saving), but they're not doing it with baskets of rainbows and kittens. They no-doubt have a lengthy patent portfolio to draw on (the reason for buying On2).
News flash: Google also has lawyers.
Stock up on popcorn...
Counter: Shrub's 8 years. And the RightwingNuts ready to take over the US because they aren't in charge any more. PS free speech? Do you mean "free speech zones" and private laws in the US..?
Vorbis is competitive with AAC at higher bitrates, at lower bitrates it is much better.
You may be thinking of the separately patented and licenced AAC-HE which is designed for lower bitrates.
However,Vorbis matches that as well. Previously you needed a special tuned version of Vorbis called Autov but since then the tunings have been folded into the main code base.
So one single royalty-free codec beats two different patented codecs even though the latter had the entire industry behind them and were started later, a decade later in the case of HE.
That'd allow them to rake in the money.
How much? No, seriously, after overhead, how much does MPEG-LA rake in? If everybody in the world were able to chip in a dollar, would that cover all of the patents for the next 10 years?
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Yet claiming that *users* should be indemnified *is* the raison-d'etre of patent racketeering industry.
Sorry iwbcman but I view this the very opposite way. One thing is which laws we'd like to have (or not have), and concerning software patents it seems we're in sync. Another thing is what's reasonably required under the framework that exists, whether we like it or not.
If Google puts out open-source software, it should stand by it in all respects and accept full responsibility for the legal consequences. I wouldn't look at them as just a generous donor here. They're a business, they're pursuing objectives, and if WebM (and Android, where there's the same kind of problem) becomes a big success, Google will get most of the benefit. That's why Google should not just offload most of the risk onto third parties.
In case of VP8, indemnification of "users" isn't the same as if we're talking about Linux. Only commercial users can be sued over patent infringement. In case of VP8, what matters is that those adopting it (by incorporating that code into their own software, open source or closed source) have a risk and Google would be in a much better position than those developers to (i) provide a well-documented analysis of the patent situation as opposed to vague promises/claims and (ii) provide a hold-harmless clause in the license agreement.
By getting extremely broad industry support for webm within hours of launching webm and coupling this support with patent provisions in the license which state that any filing of patent litigation against webm(vp8) will result in termination of the usage rights envisioned by license, they have dramatically reduced the likelihood of any kind of patent litigation.
That conclusion is incorrect. Those who may want to assert their rights against WebM simply won't use it in their own products, at least not until the situation has been definitively resolved. Those who want to use it in their own products, conversely, wouldn't assert patents against it anyway. You talk about broad industry support but then you should look at the list of MPEG LA contributors and compare it to the list of WebM adopters. You should then also consider the quantity and relevance of the patents contributed by those parties who haven't adopted WebM and therefore still have every possibility to assert those rights.
As long as everyone is terrified of potential patent suits those who support software patents already have their case(ie. why we supposedly need software patents) made for them by the very perceived fear. We must break this cycle.
I can tell you based on my experience in discussing patent policy with politicians that it's the very opposite when lawmakers are approached about whether software should or should not be patentable (as it happened here in Europe a few years back). In that situation, those who advocate software patents claim that there really isn't any example of serious negative impact of those patents etc., not even on open source (of which they know that it does matter to a number of politicians).
What you refer to is the question of whether "FUD" would affect the behavior of end users. That's what I said right at the start: the current legal situation is unfortunate but we have to make sure that the risk is fairly distributed between those who will ripe the most rewards and those who may bear the brunt in terms of litigation and having to rewrite entire products etc.
And not only are you wrong, but you are dangerously close to speaking out of both sides of your mouth. Choose which side you are on. If you raise FUD be aware of what master you are serving.
My concern is that software developers adopting WebM could pay the bill if things go wrong. Would it be better for those developers to get rid of all software patents? Absolutely. But if that isn't achievable anytime soon, should they then act in defiance and head potential
Anyhow, h.264 will be about as useful 15 years from now as Intel Indeo is right now.
h.264 is not substantially different from video codecs that were around 15 years ago; most of what has happened since is tweaks necessary to adapt it to higher resolutions. Little is going to happen there from now on. h.264 handles pretty much all resolutions you're going to realistically be using for the foreseeable future. And there is neither much room for additional compression nor much need for it.
In addition, a lot of people invested a lot of money in developing better video compression technology. They succeeded, but although technically better, they didn't have a chance in the marketplace due to licensing and business arrangements. Nobody in their right mind is going to invest any significant amount of money in a new video codec.
What you are going to see is the current patent holders creating technically insignificant tweaks, patenting them, and pushing them into the standards and hardware. That will effectively extend the current patents again and again. Consumer electronics firms like it because they get to sell a new generation of equipment, Apple and Microsoft like it because they get to spread more FUD and beat open source over the head, and movie studios like it because proprietary formats end up giving them more control over distribution, devices, and DRM.
The only people for whom this is bad is users and buyers, but 99% of them are too stupid to figure it out, and the remaining 1% can't do anything about it.
That link claims the fees will rise a maximum 10% every five years, yet if you look at the fees actually charged over the last 5 years you'll note that they've gone up 10% every year without fail.
$3.5 million per year in 2005-2006, $4.25 million per year in 2007-08 and $5 million 2009-2010.
from: http://www.mpegla.com/main/programs/avc/Documents/AVC_TermsSummary.pdf
over 20 years total that's the difference between a 60% rise and a 600% rise
The MPEG-LA wants patent-encumbered video format as a web standard.
It's worse than that. A lot of the features in h.264 probably serve no particular purpose other than to make the standard patent encumbered. And when h.264 is about to run out, they are just going to add some more useless tweaks to create the next patent encumbered standard. The thing is, for hardware manufacturers, content providers, and Apple and Microsoft, this is all just fine and dandy: they get to extract more money from your pocket with upgrades you didn't need to standards that are really no better than before, they can force DRM on you, and they can beat down open source.
Technically, there have been better approaches to video compression than h.264 already, but their implementations never had a chance to mature to the point where they could be competitive.
If Google really believed that WebM/VP8 was safe from a patent perspective
Nothing is ever safe from a patent perspective, and if Google believed that, they would be fools.
then why in the world don't its WebM license terms contain a hold-harmless clause at least some basic indemnification
Come on, use your head, that just doesn't make sense. You could have members of MPEG-LA suing each other over VP8 patents with Google paying the bill.
I explained Google's limits in that regard in this recent slashdot comment, The idea of Google countersuing isn't realistic
That analysis is truly stupid. First of all, many of Google's patents are not listed under their name because they got them from acquisitions. Second, it's not the number of patents that counts, it's what they are on. I have looked at Apple's patents; many of them are total junk; they aren't worth the paper they are printed on. I suspect Google's patents are substantially stronger.
And Google doesn't need a lot of patents to deal with this, they just need one that works. If they can even just create uncertainty around h.264, h.264 is done for, because it becomes just another patent risk.
People should think twice (at least!) before relying on any vague promises and they should also consider that Google isn't the patent powerhouse that could start a "pissing contest" with the major contributors to the MPEG LA pool.
VP8 is pretty good from a patent perspective: it comes with a collection of relevant patents, an implementation that has been carefully crafted to avoid infringement, and a pretty big and powerful company to back it all up.
Is it perfect? No. But for open source, it's a big win over h.264, which we know with certainty to be patent encumbered.
The MPEG-LA wants patent-encumbered video format as a web standard. That'd allow them to rake in the money. The whole "H.264 is free of charge for time being" thing is a giant big smokescreen.
would the open source community have as many people with qualified opinions on these codecs if MPEG had not turned a blind eye to their development of technically illegal MPEG tools over the years?
The only devices I own that will play h.264 are my computers.
The more important question to ask is how many H.264 cameras, camcorders, and other video devices are out there.
A quick, casual, search of Google shopping suggests some answers:
H.264 35,000 hits
H.264 Camera 22,000 hits
H.264 Camcorder 4,600 hits
H.264 Cell Phone 5,000 hits
H.264 DVR 13,000 hits
H.264 Canon Still Digital Camera 229 hits (Still cameras capable of recording H.264 Video)
H.264 Prosumer 6 hits (Panasonic Camcorders $2-$4,000)
H.264 Video Capture 12,000 hits
H.264 WebCam 3,400 hits
H.264 WiFi Camera 1,400 hits {Security Video)
Ogg Audio 58,000 hits
Theora 110 hits (Women's Dress Pants and FOSS T-Shirts for the Geek)
Theora Video 12 hits
Of course categories over-lap. Not every page yields relevant results.
>>>h.264 is not substantially different from video codecs that were around 15 years ago; most of what has happened since is tweaks necessary to adapt it to higher resolutions.
Not really true. MPEG2 can be used to handle higher resolutions. It's the codec used for American TV at 1920x1080 and had been used for ~4000x2000 theater resolutions as well. The key difference is that MPEG4 AVC/h.264 can provide the same visual quality but at half the bitrate. It's able to do this because better understanding of human sight, and real-world tests, have allowed programmers to strip-away more data than previously thought possible when MPEG2 was developed.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
that wil solve the issue in canada anyhow...you go elect nemoy
I'm amazed no one has mentioned the BBCs Dirac. It's free and different enough from h.264, MPEG-LA would have a hell of a time trying to claim any type of infringement. Sure, Dirac is still a little rough on the egdes, but no worse than VP8. Google easily has the resources to complete it. (Most of the work is done and they can work with the BBC, who I assume still has the original inventors of the codec on hand) Seriously, Google should just drop VP8 and go with Dirac. I mean VP8? Seriously?
Now do you see why intellectual property is retarded? This is the danger of owning ideas. Now not even Google can't create a free codec without paying tribute to the H.264 overlords.
Large corporation patents everything under the sun = I can't even think without violating some patent.
Treating abstractions the same way as physical property is not good idea. Oh yes.... it promotes innovation and the arts etc. etc. Well, seriously, you can keep your innovation; it's not worth it.
IP = theft: Stolen from me are the the ideas that I might use, on account that someone else thought of them first.
FUCKING RETARDED
Algorithms cannot be patented.
You're full of it. Just the usual patent proponent hand-waving with no basis in reality. e.g. Video codecs in their entirety are nothing but an algorithm, a computer program, for transforming one collection of bits to another collection of bits. The fact that you don't recognize that shows how deluded you are.
For example, if someone too the MP3 patent and swapped out the key algorithms, they'd be infringing the patent. Conversely, you can take the compression algorithm out of MP3 and use it in something else without violating the patent.
Yep, completely out of touch with reality. When you extract some part of an algorithm all you've got is another smaller algorithm. Distinctions between "idea" and "algorithm" in this context are simply patent office fantasy. Just like their dishonest pretense they can objectively decide whether two ideas are the same or different when they can't even objectively decide whether two shades of the color orange are the same or different.
---
It's valuable because it's standard, not standard because it is valuable.
No. It wouldn't even cover MPEG-2 for a single year.
So you're saying it's a process patent? Well, they're still not allowed as patents. And how can the serialisation process be patented? "You take a number and then, after that, put another number". THAT is a "serialisation process".
That you spew venom shows that you have absolutely no fucking clue what you're talking about.
Just scared that The Great Capitalist Machine is not the Holy Father you want it to be, aren't you...
What billion dollar investment??? And if they didn't invent and sell the VHS, they would be bankrupt anyway (you need to SELL things, you know...).
JVC didn't invent the VCR. VHS didn't even come along until 5 years after the first home videocassette recorder with TV tuner and timer, and reel to reel units without tuner/timer existed before that.
First there was audio reel to reel tapes. Those were more or less replaced with audio cassettes.
There were various generations of video tape recorders.
First video tape recorder, 1956, Ampex, commercially produced in 1961, with 2" video tape, transverse scan
1964 Phillips 1" reel to reel video tap recorder domestic/professional
1965 Ampex 1" reel to reel video tape recorders were released, 1" helical scan. domestic/professional
1967 Sony 1/2" reel to reel video tape recorders
1968 Phillips 1/2" reel to reel mass produced domestic
Then (1971) there was sony u-matic which used a 3/4" tape, helical scan, and a cassette. mostly pro use.
1971 Phillips N1500 with 3/4" tape cassettes, first TV tuner and timer
Then (1975) there was sony betamax. 1/2" tape cassette, 1 hour/tape initially. 1 loading pole.
Then (1976) there was VHS. 2 hour/tape cassete initially, trading quality for recording length. 2 loading poles. Note that they had been working on videocassettes for 6 years.
Then (1979) Phillips introduced V2000 which they had been developing for 15? years. 4 hours per side.
Then (1980) RCA introduces a play only format
Matsushita/Quasar/Panasonic, which was developing a competing format (working on video tape for 15 years), dropped it in favor of VHS. Matsushita was part owner of JVC, Quasar, and Panasonic. Telefunken, Thompson, Thorn, GE, and RCA licensed VHS. Sony and Phillips eventually did as well. JVC profits increased tenfold by 1982 and the video division went from 6% of company sales to 69%.
The very success of VHS was dependent on JVC encouraging companies to compete with it and on cutting margins to the bone. JVC wasn't big enough to supply the demand alone.
Not that there was actually that much original technology that was new to VHS.
- The two loading pole mechanism
- DL-FM system
- PS Color process.
Basically, a not-so-innovative tape load mechanism and analog video compression.
The video-cassette would have happened without JVC. There were 4 companies working on it. And I suspect JVC could have paid off their R&D costs without collecting a dollar of royalties from other companies. JVC's strategy was to have a piece of a bigger pie.
Note that many of the other formats were superior for recording original material. VHS was good enough for home consumer use with over the air or commercial tapes.
I seriously doubt they spent a billion on VHS R&D. But they apparently made billions off of VHS.
http://www.ieeeghn.org/wiki/index.php/Milestones:Development_of_VHS,_a_World_Standard_for_Home_Video_Recording,_1976
http://books.google.com/books?id=rgvGFiiYCXYC&pg=PA49
http://www.rewindmuseum.com/home.htm
> If Google really believed that WebM/VP8 was safe from a patent perspective, then why in the world don't its
> WebM license terms contain a hold-harmless clause or at least some basic indemnification (less value than
> holding harmless but better than nothing) in favor of developers adopting it?
Because they don't want to expose themselves to unlimited liability in the event they turn out to be wrong.
If Google really *didn't* believe that WebM/VP8 was safe from a patent perspective, then why in the world would they drop $120M to buy On2?
I mean that the future "WebM version 1.0 - final release" won't necessarily be VP8 back compatible
Yes it is. Search for the word "final" in WebM's FAQ.
There is no "Web standard" for video. Video is bigger than the Web. The Web is just one place that video plays.
W3C HTML5 standardizes markup. How to write a video tag, and how a browser interprets it. ISO MPEG-4 H.264 standardizes video. How to encode it and how a player should decode it. W3C doesn't know anything about video encoding, and MPEG doesn't know anything about markup. W3C did not spend the last 20 years developing advanced video encoding and playback technologies and putting them on every platform so that the world can share video. And MPEG didn't invent the Web and develop a way for every computer in the world to run the same applications and documents.
Similarly, there is no "Web standard" for photos. Photos are standardized by JPEG, not W3C. There's no "Web standard" for text, you use UTF-8. You have to respect probably 20 standards to make a single Web page that is universally playable. HTML5, JPEG, MPEG, PNG, SVG, HTTP, UTF-8, and more.
We're in a time of user-generated content. Users with H.264 camcorders, H.264 video editors, H.264 video libraries, and H.264 video players in their phones, pocket media players, set-top boxes, PC GPU's, game consoles, and more. Users who also have an H.264 playing browser in their Mac, and very soon will have an H.264 playing browser in their Windows PC. Ubuntu even includes MPEG-4 now. They are not going to transcode their video to a nonstandard format so it plays in Firefox, especially not when Firefox plays H.264 via FlashPlayer or QuickTime Player, and especially not when that video doesn't play in all their friend's Web browsers. They are uploading video from their smartphones in H.264 already. 70% of the video on the Web is H.264, including all of YouTube, and that is rising as proprietary formats like Windows Media and VP6 are replaced by H.264.
And users got all of that compatibility for free. The only people who pay anything to the MPEG patent pool are those who sell content and those who sell encoders. In either case, you pay so little that H.264 pays for itself. If you sell video, you sell so many more copies because everybody in the world has a player than you would sell in a nonstandard format. It's like the choice between selling DVD-Video discs or selling DVD-ROM with an Ogg file on there. The former sells so many more copies than the latter that you don't mind paying 2 cents per disc you sell. That is much less than what you would tip a waiter.
Mozilla is a commercial entity now. They make $50 million per year from their user's Google searches. If they lose 10% of those users because they regularly encounter video tags with H.264 and can't play them, then they have already cost themselves more than MPEG-4 could possibly cost. The Web is turning into more of an interactive TV than interactive print magazine. If Mozilla can adapt to making money off Google searches, they can adapt to paying money to play the world's video library.
Google is not a standards body. Even if VP8 were not a ripoff of H.264 that is vulnerable to submarine patents, it's not appropriate for use to publish video. And the confusion around video standards that Google is contributing to benefits them and puts other video publishers at a disadvantage. YouTube is big enough to support multiple formats, and they already do. Other publishers are not. If I can't just put up the video from my camcorder or video editor, then I'm more inclined to upload it to YouTube and let them deal with the extra complexity. Not to mention this is Google's format.
But of course, there are many nerds who know nothing about video, are completely unaware of the how many people have already benefited greatly from MPEG (for example, if you play your iTunes-purchased music on your Android phone) and are nostalgic for a time when the Web was PC-only and nerd-only and you could just tell a user to download a plug-in or update a library and run another codec in software. So you will wrongly label H.264 "proprietary" (look the word up and look up what MPEG is) and you will
FYI: A 2010 agreement that fees won't rise more than 10% in the next five years doesn't apply to years previous to 2010.