Nero Files Antitrust Complaint Against MPEG-LA

hkmwbz writes "German technology company Nero AG has filed an antitrust complaint against the MPEG-LA, the company that manages the H.264 patent pool. Nero claims that the MPEG-LA has violated the law and achieved and abused 100% market share, by, among other things, using 'independent experts' that weren't independent after all, not weeding out non-essential patents from the pool (in fact, it has grown from the original 53 to more than 1,000), and retroactively changing previously-agreed-on license terms."

Comments

About time.

[Anonymous Coward]

Good luck guys, may the force be with you.

Re:About time.

[DavidR1991]

Agreed. MPEG-LA is a glorified protection racket - any corp. brave enough to take a stand against it (and the myriad of other companies it 'shields') is worth standing behind

Re:About time.

[DavidR1991]

That said:

"According to the MPEG-LA, Nero's case is nothing special. "I think we're looking it as a typical response by a company that has not abided by the terms of the license they've taken,"

Have Nero not abided by their licence deals? Or are MPEG-LA going to paint it this way to try and throw the case out as a tit-for-tat?

Re:About time.

[yincrash]

FTFA, Nero claims that MPEG-LA has not abided by the license and changed it's policies against what there was previously written agreement of.

Re:About time.

[DavidR1991]

That doesn't really answer the question - what has Nero done in terms of breaking agreements? If MPEG-LA are confident to write this off as just a typical "licence non-abider" then what grounds do they have? I know Nero are accusing them of agreement screwiness, but if MPEG-LA are saying this is just Nero's kneejerk for doing something wrong and trying to get out of it, have they got grounds for that? Has Nero broken some agreement themselves?

Re:About time.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes and No.

Re:About time.

[hairyfeet]

Not to mention thanks to software patents being broad to the point of insanity it is pretty much impossible for anyone doing video compression of ANY software to not trip over an MPEG-LA patent mine. If the MPEG-LA patent pool is upheld it will hold the entire Internet hostage, as to do pretty much anything with AV one with have to pay the MPEG-LA "toll". Hell they even claim patents on part of the firewire spec, it is just nuts!

So here's to Nero, may they kick some serious MPEG-LA ass. and for the "corporation Yay!" trolls that usually scream when anyone dares to risk corporation profits and scream "nobody will innovate!" there is a BIG difference between real hardware patents and the mess that is software patents. And with the major corps forming a cartel via MPEG-LA they have made a barrier to entry in AV that only corps with seriously deep pockets can afford to traverse, which is the exact opposite of the original purpose of patents, which were to keep the little guy from being crushed like a bug by big corps that could steal their ideas and beat them on price.

As we have seen with some of the crazy things being patented by big corps like Amazon, IBM, and MSFT, such as the wave of "...on the Internet!" patents we had a few years back, software patents have become WMDs in the software world, with cartels like MPEG-LA and patent warchests making anything truly innovative in the field simply too expensive for anyone but the fortune 500.

Re:About time.

[Anonymous Coward]

Sueing MPEG-LA?

Re:About time.

[pipedwho]

...there is a BIG difference between real hardware patents and the mess that is software patents.

People keep saying this, but it is a semantic argument more than anything else.

The reality is that the patent system is so systemically broken due to its lack of scalability, that the effects are most heavily felt by the fastest growing/moving industries.

Patents have always been there to describe both processes and physical manifestations, so there's nothing new there. However, the term lengths and acceptance of obvious ideas are too far removed from what could be considered sane in the current technological climate.

Concepts such as:

1. 'future' patents, or patenting the 'goal' instead of the steps to get there.

2. being allowed to patent something that has already been published (for up to 12 months)

3. obvious 'innovations' (eg. $prior_art$ on the internet)

4. non-immediate disclosure of the patent at the time of submission (eg. submarine patents - disclosure that occurs after numerous other parties have 'innovated' along the same line.)

5. an incredibly low bar for novelty (eg. 'inventive' steps that are a natural evolution of the state of the art and will be discovered in short order (if they haven't been already) by multiple independent parallel 'inventors')

6. etc, etc.

The above are unsustainable in an industry where the half life of a product is under 3 years and the shear volume of 'inventors and implementors' number in the millions. As the number of players grows, the bar for acceptability must be raised proportionally. There is still room for patents on ideas that are truly clever and novel and would have little chance of being 'rediscovered' by multiple other parties without significant effort, investment and/or serendipity. But, the more players there are, the more likelihood that what is being claimed is far from being unique. (To quantise this, term lengths could be made relative to how inventive the patent actually is. More inventiveness, longer protection. Very little inventiveness, very short term length. However, measuring 'inventiveness' is probably just as difficult a question.)

In addition to fixing the above, it should also be recognised that anything that ends up being deemed an industry standard should be considered a special case and handled by the public trust.

'Fixing' the patent system by trying to create a disconnection between software/hardware/manufacturing processes/business processes/etc is not the right way to go about it. Even if a distinction can be made, it is so arbitrary as to end up flip/flopping every time a clever legal argument is made or sneaky 'word-around' starts getting written into new patents. (eg. "A device that ..." or "A method to create ...")

So, the answer is not to "deny all 'software' patents". The answer is FIX the system. Now.

Re:About time.

[Anonymous Coward]

> The answer is FIX the system. Now.

The answer is to delete the system. Completely. End the patent system.

http://levine.sscnet.ucla.edu/general/intellectual/againstfinal.htm

Re:About time.

[dwarfsoft]

I would think that if MPEG-LA has 'retroactively changing previously-agreed-on license terms' that in doing so they may have turned Nero from an abiding Licensee to a 'non-abider' rather quickly, and that perhaps this was what Nero was upset about.

I should RTFA, and all that though...

Re:About time.

[Anonymous Coward]

Class action anyone? Sign me up!

Re:About time.

[msclrhd]

FTFA, Nero got a license from MPEG-LA saying that they didn't have to pay license fees for trial software. Now, MPEG-LA has changed their minds and has demanded payment retroactively for all the free trials Nero has provided before the change.

Re:About time.

[msclrhd]

Yes, patents were about *entire* devices or concepts. That is, there should only be 1 patent for MPEG-2, 1 for H.264, etc. Instead, software patents are taken for fragments of things that can be combined together so that a program can constitute several patents.

In this way, VP-8, Dirac and others do not violate the patents of MPEG-2, H.264, etc. (in the above scheme that is true to the intent of patents) because they do something slightly differently.

This was the way someone worked around the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Watt patent on steam devices and advanced technology.

Re:About time.

[Jesus_666]

Or we just adapt it. Patents last until five years after they were granted or ten years after they were filed, whichever comes first. So yes, you can patent the video codec - but after five years you're expected to have properly monetized it and nobody can claim a patent on it ever again. Submarine patents don't work anymore. Neither does filing a patent and then juggling it in limbo in order to make it last longer. Patent trolling would become really expensive as you'd need to refresh your patent pool all the time.

Re:About time.

[pipedwho]

But, you have to remember that a device or process that is a subset of a larger device/process was always and is still inherently patentable as a separate entity/idea. A single patent makes a number of claims of inventive steps that make up the invention. As long as what is covered in that patent is new/novel/useful/inventive it will be approved. This was always the case.

As much as any patent on a manufacturing process still covers the single inventive step that was claimed in the patent. For example, just because an invention was for mixing paints, doesn't mean someone can apply it to mixing fruit juice and not be infringing. If the patent was worded in the best legal light, it would have been written as a general mixing process for liquids. The fact that the original usage was in a paint factory is beside the point.

The same applies to algorithms and software constructions. They are simply processes that are used in the construction or operation of a device.

The problem is where to draw the line on what constitutes 'enough' of an invention to qualify as patentable. The fact that it is software, hardware or another process is irrelevant. The real problem is that the bar for what is a novel/inventive step has been reduced to a point that it now includes obvious evolutionary concepts. And the duration of most patents far exceeds the useful life of their claimed novelties - many of which are no longer useful by the time they expire into the public domain.

This is a problem for all fields of engineering/manufacturing and design, not just for the software world.

Re:About time.

[gorzek]

Unless that was in their original contract--that MPEG-LA could change the terms of the agreement at any time and demand retroactive payments as a result--I don't see how it could possibly be legal.

And if MPEG-LA licenses contain clauses that leave the door open for sudden, retroactive royalty assessment, then H.264 cannot die a quick enough death, and take MPEG-LA with it.

Re:About time.

[chill]

Even with that in the contract, I fail to see how a "we may change these terms at any time and make them retroactive" isn't the very definition of "unconscionable", and thus unenforceable.

Re:About time.

[gorzek]

Yeah, I would think so, too. But contracts between corporations never have to be the least bit sane, apparently.

Re:About time.

[N Monkey]

2. being allowed to patent something that has already been published (for up to 12 months)

It's my understanding that only the US has that "feature".

4. non-immediate disclosure of the patent at the time of submission (eg. submarine patents - disclosure that occurs after numerous other parties have 'innovated' along the same line.)

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think it's pretty much universal that patent applications become public after about a 18 months so submarining should no longer happen.

Re:About time.

[sjames]

It could also be interpreted to mean nothing special in the sense that they always screw over licensees.

Re:About time.

[pipedwho]

You are correct. The ability to publish for up to 12 months prior to patenting is US only. But, this is more of an annoyance in comparison to the other 'features' that are common to all patent systems.

Submarining is a term normally applied to patents that are periodically 'continued' and amended in such a way as to keep them out of the public eye until the applicant is ready to start suing. IMO, even if a patent is not intentionally kept in endless processing, it is effectively in the same unpublished state for a not insignificant period of time. That 18 months is an eternity in today's fast pace of development - especially when most patents seem to be obvious evolutionary improvements and have very little unique inventiveness (if any at all).

I didn't know Nero AG had time for this

[Anonymous Coward]

They seemed so busy turning their superior burning tool into another bloated intrusive dog.

Re:I didn't know Nero AG had time for this

[MBGMorden]

They seemed so busy turning their superior burning tool into another bloated intrusive dog.

There are other completely free products that have matched Nero's (former) minimalist approach. CDBurnerXP is great on Windows. Brasero works great on Linux. On OS X, Burn is not quite as much my style, but it's simple and get it's job done.

Essentially, Nero got priced out of the "dirt simple I just wanna burn a damned CD" market. Bloatware is all that's left.

Re:I didn't know Nero AG had time for this

[theArtificial]

Another worthy Windows mention is InfraRecorder and it's opensource to boot.

I don't have any affiliation with this project.

Re:I didn't know Nero AG had time for this

[mindbrane]

There are other completely free products that have matched Nero's (former) minimalist approach.

I don't disagree and would add in CDex as another example, but Nero is one of the few for profit companies that seem to have made an effort to put out a good product at a fair price. There's always been a few companies whose PC products are reasonably priced and worth the cost. Norton Utilities was perhaps the most shining example. I almost always get a free light version of Nero software when I buy a high end optical drive or a TV card/ripper. I'll pick up their latest full suite when it pops up on my radar screen at half price because the lite version still measures up well against the free stuff. One of the biggest problems vendors like Nero face is that MS knows it has to keep adding brain candy apps for the point and click crowd and MS will drive niche vendors out of business to keep their OS/Office products afloat. It's just a temporary bother because an OS in 10 years time will come with a full suite of audio video scrapbook apps for mom and pop and the kids to play with.

just my loose change

Re:I didn't know Nero AG had time for this

[charliemopps11]

yea, it's pretty sad when I wont even pirate your software. The final straw with Nero was "Nero Scout"

Re:I didn't know Nero AG had time for this

[alfredos]

Bloatware is all that's left.

In other words, payware with little value. Which of course will get fewer and fewer sales. And that explains why Nero AG needs to start selling something else without delay. What to sell? It is reasonable for a company that has quite a bit of knowledge in the CD/DVD area to jump to the next big thing in a related technology; they seem to have chosen video and in mid-jump, slammed into the brickwall of MPEG-LA.

Re:I didn't know Nero AG had time for this

[havardi]

Actually I am still looking for something that makes multisession cdburning as dead-simple as it is on Windows. Ya know, so I can get my father-in-law to use Linux. Don't try to tell him to use a flash drive.

Re:I didn't know Nero AG had time for this

[MightyMartian]

Let me get this straight. Your father-in-law has a harder time using a flash drive than CD burning software?

Re:I didn't know Nero AG had time for this

[Ephemeriis]

They seemed so busy turning their superior burning tool into another bloated intrusive dog.

I'm genuinely curious here...

I've been using an older version of Nero for years now. I recently had to install Nero on a Windows 7 machine, which my old version wouldn't support, and acquired a copy of Nero Burning ROM 10.

There were other things I could have installed... I didn't really pay much attention to the options... I just installed Burning ROM 10... And it looks pretty much like my old version. I'm not seeing a whole lot of bloat there.

What's so bad about Nero these days?

Re:I didn't know Nero AG had time for this

[djdanlib]

Zomg, what will the pirates do if they can't burn DVDs??

OK, for real though, here's the other side of the debate.

Higher end tech is too expensive - BD-ROM is the current highest end consumers can buy, but the entrance cost to using that technology is sufficiently high that Joe Middle Class Consumer with his wife and 2.5 kids and a mortgage can't afford it.

Why buy a BD-R or flash drive when you only have 1 GB of photos to give to Aunt Mabel, anyway? A blank DVD only costs a few cents.

Burning CDs to listen in your car is cheaper than buying an mp3 player. Those are still a luxury item, especially with the outrageous cost of the kits you have to use to hook them up to your car. (Let's face it - I'm not going to buy a luxury car just because it plays mp3s.) Hitting the next track button on your stereo is safer than fiddling with your handheld mp3 player, too.

CD/DVD-ROM discs will outlast a frequently-used USB drive. I've had some Flash devices that lasted, some that didn't make it 2 years.

In the business world, $100,000+ software is still distributed on CD and DVD, or an image thereof. Drivers for certain brands of servers are downloaded as ISO format, so you are supposed to burn them. Firmware drivers come in bootable ISO form now. Yes, I know, 7-zip can unpack all of the above. But when you're setting up an OS on a new server or zeroing a disk or recovering a failed machine, you usually need a disc because they DON'T boot off the USB ports.

USB drives cannot normally be write-protected without arcane magik tricks, and not many can be write-protected at all. Read-only media is more secure when you're up against malware. This is important when performing security breach remediation, such as antivirus on a live system.

And now, for Slashdot brownie points: Linux installs are available as CD/DVD ISO images. ;) Of course you could use USB for this, but when you can give someone Linux for essentially free (CDs are dirt cheap) how could you go wrong there?

I've seen people using floppies and tapes as recently as last year. So, just because something's obsolete on the cutting edge, doesn't mean hordes of people aren't still using it.

Must be nice to have the money and time and modern hardware to get rid of optical media!! :)

Re:I didn't know Nero AG had time for this

[markdavis]

>There are other completely free products that have matched Nero's (former) minimalist approach. [...]

(You neglected to mention the excellent k3b for Linux, but whatever).

The issue with Nero is that they are obviously doing more than just burning discs, they must be including the ability to either create video or transcode video (I don't know, I don't use MS-Windows, thus I don't use Nero). Other "burning" programs, even commercial ones, should not need any type of license from MPEG-LA just to burn discs... only if they are transcoding/creating new video into one of the formats covered by their patents.

Re:I didn't know Nero AG had time for this

[dave562]

USB drives have replaced DVD's some time ago already. We are beating a dead dog here. Why?

The cost of a USB drive hasn't dropped to the point where I can keep a couple dozen of them on hand and give them out willy nilly to any friends who might want a copy of something I have.

Re:I didn't know Nero AG had time for this

[Draek]

As with everything, YMMV though. Personally I can't stand Brasero's UI, and feel K3B is too bloated for my poor, old laptop so yeah, I use Nero Linux on it. Runs smoothly, works great and it even works as a CD ripper in a pinch.

Perhaps the Windows version is still the bloated hog that I remember from so many years ago, but the Linux version at least is incredible and well worth its money.

Re:I didn't know Nero AG had time for this

[Bigjeff5]

My favorite is DeepBurn for Windows. There is a paid pro version, but I haven't even bothered to look up its features because the free version does everything I've ever needed it to do.

Re:I didn't know Nero AG had time for this

[Sylver Dragon]

You can even keep a copy of it on a thumbdrive and run it from there without installing:
PortableApps Version

Also not affiliated with the project or the portable apps folks, just like both.

Re:I didn't know Nero AG had time for this

[Miseph]

I suspect the GP will point out the dirt cheapness of small flash drives. I will now beat him to the punch.

One could reasonably afford to distribute Linux installers on fairly small USB flash drives (1gb no longer counts as "big"... my inner child is appropriately stunned) for only a few cents more per unit than CDs or DVDs, and they are substantially sturdier for the purposes of travel by pocket.

Actually, I'll probably mention that to the next Ubuntu type I see handing out discs at a convention.

Re:I didn't know Nero AG had time for this

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, it's not like anyone plays games, listens to CDs, watch DVDs/Blu-Rays or anything of the sort. Clearly USB drives have replaced all these usages of CDs/DVDs/Blu-Rays... oh wait.

Re:I didn't know Nero AG had time for this

[Dragoniz3r]

Finally, effective piracy countermeasures! Someone alert Ubisoft!

Re:I didn't know Nero AG had time for this

[gbjbaanb]

Essentially, Nero got priced out of the "dirt simple I just wanna burn a damned CD" market

yes, when Microsoft added the capability to burn DVDs to XP, what was Nero supposed to do (apart from roll over and die?).

Re:I didn't know Nero AG had time for this

[Pharmboy]

Thats pretty funny. CDs and DVDs are still the defacto method of making physical copies for offsite storage, the defacto way to give mom photos of the kids, the easiest way to give a distributor a physical copy of images for their catalog, the best way to make a compilation of music that will play in any car, the preferred way to backup and archive settings of the old computer when you buy a new one so you have a hard copy in case of crash, and it is dirt cheap, fast and easy.

Yes, I use USB hard drives more than 4 years ago (and USB thumb drives much less) but the CD and DVD are still an important part of archiving, copying and sharing information for the majority of people.

Re:I didn't know Nero AG had time for this

[dangitman]

The cost of a USB drive hasn't dropped to the point where I can keep a couple dozen of them on hand and give them out willy nilly to any friends who might want a copy of something I have.

You pay for USB thumb drives??

Re:I didn't know Nero AG had time for this

[dave562]

I don't pay for them. On the other hand I don't attend enough conferences or deal with enough sales people to amass enough of them to simply hand them out at will either.

Re:I didn't know Nero AG had time for this

[hairyfeet]

Uuuuhhhh...You DO know that if all you want is the burner Nero will let you have it for free, yes? Or that if you want an even more simple interface there are great free choices such as IMGBurn which you can even install with a one click unattended installation thanks to Ninite that will install nearly all the major apps folks need/want, like FF,.NET/Flash/Silerlight/Java, even IM, AV, and Media Players, all in an interface so simple even your grandma can use it?

So while the full Nero may not be YOUR cup of tea, there are enough folks buying it that Nero thinks it is the correct way to go for their customers, but they are still nice enough to offer the basic version for $0. And just because you think it is "bloated" doesn't mean the masses do. Just look at home pages, which working PC repair I can tell you the average Joe by a good 99 out of 100 have set to this instead of this because they actually LIKE it that way!

Re:I didn't know Nero AG had time for this

[TheRaven64]

I've not tried burning a CD for ages, but I remember xcdroast being roughly functionally equivalent to Nero 4 (the last version I both used and liked - I got a copy of Nero 5 with a later drive, but it seemed a step backwards). That was six or seven years ago, presumably it's improved a bit since then.

Re:I didn't know Nero AG had time for this

[Alien1024]

Not that it's bad, but it's unnecessary except for certain niches (for example, I have yet to see a freeware burner that gives you the same degree of control over some obscure optical drive file system settings and the burning process).

That aside, the other applications that come with it and presumably justify its price are utter rubbish. All those media "organizers", players, editors, virtual drives and extractors feel painfully bland, limited and sluggish if you have used free specialized alternatives.

Re:I didn't know Nero AG had time for this

[dangitman]

You don't even need to attend conferences, you can just find them lying on the sidewalk, in the corridors of your workplace, abandoned on a desk, etc. The things are like burger wrappers or cigarette butts.

Re:I didn't know Nero AG had time for this

[cdrguru]

The last bunch of 100 DVD-R discs I bought cost $0.17 each.

I am anxiously awaiting information where I can buy USB flash drives for anything near that price. Heck, I will be extremely excited if I can get some 512MB ones for less than $1.

I would probably be interested in purchasing at least 100 of them.

Sadly, I think the price for a thumb drive is more like $10 for 512MB and $15 for 1GB. You might get it down to 512MB for $8 if you bought a lot of them. But nothing is going to compare to the $0.17 for a DVD.

Re:I didn't know Nero AG had time for this

[Anonymous Coward]

the problem is that in the "real" world corporations and the US Government do not allow free or open source software on their computers. It is all fine that you have free alternatives, but they won't be allowed on the machines due to administrative policies.

Re:I didn't know Nero AG had time for this

[Philip_the_physicist]

Some friends of mine were looking into selling USB drives embedded in silicone wristbands for a university club, and they found they could make a small profit if they sold 4GB ones at US$8.50 (converted from money), bought in a pack of 200 from the manufacturer. USB thumb drives aren't as cheap as the ancestor thinks, but there would be room for a pretty good discount on a large purchase.

Re:I didn't know Nero AG had time for this

[Anonymous Coward]

Except it isn't reliable.. For some it works great, others it never burns a valid disk. Try making a 'bootable' disk and having data on it besides just the boot capability...

Re:I didn't know Nero AG had time for this

[Bieeanda]

Horsepuckies. When I got Nero 7 and tried to run the help files, I was told to DOWNLOAD the .chms from Nero's site and fucking INSTALL them myself. That kind of laziness is absolutely inexcusable.

Re:I didn't know Nero AG had time for this

[theArtificial]

I've used it exclusively for the last year or two and I've burned several ISOs with it and I haven't had a problem. I consider myself a typical user: Data dvd, data cd, and sometimes an audio cd. However I haven't done a mixed boot and data (what are you trying to do?). Making boot media from scratch and mixing is out of the norm for my use and I think many people. One of the things I really liked about Nero (years and years ago) was being able to burn an video file and convert to a DVD which was handy for tv shows my girlfriend's mom missed. One thing that has kept me away from Nero is how massive it's become but I am glad there are options.

Re:I didn't know Nero AG had time for this

[petermgreen]

A quick search on google shopping. shows 1GB usb sticks starting at arround $4. CDRs starting at arround 20 cents each.

You can probablly get the USB sticks cheaper by bulk buying but I still doubt they would be anywhere near as cheap as CDs.

Re:I didn't know Nero AG had time for this

[aztracker1]

I've bought Nero a few times in the past couple years (updated whole versions) My main reason for purchase is they have the best recoding tool around. Nero recode works consistently faster, and does better than other options I've tried, at a pretty decent price. I'd use Infrarecorder if I didn't use the recode tools.

Re:I didn't know Nero AG had time for this

[dakameleon]

Where the hell are you shopping? You can get a 16GB drive for ~$40 over at deal extreme, and they'll drop it as you order more. Yeah, it's not in the 4c/GB range, but the read-write ability and form factor outweighs DVD-Rs for a number of uses.

Re:I didn't know Nero AG had time for this

[mjwx]

There are other completely free products that have matched Nero's (former) minimalist approach. CDBurnerXP is great on Windows. Brasero works great on Linux.

Windows 7 and Ubuntu have in built DVD burning for those who just want to burn some files to DVD. XP has in built CD burning, I use Infrarecorder for DVD's on XP.

As for authoring a music CD or Video DVD I used to use Nero because it was what came with my DVD burner. I'm looking for a decent alternative, but I don't require that functionality often.

Re:I didn't know Nero AG had time for this

[xrobertcmx]

I agree with a lot of what you said, but uhm, dude, I own a Yaris ($14,400 with every feature available) and it came with an Aux port right by the e-brake. Plug a $5 (non-apple or Belkin) cable from the iPhone to the Aux port, hit Aux on the stock stereo and crank up because of the crappy noise insulation on the damn car, and listen. I went high tech/high cost and bought the $29.99 cable at Radio shack that not only charges said iPhone but also allows me to plug in at the same time. I can't wait to trade this car in, it was a mistake. Should have gotten the 4 door, but tried to save money, gas was $4.10 a gallon and it was supposed to get 36/38mpg, more like 29 city and 38 highway.

Re:I didn't know Nero AG had time for this

[Anonymous Coward]

Thank goodness for InfraRecorder too. I know many people who resorted to using Nero (purchased or pirated) or other non-free software to try out free software (Linux ISOs) for the first time. It just didn't sit right that one needed additional non-free software to try a free OS. There just wasn't a free and easy way to do it if your starting point was Windows and an ISO file. Yeah there were some share/trial/crapware that would do the job but that's not the same kind of "free."

Re:I didn't know Nero AG had time for this

[moronoxyd]

However I haven't done a mixed boot and data (what are you trying to do?)

Syslinux bootloader and a bunch of live Linux and floppy images to select from at boot time.
Why should I carry around x CDs when I can put everything on 1?

Basically every scenario where 1,4 MB (floppy image) is not enough need to mix boot code and data.

Re:I didn't know Nero AG had time for this

[shutdown -p now]

Burning CDs to listen in your car is cheaper than buying an mp3 player. Those are still a luxury item, especially with the outrageous cost of the kits you have to use to hook them up to your car.

An outrageous cost of what? an AUX cable?

And newer cars - even cheap stuff, e.g. Versa - come with USB port that you can just stick your iPod (or something that pretends to be it) into.

Re:I didn't know Nero AG had time for this

[Anonymous Coward]

You generally have to option to install only the burning program and skip all the bloated stuff. It's still the best thing around, not at all bloated, very fast and very rarely makes coasters.

Re:I didn't know Nero AG had time for this

[WaroDaBeast]

I think what GP means is that his father-in-law doesn't want to move away from optical disks. My parents still tell me to record stuff on audio cassettes when they hear a song they like.

No, I'm past the point where it makes me facepalm.

Re:I didn't know Nero AG had time for this

[tokul]

You DO know that if all you want is the burner Nero will let you have it for free [nero.com], yes?

Free for personal use. Does not suite for any corporate environment.

Re:I didn't know Nero AG had time for this

[hairyfeet]

Oooookay...your company so poor they won't even shell out $50 for Nero Burning ROM? In that case you can always use IMGBurn which as far as I can tell is 100% free, no matter the environment. although if you were going to use IMGBurn I would get it from Ninite instead of the IMGBurn website, as Ninite does a one click unattended install of IMGBurn along with any other software on their site you may like and NO toolbars, which waay too many apps bundle nowadays.

so it isn't like you don't have choices, and IMGBurn is so simple even my computer clueless Aunt can use it to back up files and burn music CDs. If you want a simple, no nonsense burning software that handles CD/DVD/BD, makes disc images, burns music and data CDs/DVDs, and does it all with a minimum of fuss, then give IMGBurn a try. I bet you'll like it.

Re:I didn't know Nero AG had time for this

[Thing 1]

abandoned on a desk

Aha! You work in my row, don't you?

Re:I didn't know Nero AG had time for this

[Nyder]

... Just look at home pages, which working PC repair I can tell you the average Joe by a good 99 out of 100 have set to this instead of this because they actually LIKE it that way!

Um, did you ever think the reason peeps have it set to www.yahoo.com is because yahoo is most likely their email, and they might use the portal crap on yahoo's front page?

Re:I didn't know Nero AG had time for this

[Anonymous Coward]

Nero Lite comes with Ask Toolbar crapware.

Re:I didn't know Nero AG had time for this

[MBGMorden]

the problem is that in the "real" world corporations and the US Government do not allow free or open source software on their computers. It is all fine that you have free alternatives, but they won't be allowed on the machines due to administrative policies.

I work for the US Government, and we run a ton of open source on various systems. Most other governments and most corporations do too (Apache - a FLOSS product, runs most of the Internet).

Your statement is completely without merit.

Re:I didn't know Nero AG had time for this

[MBGMorden]

Ubuntu's bundled software is actually Brasero. It integrates with Nautilus (the file manager) for the very simple style burning akin to XP's included software. I don't typically like that though - I prefer a simple - but separate, app to do the job. Brasero's full UI or CDBurnerXP just do that better for me.

Not sure if either will encode video/audio (they very well may - I virtually NEVER burn actual DVD's or Audio CD's anymore), but I know that Burn on the Mac will do video. It was the last program I used for that and it worked ok at the time.

Re:I didn't know Nero AG had time for this

[MBGMorden]

Burning CDs to listen in your car is cheaper than buying an mp3 player. Those are still a luxury item, especially with the outrageous cost of the kits you have to use to hook them up to your car. (Let's face it - I'm not going to buy a luxury car just because it plays mp3s.)

It ain't 2001 anymore you know ;).

Virtually EVERYTHING - heck Kias and Hyundais - are coming with USB or aux audio inputs these days. If your car doesn't, I've seen the upgrade head-units for under $100 that do. You can get a basic iPod for around $50, and generic players for $20 (maybe even less now).

Comparing burning God-knows how many CD's at 15-20 songs per disc (compare the safety about leaving one unit connected at all times versus changing out discs . . .), to just having one multi-GB device containing nearly all your music.

Don't get me wrong I still use my CD burner quite a bit, but it certainly isn't for burning audio CD's. Heck I wouldn't be dissappointed at all if my next car stereo didn't even come with an optical disc player. A good tuner and USB input is all I need.

Re:I didn't know Nero AG had time for this

[Civil_Disobedient]

Must be nice to have the money and time and modern hardware to get rid of optical media!

Unless you're living under a bridge (yes, pun intended) you should have no problem embracing the future, either.

Why buy a BD-R or flash drive when you only have 1 GB of photos to give to Aunt Mabel, anyway? A blank DVD only costs a few cents.

Yeah? And a 1 gig flash drive is often bundled free these days with purchases because they're so cheap. I mean, really, come on. Ninety-nine cents new on eBay. That's, like, two postage stamps.

Burning CDs to listen in your car is cheaper than buying an mp3 player.

You can get a Sansa Clip for $30.00. That also plays FLAC, OGG, MP3, WAV, has a built-in radio and can record from the radio. Combine that with any run-of-the-mill car stereos that support USB, or just go old-school and use a tape-adapter.

CD/DVD-ROM discs will outlast a frequently-used USB drive.

But you're not using it for archival storage. You throw some files on to copy for a friend. Or listen to some music. Short durations. The longevity of the medium is basically irrelevant since you won't be needing it to store things for longer than a couple of months, max, anyway.

In the business world, $100,000+ software is still distributed on CD and DVD, or an image thereof.

Sure, DVDs are still cheaper to produce when you're a business making a few thousand copies. When you're Joe Consumer, you usually only need one.

So, just because something's obsolete on the cutting edge, doesn't mean hordes of people aren't still using it.

Of course, but there's no reason they couldn't be using something better. Certainly not price.

Re:I didn't know Nero AG had time for this

[marcosdumay]

They are transcoding video and creating DVD interfaces. Well, now I must point that k3b does the same :) but the latter can't be distributed on the US (at least the modules that transcode video) because of exactly those same patents.

Re:I didn't know Nero AG had time for this

[ImprovOmega]

That you don't have to install if you bother to take *one second* to uncheck it in the installer.

Re:I didn't know Nero AG had time for this

[b4dc0d3r]

• Automatically renaming files when they don't fit the CD/ISO filename restrictions (previously it warned)
• Burning a disk that's slightly too large makes you click 1) Burn, 2) OK, 3) Next, 4) reinsert media, 5) Burn same project again 6) fix whatever is needed 7) Burn. Why doesn't it just say "Too much space, delete 45k" first?
• Disk space is rounded, so even if you're right on the border, it won't tell you how much to remove. "Over by 45k" would be a great message. It used to be a guessing game, but now they have the size on the right - rounded to the nearest kB. and it sometimes seems wrong.
• The "SmartStart" garbage - it's basically a GUI for a GUI. You have to select advanced options to even see the option to burn DVD video

I don't have it in front of me, I'm sure there's more. Memory usage is hideous *before* you start burning, it's slow - probably a .NET rewrite. It's functional, and I use it because it was free with the burner and I didn't see decent open source options at the time. But I hate it.

I have a program that verifies by filename every file is burned correctly - if I don't go into all of the subfolders to check the filenames, I get a broken disc and wrong named files, and the verification process doesn't happen. I worked around it by using a de-duplication program (also my own creation) and adding the CD drive as a junction under the local files. If everything is burned OK, the files match and the local files are deleted. Anything invalid is left behind. So finally I generate a CSV of hash/filename combinations, so that when I burn the files and copy it back to the hard drive, I rename the files using the CSV. That's 3 files I had to write in order to ensure the disc burned correctly.

"Verify burned files" checkbox is nice, but if I have to remove a file or two to fit on the disc, then I'm not always sure which files I have backed up and can delete, vs. having to re-burn. So that's 3 programs I had to write in order to work around Nero's retardedness. The old versions would alert you to long named files/folders, and when you burn too many bytes it brings you right back to where you were. So other than the guessing game on how much to remove, it was miles better.

A true solution should include a first-pass ISO compliance check, allowing you to move/rename the files in the image *and* move them so they don't get deleted, or something similar.

Re:I didn't know Nero AG had time for this

[Tetch]

> You can get a Sansa Clip for $30.00.
[...]
>> So, just because something's obsolete on the cutting edge,
>> doesn't mean hordes of people aren't still using it.
>
> Of course, but there's no reason they couldn't be using
> something better

My 8Gb Sansa Clip+ (which cost £40.00 in the UK about 5 months ago) certainly is nice, and as you say it handles FLACC and OGG media (which is why I bought it) .... but its non-replaceable internal battery only lasts about 6 hours between recharges [1]. That alone means its not much use to me in the car. I'd be constantly failing to remember I hadn't charged it recently until too late, and then I'd break my hand hitting the dashboard in frustration. No thanks - CDRs are good for me.

And another thing - the CDRs cost pennies, so it doesn't matter if a scumbag breaks into the car and steals them - unlike the MP3 player. Remembering to put the MP3 player in my pocket every time I get out the car just makes me a mugging target. Perhaps you live in a lovely safe country area with no scumbag population ?

[1] It's my first MP3 player ... The guy in the shop said "There's no way of replacing the battery - when the battery dies you just throw the old player away and buy a new one", and looked mystified when I complained on environmental grounds. I'm not impressed by this - I do not consider such an approach as representing good technology

Re:I didn't know Nero AG had time for this

[Anonymous Coward]

Brownie points ? Someone has been playing too much Sorority Life on facebook...
-Deepone

Re:I didn't know Nero AG had time for this

[Anonymous Coward]

I enjoy the irony in your posting as AC, then signing your post.

Re:I didn't know Nero AG had time for this

[Civil_Disobedient]

The guy in the shop said "There's no way of replacing the battery - when the battery dies you just throw the old player away and buy a new one", and looked mystified when I complained on environmental grounds. I'm not impressed by this - I do not consider such an approach as representing good technology

This is pretty off-topic at this point, but just a head's up that you might want to talk to the "kind gentleman" that sold it to you because you should be getting ~18 hours with the Clip. I've also got the black 8GB (shameless NewEgg plug: go NewEgg!) and it still stays charged for days of my use (which probably amounts to about ~12 hours a day, but it's also pretty old).

Also, if you have a car receiver with a USB input (you can get them at Wal-Mart for $75) then it's charging while plugged in, so you can play it indefinitely (also helpful that it stores files in a simple directory structure--this would never work with an iPod).

Remembering to put the MP3 player in my pocket every time I get out the car just makes me a mugging target. Perhaps you live in a lovely safe country area with no scumbag population ?

No, we get our share of scumbags as well, but the Clip is honestly just not terribly desirable to a mugger. I mean, it's not an iPod (no white ear buds to make you stand out), no video support, it's tiny and feels like a cheap piece of plastic. I'd be more worried about someone mugging me for my bus pass.

Re:I didn't know Nero AG had time for this

[djdanlib]

Looking at this and your other comment elsewhere... I still don't see the price benefit.

Yeah? And a 1 gig flash drive is often bundled free these days with purchases because they're so cheap. I mean, really, come on [ebay.com]. Ninety-nine cents new on eBay. That's, like, two postage stamps.

I haven't seen purchases bundled with them in any store or convention I've been to, nor any online specials - and I get the buy.com and tigerdirect.com and musiciansfriend.com (and others) daily emails. So this is not for lack of shopping or convention going! Where are these specials?

Those eBay listings for 99 cent flash drives? I looked at them after seeing your link. Those come with a $7 shipping charge. It's not such a great deal anymore when the price is $8 in the end. Don't fall victim to that sort of thinking. Retailers LOVE that! :)

I can go buy a 50 pack spindle of Memorex CDRs from Staples for $9.00 right now. They're on sale. Or, I could buy some cheapo no name media for less just about anywhere.

But you're not using it for archival storage. You throw some files on to copy for a friend. Or listen to some music. Short durations. The longevity of the medium is basically irrelevant since you won't be needing it to store things for longer than a couple of months, max, anyway.

I can give a friend a CD that cost me 20 cents and not care if he never gives it back. Files, demo recordings, you name it - one cd isn't going to make me upset. On the other hand, my work-provided 32GB flash drive.. I wouldn't loan it out to anyone unless I was going to be in the same room the whole time. I use it infrequently even there because the network at work and the one I have at home is gigabit end-to-end and transferring files that way is much faster.

Sure, DVDs are still cheaper to produce when you're a business making a few thousand copies. When you're Joe Consumer, you usually only need one.

I'm talking about ONE program that comes as a box of 10 DVDs which for ONE license costs over $100,000. Yes, these exist, and are critical for some tasks. And they don't let you download the bits over the Internet.

When was the last time you bought software that came on a flash drive? That'd be pretty cool, I have to say.

You can get a Sansa Clip [newegg.com] for $30.00. That also plays FLAC, OGG, MP3, WAV, has a built-in radio and can record from the radio. Combine that with any run-of-the-mill car stereos that support USB, or just go old-school and use a tape-adapter.

It's a pretty nice device, if a little clunky sometimes. I used to sell 'em years ago. However... check this scenario out. I could burn one new mix CD using material I already own on CD, using that $10 spindle of 50 disks. If I do that once every two weeks, which is certainly reasonable, I'll get two years of music out of less than $10. Not bad! Meanwhile, someone else just spent $30 on a Clip, $75 on a USB connector (or more on a pile of batteries to last the same two years), $10 on a 3 foot male-to-male 1/8" stereo cable, shipping and handling to 'save' money by buying from Newegg, waited a week, and still had to install software on their computer. I would think that buying one spindle of CDs is a little bit more environmentally friendly than going to the store for batteries and throwing out all the packaging and dead batteries, too.

50pk CDs instead of MP3 player net savings, $100+ and fewer trees and less oil products.

It's fun to be cutting edge - the lab I work in is cutting edge. I love ordering up another 32GB of RAM to throw in a server. But... At home I just don't have the money to keep up with the Joneses, when what I have works.

Unless you're living under a bridge (yes, pun intended) you should have no problem embracing the future, either.

I've got a great car with a great stereo, good mileage, low maintenance, AND I can get in there and work on it myself (unlike GM which uses nonstandard nut sizes) and it's fully paid for. Its only

Re:I didn't know Nero AG had time for this

[djdanlib]

and of course I melded a couple of posts together in my head and addressed you as if you were one of the other posters commenting on how their new cars had some particular features... oops

MPEG_LA Isn't the devil

[Useful Wheat]

Although I disagree with most of what that company does, their MPEG licensing fee is on the order of $2 per manufactured device to use their technology. This isn't really extortion. HDMI is 4 cents per device, but you're required to maintain a $10,000 license fee on top of that. I think gross abuse would be more on the order of $50/device.

Either way, I support the free and open standard provided by displayport, which dispatches with the fees.

Re:MPEG_LA Isn't the devil

[Anonymous Coward]

MPEG_LA's official stance is that nobody can create a codec for compressed video of any sort without violating at least one of their patents.

Re:MPEG_LA Isn't the devil

[MBGMorden]

Any non-zero fee is bad for free (as in beer, and as in speech) software. When you have no price you're charging, then you can't really add in any fee on top of your price.

It basically means that if you want to distribute software, you have to implement a means to SELL it. If you goal is to distribute software free of charge, then even a $0.01 licensing fee totally cripples that.

A better solution for "free as in beer" software would be to make the fee a percentage of the sale price, though that still is somewhat problematic from the "free as in speech" angle.

Re:MPEG_LA Isn't the devil

[El_Muerte_TDS]

That's like saying Satan is not evil because there's also Cthulhu.

Re:MPEG_LA Isn't the devil

[LWATCDR]

Nope it is pure evil. Okay not pure evil but just your normal unrestricted greed.
Software patents are just evil.

Re:MPEG_LA Isn't the devil

[Darkness404]

The problem is principle, even if I use totally clean-room reverse-engineering without even taking one look at their patents, I still am guilty of patent violations, how?

Not to mention their patents become so broad that if you want to create your own compressed video standard you still have to license it out.

Really, they should license certain software for $2 and if you use clean-room reverse engineering, you should be perfectly entitled to distribute and use it. And if you make a different standard, you should be able to distribute and use that without fear of patent lawsuits.

Any company that does not make use of their patent "portfolio" to advance art and sciences is an abuser of patent laws plain and simple.

Re:MPEG_LA Isn't the devil

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

Although I disagree with most of what that company does, their MPEG licensing fee is on the order of $2 per manufactured device to use their technology. This isn't really extortion.

There are numerous other terms attached to MPEG licening, including requirements that you not facilitate the infringement of copyrights, your device respects HDCP, etc, etc. You either do as they say and pay their fee or they sue you. Sounds like extortion to me.

Re:MPEG_LA Isn't the devil

[tepples]

The problem is principle, even if I use totally clean-room reverse-engineering without even taking one look at their patents, I still am guilty of patent violations, how?

Among copyright, patent, and trademark, only copyright cares about the pedigree of any copy. Patents and trademarks can be infringed whether you have had any contact with covered goods or not.

Re:MPEG_LA Isn't the devil

[harlows_monkeys]

The problem is principle, even if I use totally clean-room reverse-engineering without even taking one look at their patents, I still am guilty of patent violations, how?

That's how patents are supposed to work. They'd be kind of pointless if they didn't work that way.

Re:MPEG_LA Isn't the devil

[Anonymous Coward]

It sounds good, but I think it would be fraught with implementation details. For example, I could see a company sell some "file management software" for $99, then if you wanted to "burn DVDs" using it you would buy a plugin from them for $1. So the percent of the fee would be on the $1 sale and not really the complete price of $100.

There's always somebody gaming the system.

Re:MPEG_LA Isn't the devil

[Darkness404]

Which is an abuse of law.

Even if it is technically legal, I can't support it. I probably can't help supporting it financially (as so many products have it included) but I certainly can't support it morally.

The entire point of patents are to instruct how something works and how to make it. However, these patents are too broad and cover far too much.

Patents are supposed to encourage different ways of doing things, however, with "patent pools" like MPEG-LA and large corporations having far to many patents and lawyers plus patent trolls, you can't do anything without running into one of them.

If you don't do things exactly like the patent papers say and make non-trivial modifications, you should be able to use it. That is the only way in this day and age that patents can "promote the sciences and the useful arts"

Re:MPEG_LA Isn't the devil

[robot256]

Wait, does that mean when I use my MPEG-generating camera to record clips of my friends watching a movie, with the movie in the background, and then post it on Youtube, that the camera company will get sued for facilitating copyright infringement?

Re:MPEG_LA Isn't the devil

[Darkness404]

No they wouldn't be pointless, they would be useful to promote the progress of the sciences and useful arts.

Think about it this way, there are a number of ways to create an image, you can use ink, CRT, LCD, LED, etc. but with patents like the patent pool that MPEG-LA has, they have a patent for a "technology to display an image" with the result of being an etch-a-sketch, if I want to make a CRT, I still have to pay them money because it is "technology to display an image" despite me not even using their technology at all.

So unless I feel like paying extortion money, the technology lags behind because patents are preventing me from creating "technology to display an image" even if I want to do it in a radically different way.

Not to mention that half the time it isn't the people who would have created the etch-a-sketch technology but rather a business out in Texas or someplace which does nothing to do with display technology and they only target me once I'm making money with my CRT monitors.

Granted, this is a terrible example, but when you look at software patents and such, they are effectively cornering the market with an "etch-a-sketch" because a CRT or LCD would violate the "technology to display an image" patent.

Re:MPEG_LA Isn't the devil

[ae1294]

That's like saying Satan is not evil because there's also Cthulhu.

Cthulhu is not evil... He's just misunderstood...

Here! Have a Taco, they are deliriously delicious, although a tad non-euclidean.

Re:MPEG_LA Isn't the devil

[Capt_Morgan]

Actually it's quite bad and goes against the basic principles of the free market and a free society in general. If I want to write my own software to do something using my own skills alone I should be able to do it. These patents are totally nonsensical

Re:MPEG_LA Isn't the devil

[forkazoo]

Although I disagree with most of what that company does, their MPEG licensing fee is on the order of $2 per manufactured device to use their technology. This isn't really extortion. HDMI is 4 cents per device, but you're required to maintain a $10,000 license fee on top of that. I think gross abuse would be more on the order of $50/device.

If Vinny and Guido show up at your business with a baseball bat and remark that you have really unbroken knees, and it would be a shame if anything happened to them, it doesn't really matter if they demand $2 or $50. Once they show up at your business, willing to make threats about how they need a cut of the sales of a business that they may not have contributed anything to, they have gone too far. MPEG-LA are, at this point, basically operating under exactly the same business model as Mafia running a protection racket. They just invested enough in politics to make their game somehow legal.

Re:MPEG_LA Isn't the devil

[westlake]

their MPEG licensing fee is on the order of $2 per manufactured device

MPEG-2 PATENT PORTFOLIO LICENSE SUMMARY

Re:MPEG_LA Isn't the devil

[EyelessFade]

well no, not yet anyways. But if you make a shortfilm with your camera and decide to sell it, then you have to pay up big time.

Re:MPEG_LA Isn't the devil

[DrSkwid]

You might think differently if you got the manual your $8000 Pro HD camera out and read the manual

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=584693&l=d37e6ecc2a&id=1429834573

and then once you got that sorted out you read the manual to your $999 copy of Final Cut Pro

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=584692&l=a8a46fa560&id=1429834573

MPEG-LA is a virus

Re:MPEG_LA Isn't the devil

[waambulance]

lmao the qualification of "the useful arts" is hilarious.

Re:MPEG_LA Isn't the devil

[Anonymous Coward]

Who modded this informative? Do you have any idea how much this kind of stuff costs? When you ship hardware you're not shipping 1 or 2 - typically consumer HW vendors talk about millions of units. The incremental cost paying $1 per device instead of $2 is at least $1 million dollars (assuming you're only shipping 1 million devices). No one is ever going to put in anything that costs $50 per device. When everything else is on the order of tens of cents for actual hardware, $2 per device is huge. Do the math yourself:

10 000 + 0.04x vs 2x - which would you rather pay if you're shipping millions of devices?

Re:MPEG_LA Isn't the devil

[unix1]

If you don't do things exactly like the patent papers say and make non-trivial modifications, you should be able to use it. That is the only way in this day and age that patents can "promote the sciences and the useful arts"

There's no such thing as "exactly" with software patents. Most of them are so broad and hopeless, they claim ideas, not specific implementations. Most software patents do not state and present any actual software that is being patented - i.e. no code, and no algorithm. In fact, it wouldn't make sense for them to list any actual code to patent because copyright already gives them a far greater protection than patents would.

Software patents don't make sense.

Re:MPEG_LA Isn't the devil

[mr_lizard13]

They might yet turn out to be right.

Shame on those who preside over the patent system for allowing that to happen.

Re:MPEG_LA Isn't the devil

[westlake]

If you goal is to distribute software free of charge, then even a $0.01 licensing fee totally cripples that.

The cost of duplicating and distributing your free-as-in-beer software bundle are surely going to be much more than a penny a a disk.

Re:MPEG_LA Isn't the devil

[JAlexoi]

Wow, there! Patents protect exactly against reverse-engineering, that is the whole idea behind patents. Copyright does not.

Re:MPEG_LA Isn't the devil

[JAlexoi]

That is the whole problem, because patents were not intended to be applied to users of said invention, but only to protect the inventor against copycats.

Re:MPEG_LA Isn't the devil

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually a girl got sued for recording a bit of Twilight at a birthday party some time back (whenever the last movie was in theatres). Suing the camera company though... same slippery slope as suing gun makers. After all, that device was made to record things, it's only logical it would be used for the evil piracy!

Re:MPEG_LA Isn't the devil

[MarkvW]

You're missing the point entirely!

The point is that any commercial movie you make might infringe the patent because you exceeded the MPEG LA license. That really sucks.

Re:MPEG_LA Isn't the devil

[Hurricane78]

I hope that taco doesn’t go commander! :P

Re:MPEG_LA Isn't the devil

[gyrogeerloose]

Also, I believe that the fee doesn't kick in unless you've manufactured 10,000 units so the little guy who's developing an app for fun or limited distribution doesn't have to pay anything at all.

Re:MPEG_LA Isn't the devil

[toooskies]

I'd argue that it isn't. The "clean room" example is a measure of obviousness: if there is clearly one way to solve a problem, and someone can figure it out simply by being told to produce the outputs, I'd argue that it's obvious. Now, that's not at all what happened with the MPEG_LA. VP8 (or WebM, or whatever) has a ton in common with H.264, which isn't independently likely or obvious given the mature state of the video compression field.

Re:MPEG_LA Isn't the devil

[Bigjeff5]

Which is an abuse of law.

Uh... I'm not sure you've got the idea of patents down yet.

The entire point of patents are to instruct how something works and how to make it.

And how do they do that? With a limited monopoly on the idea, not the implementation. It's the exact opposite coverage of copyright, which grants a limited monopoly on the expression but not the idea. Trademarks is a monopoly over a name under certain conditions.

However, these patents are too broad and cover far too much.

The patents themselves aren't, it's the pools that are far too broad and cover far too much. On that I agree. However there is a sharp distinction between what the MPEG-LA is doing and what ordinary patents do.

The alternative situation here is potentially just as stifling - with a thousand patents you may be infringing, creating new codecs can be frightening, especially if the patent holder you've infringed isn't doing so hot economically (or worse, they're doing fantastically well and want to keep it that way). You can be hit with outrageous licensing terms after you've already invested your time and money into creating your codec, or you could be sued outright and bankrupt for infringing a patent you didn't know about.

MPEG-LA takes away a lot of uncertainty, and that's a definite boon. However, in my opinion such a large patent pool has the potential for incredible harm, far worse than the individual patents could if all were taken separately.

Taking out MPEG-LA tosses everything up in the air, and won't necessarily allow for more innovation. It can't allow for less, however, so I think it's definitely worth the risk.

Re:MPEG_LA Isn't the devil

[Bigjeff5]

I believe that's the wording in the US constitution.

Re:MPEG_LA Isn't the devil

[waambulance]

clearly, they (the people who were outsourced to write the Constitution) were post-, before there was anything to be modern about.

Re:MPEG_LA Isn't the devil

[dave420]

No, but if you have a blu-ray player that dumps a protected blu-ray to a hard disk, without protection, then the manufacturer can get in trouble.

Re:MPEG_LA Isn't the devil

[Darkness404]

And how do they do that? With a limited monopoly on the idea, not the implementation. It's the exact opposite coverage of copyright, which grants a limited monopoly on the expression but not the idea. Trademarks is a monopoly over a name under certain conditions.

And what are the points of those?

In the US constitution, patents are secured to "promote the sciences and useful arts", trademarks are used to protect consumers. The point of patents was to prevent guilds and companies from monopolizing knowledge by providing an incentive for them to release it to the public. Trademarks are useful because they let people understand what they are getting: if I want a Nintendo Wii and the package says Nintendo Wii, I should be getting a Nintendo Wii, not http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadgetmobile.com/media/2007/12/vii-2-white.jpg , trademarks are useful.

What patents are today, are not what patents were when they were first designed. They were to add to the public knowledge and let people do great things with it as building blocks. Today though? We have the internet, we have communication, etc. We need to seriously consider if patents are even worth it today because they fulfill none of the constitutional requirements and don't benefit the original idea of patents.

Re:MPEG_LA Isn't the devil

[newcastlejon]

...if I want to make a CRT, I still have to pay them money because it is "technology to display an image" despite me not even using their technology at all...

Say what? Even if the patent clerk was so facepalmingly stupid as to approve such an application, noone would ever be able to find a lawyer just as stupid as to argue a precedent that goes back before the written word; when Man first put dust to cave wall.

Re:MPEG_LA Isn't the devil

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure, but we aren't talking about copyright and your example of someone copying part of twilight is copyright and has nothing to do with patents.

Re:MPEG_LA Isn't the devil

[Kjella]

For example in the processing industry it makes perfect sense to clone your competitor's production method and only "use" a patented invention. For the same reason it does make sense to grant conditional or limited licenses so say Microsoft can't pretend it'll be used in a tiny niche application and instead make it a Windows core technology at almost no cost. None of this should ideally screw the end users though, but finding the right legalese to avoid that will be difficult while retaining anything like a patent system.

Re:MPEG_LA Isn't the devil

[Anonymous Coward]

No, patents protect your designs from being profited by someone else.

Clean room reverse-engineering is perfectly ethical: You design a mulcher. I put in a stick and get out mulch. I can turn the system on and off. I design my own mulcher that does the same thing more cheaply and without any influence from your design other than it solves the same problem and has the same turn on/off feature.

What they are doing is patenting anything that turns a stick into mulch, regardless if it's a mulcher or a beaver or who designed the system. In effect, they're patenting problems, not solution designs.

That is neither ethical or the idea behind patents, and only survives due to continuing degradation of patent law.

Re:MPEG_LA Isn't the devil

[Anonymous Coward]

they have a patent for a "technology to display an image" with the result of being an etch-a-sketch

They do not. They may state a claim for a "technology to display an image" but the specifications will, you know, SPECIFY what that technology is.

the technology lags behind because patents are preventing me from creating "technology to display an image" even if I want to do it in a radically different way.

1. If it's a radically different way, it couldn't possibly be described in the spec, since a patent has to provide enough information to completely recreate the invention, and you can't describe radically new and different ways of doing things that don't yet exist.
2. The goal of patents isn't to force technology ahead at the greatest speed. It's to provide an adequate mechanism to encourage people to participate and disclose their inventions. If someone has a fantastic improvement on an invention, all they have to do is wait a few years to implement it--20 at most. In the timeline of society, that's effectively instantaneous.

Not to mention that half the time it isn't the people who would have created the etch-a-sketch technology but rather a business out in Texas or someplace

And the people who created the etch-a-sketch cause that to happen by selling their patent to them in exchange for money. Welcome to the market economy.

Granted, this is a terrible example, but when you look at software patents and such, they are effectively cornering the market with an "etch-a-sketch" because a CRT or LCD would violate the "technology to display an image" patent.

It's a terrible example AND a terrible summary, which really causes one to wonder how little substance is necessary for an upmod.

Re:MPEG_LA Isn't the devil

[SimonTheSoundMan]

It's in the manuals for £120,000 cameras as well. Sony F35 being one of them.

Re:MPEG_LA Isn't the devil

[domatic]

And this is what should happen to Vinny and Guido.....

http://flimmr.passagen.se/movie/robot_chicken_bob_the_builder_vs_the_mafia.action

Re:MPEG_LA Isn't the devil

[AK Marc]

The cost of duplicating and distributing your free-as-in-beer software bundle are surely going to be much more than a penny a a disk.

How much does Sourceforge charge for every disk downloaded from a free software bundle?

Re:MPEG_LA Isn't the devil

[/dev/trash]

Truly you were really a professional film maker, you'd have the money to pay them what they want. Why do you hate success?

Re:MPEG_LA Isn't the devil

[ATMAvatar]

No one suggested that MPEG_LA was the devil. We merely assert that should the MPEG_LA group and the devil enter into negotiations, no translator would be required.

Re:MPEG_LA Isn't the devil

[Anonymous Coward]

If you read the information listed on the media page, it looks like you also have to shove your patents into their patent pool if you infringe their patents. So it's a snowballing devil.

Re:MPEG_LA Isn't the devil

[Anonymous Coward]

The first line is always free.. its when you're fully addicted that you'll pay almost any price.
2 dollahs now, and then when everyone uses it they can raise it to 10 then 20 (citing the falling value of the dollar)

Re:MPEG_LA Isn't the devil

[AK Marc]

Patents and trademarks can be infringed whether you have had any contact with covered goods or not.

If the patent can be infringed without ever having seen or heard of the patented item, then I'd argue that's proof that the patent is obvious or non-novel, and thus not patentable.

Or to state it another way, if someone describes a problem to you and you can create a solution that infringes on an existing patent, then your solution does infringe on the patent as awarded, but the patent was erroneously awarded (and thus you shouldn't be able to infringe on it).

Re:MPEG_LA Isn't the devil

[westlake]

You might think differently if you got the manual your $8000 Pro HD camera out and read the manual

Your camera shipped with the generic end-user consumer license.

Your costs for MPEG 4 distribution look like this:

Shorts 12 minutes and under -

$0

Retail sales by title -

The lower of 2% of the price paid to the Licensee (on first arms length sale of the video) or $0.02 per title.

If you aren't grossing $150K+ in sales they have no interest in you whatever.

Subscription sales [The Geek's Strip Club Channel or DVD of the Month] -

100,000 subscribers or less - $0/yr.
100,000-250,000 - $25,000/yr
250,000-500,000 - $50,000/yr
500,000=1 million -$100,000 - $50,000.
Over 1 Million - $100,000/yr

Free TV Broadcast -

1-Time $2,500 fee for each AVC encoder
OR
Annual Fee For Markets Of 100,000 and Over - Starting at $2,500/yr

Internet -

End user does not pay by title or subscription - $0/yr [May in the future rise to the equivalent of Free TV Broadcast]

Enterprise Cap [Commonly owned legal entities] -

$5 million/yr

That is the real cost of H.264 licensing to a service provider the size of Disney or Google. Which means that production, storage and distribution of VP8 video is going to have to be mighty damn cheap to be competitive. SUMMARY OF AVC/H.264 LICENSE TERMS

Re:MPEG_LA Isn't the devil

[JesseMcDonald]

That's "arts" as in "techniques" or "processes". (Think "the dark arts", a similar use which has persisted to the modern day.) Technology, in other words, not what is now known as "fine art". The term is the basis for patents, not copyrights.

Copyrights exist for the sciences: works of learning, academics, knowledge, study. Writings and the like. Works of art and, much more tenuously, entertainment.

Re:MPEG_LA Isn't the devil

[Anonymous Coward]

Most of them are so broad and hopeless, they claim ideas, not specific implementations.

When does an idea or set of ideas become an implementation?

Re:MPEG_LA Isn't the devil

[Anonymous Coward]

No charge does not mean no cost. Sourceforge simply choose to eat the cost.

Re:MPEG_LA Isn't the devil

[Mashiki]

Apparently you don't know your level of evils. For the great Spaghetti Monster((NABUH)Noodly Appendage Be Upon Him), rises above all other evils. Once he touches you, you never go back.

Re:MPEG_LA Isn't the devil

[xrobertcmx]

That is actually pretty rough. $10,000 isn't much when you plan to manufacture 5 or 10 million cables. $210,000 for a 5 million cable run vs. $10,000,000 at $2 per device.

Re:MPEG_LA Isn't the devil

[ignavus]

The problem is principle, even if I use totally clean-room reverse-engineering without even taking one look at their patents, I still am guilty of patent violations, how?

Among copyright, patent, and trademark, only copyright cares about the pedigree of any copy. Patents and trademarks can be infringed whether you have had any contact with covered goods or not.

You gave a legal answer to a moral question: which means you didn't answer the question.

The grandparent poster was drawing attention to the fact that patent law fails to take account one salient fact: if I can implement a working solution without knowing the patent, then the patent is not innovative enough to be worthy of patenting.

Re:MPEG_LA Isn't the devil

[hedwards]

They don't really. They protect against certain forms of reverse engineering. They do not protect against the Chinese wall. Or at least they're not supposed to. Which is what's so insidious about software patents. Since they don't really include the code or the algorithms it's pretty much impossible to get around them legitimately.

Re:MPEG_LA Isn't the devil

[Rocketship Underpant]

Patents weren't even strictly invented to prevent copycat manufacturers. They were invented to make manufacturers publish technical implementation specifications on inventions that were too difficult for a copycat to produce without specifications. The incentive to do so was a limited-time monopoly against copycats and disincentive for competitors to compete until the patents had expired.

So really, any invention that is obvious to re-implement without reading the patent specs should be non-patentable.

Re:MPEG_LA Isn't the devil

[jonwil]

Except that such trouble would come from the license applied to the AACS copy protection attached to Blu-Ray disks and has nothing whatsoever to do with MPEG or any of the other video or audio codecs used in the Blu-Ray standards.

Re:MPEG_LA Isn't the devil

[shutdown -p now]

Any non-zero fee is bad for free (as in beer, and as in speech) software. When you have no price you're charging, then you can't really add in any fee on top of your price.

I recall that one Slashdot meme - something about broken business models not being someone else's problems?..

Re:MPEG_LA Isn't the devil

[shutdown -p now]

with patents like the patent pool that MPEG-LA has, they have a patent for a "technology to display an image"

But is this actually true?

I'm no video codec expert, hence why I have to ask: is MPEG LA really holding patents to some basic stuff? Or is it rather some really innovative, breakthrough techniques that make efficient and tight compression possible, and which we only take for granted because we've been enjoying them for so long?

Re:MPEG_LA Isn't the devil

[TheTurtlesMoves]

Its not just the cost, its the contract. You must abide by the licensing terms. Licensing terms that include "professional cameras" that need extra licenses if you want to make money from your movie. Licensing terms that could be changed in the future to include DRM. Zone flags on DVDs are enforced this way. Its part of the license.

Re:MPEG_LA Isn't the devil

[Bent Mind]

I'd have to find my manual again, but I'm fairly certain that there is a paragraph in there somewhere that says that using the device to produce a copy of the movie violates your license to use the device. Come to think of it, I believe it also said something about professional movies being violation the license, So no, the camera company won't be sued, you will.

Re:MPEG_LA Isn't the devil

[MBGMorden]

Indeed. I just think you're misjudging which business model is broken. As soon as the legal nonsense known as software patents gets thrown out it won't even be an issue anymore.

Re:MPEG_LA Isn't the devil

[amoeba1911]

Patents are made for protecting new ideas. Implementations are covered by copyrights if the implementation has substantial amount of non-functional uniqueness.

The source code can be copyrighted, but there's no point since you can easily change the for loops to while loops, rename variables, move functions around to create the same program with different source code.

The big problem with software patents is that USPTO considers "doing old thing in a computer program" to be a new thing, even if "doing old thing" isn't a new idea at all.

Re:MPEG_LA Isn't the devil

[gnasher719]

There's no such thing as "exactly" with software patents. Most of them are so broad and hopeless, they claim ideas, not specific implementations. Most software patents do not state and present any actual software that is being patented - i.e. no code, and no algorithm. In fact, it wouldn't make sense for them to list any actual code to patent because copyright already gives them a far greater protection than patents would.

And all that doesn't apply to h.264, because you get the spec which tells you _exactly_ to the most excruciatingly tiny detail everything you need to know to implement it, plus the provide a sample implementation that actually works (although not very quick). And all these people complaining here how far reaching software patents are, Nero uses h.264 - exactly the one video compression format that all these patents are originally intended for. This is like a company making an exact replica of an iPad and complaining how unfair it is that Apple has all these touchscreen patents. h.264 and MPEG-LA are one of the very few examples of patents actually used the way they are supposed to be used; people developing stuff that has real value and wanting their reward for it.

Re:MPEG_LA Isn't the devil

[gnasher719]

Think about it this way, there are a number of ways to create an image, you can use ink, CRT, LCD, LED, etc. but with patents like the patent pool that MPEG-LA has, they have a patent for a "technology to display an image" with the result of being an etch-a-sketch, if I want to make a CRT, I still have to pay them money because it is "technology to display an image" despite me not even using their technology at all.

Bloody nonsense. MPEG-LA has lots of patents for "technology to effectively compress and decompress video data using the h.264 format". You don't have to pay them anything for video compression. You pay them for video compression using _their_ h.264 format. And the patent pool that people are complaining about makes sure that you can call _one_ place and get a license to all nine hundred seventy six patents that you need for one patent, instead of having to negotiate with three dozen different companies. The patents are there, whether they are pooled or not, but the pooling makes it much easier to license things.

Re:MPEG_LA Isn't the devil

[gnasher719]

Actually it's quite bad and goes against the basic principles of the free market and a free society in general. If I want to write my own software to do something using my own skills alone I should be able to do it. These patents are totally nonsensical

So what exactly is it that you have the skills to do? Make an implementation of h.264, which means you only have to work your way through 200 pages of spec, concentrated but with not one spark of inventiveness required? You aren't allowed to do that without a patent license, because the hard work (the h.264 spec) is covered by all these patents. Or do you mean create a different spec for video compression, work it all out and come up with something that does decent compression, without copying what others have done before you? My respect if you can do that, and patent law won't stop you.

Re:MPEG_LA Isn't the devil

[Anonymous Coward]

If Vinny and Guido show up at your business with a baseball bat and remark that you have really unbroken knees, and it would be a shame if anything happened to them, it doesn't really matter if they demand $2 or $50. Once they show up at your business, willing to make threats about how they need a cut of the sales of a business that they may not have contributed anything to, they have gone too far

Come now, it was not a threat. I'm just saying that the likelihood of your knees remaining unbroken would greatly improve if I had, say, $50 in my right hand.....

Re:MPEG_LA Isn't the devil

[unix1]

There's no such thing as "exactly" with software patents. Most of them are so broad and hopeless, they claim ideas, not specific implementations. Most software patents do not state and present any actual software that is being patented - i.e. no code, and no algorithm. In fact, it wouldn't make sense for them to list any actual code to patent because copyright already gives them a far greater protection than patents would.

And all that doesn't apply to h.264, because you get the spec which tells you _exactly_ to the most excruciatingly tiny detail everything you need to know to implement it

Sorry, but the spec is not what's patented. The patents in the H.264 patent pool are much broader than the H.264 spec.

Re:MPEG_LA Isn't the devil

[Neil]

Your camera shipped with the generic end-user consumer license.

But that is the problem . You say this like it was a reasonable and explicable thing .

The idea that an end user of a consumer product needs a "license" to use the piece of hardware that they have bought in good faith, or is in the slightest way obliged to pay heed to any usage restrictions or fees that some patent holder tries to levy is completely at odds with natural justice and common sense. The patent holder's legal and commercial relationship is with the manufacturer, which involves the manufacturer's right to embody the invention. The manufacturer has a completely separate legal and commercial relationship with the consumer (or with a retailer), which involves transfer of ownership of the physical goods in return for payment.

If a patent system is going to exist at all, it should provide the legal framework for the payment of any royalties from a manufacturer to the patent holder for the right to embody the patented idea in a manufactured product, it should create a civil liability in the case that royalties for manufacture aren't payed, and that should be the end of it.

Re:MPEG_LA Isn't the devil

[unix1]

Patents are made for protecting new ideas.

Wrong. Patents are NOT for monopoly on ideas. They are for specific implementations.

Implementations are covered by copyrights if the implementation has substantial amount of non-functional uniqueness.

In general "implementations" for patented physical inventions are not covered by copyrights. That's why patents exist.

The source code can be copyrighted, but there's no point since you can easily change the for loops to while loops, rename variables, move functions around to create the same program with different source code.

Changing variable names and moving functions around does not avoid copyright issues.

Re:MPEG_LA Isn't the devil

[westlake]

The idea that an end user of a consumer product needs a "license" to use the piece of hardware that they have bought in good faith, or is in the slightest way obliged to pay heed to any usage restrictions or fees that some patent holder tries to levy is completely at odds with natural justice and common sense.

The patent holder's rights are rooted in the U.S. Constitution.

"Natural Justice" is a container into which you can pour anything you want. In American law you "get it in writing." In the Constitution. In the statute books. In judicial decisions....

You don't need a commercial license for H.264 until you are raking in the green.

2 cents a disk on retail sales of $200,000. Subscription plans with over 100,000 paid subscribers.

Re:MPEG_LA Isn't the devil

[westlake]

How much does Sourceforge charge for every disk downloaded from a free software bundle?

You think Sourceforge pays nothing for storage, bandwidth and administration?

Sourceforge has other sources of revenue.

Re:MPEG_LA Isn't the devil

[AK Marc]

You think Sourceforge pays nothing for storage, bandwidth and administration?

I think that the question was how much it would cost me to distribute my "free" software. That has been answered as "zero." Since you are now changing the subject to the balance sheet of those I might use for distribution, I take that as you admitting you were 100% wrong in stating that I must pay to distribute my software.

Thanks for conceding the point publicly, so many Slashdot trolls hide when proven wrong. And I don't care what Sourceforge uses for their income stream, all I know is that they distribute software without charge to the author, the point you were proven wrong on.

Re:MPEG_LA Isn't the devil

[sjames]

If that was all there was to it, it wouldn't be so bad. However, they apparently want more if you actually use the device commercially and reserve the right to demand payment for streaming it (even if you neither encode of decode in the process).

It is worth noting that the greatest abuses of patents tend to be in the last few years of their validity. That creates a rather large uncertainty.

Re:MPEG_LA Isn't the devil

[sjames]

Not if it's distributed in the form of a torrent or as part of a larger work. Consider too that as soon as you have to start tracking actual "sales", even sales for 0.00, yopu add a great deal of overhead and considerably restrict freedom compared to copy from wherever, use as you see fit, pass it on if you like.

Re:MPEG_LA Isn't the devil

[DrSkwid]

Because not all film production goes to the cinema / tv.

We make films usually distributed to around 100-200 people. We record, edit, encode, duplicate and print all the titles with our own equipment.

We also run a film festival once a year attended by about 400 people, the films of which are mostly made by the same size of operation, some with the exact same equipment (literally).

The added irony of your comment is that if we had plenty of money we'd be using a Red or 35mm which don't have such restrictions.

I found this yesterday too: Open Source Hardware HD camera we're going to take a long look at that system. Our cinema is having 3d projectors installed in one of the screens soon, it would be great to produce stuff for it locally.

Re:MPEG_LA Isn't the devil

[Neil]

The patent holders rights in the US will be rooted in the US Constitution and US law. MPEG-LA looks after patents which originally belonged to many multi-national corporations, including many European and Japanese companies, and they attempt to enforce these licensing deals and royalty payments around the world. Anyway, my understanding was that the US Constitution authorizes the legislature to enact laws to create a patent system for the express purpose of encouraging invention and advancement - the patent system is supposed to sweeten the deal just enough to make it worth-while for inventors to properly document and disclose their ideas, not enshrine moral property right over ideas or guarantee a massive revenue stream from from them.

I don't claim to be particularly knowledgeable about patent law, either in the US or elsewhere. I basically just wanted to vent a shriek of personal outrage at the idea things are "supposed to be like that". Law needs to be felt to be fair and equitable at some level, if it is to be effective. If law simply becomes a tool of commercial interests who lobby for laws that further enrich themselves, without reference to the citizens who will be bound by those laws, then the law will fall into disrepute.

My feelings don't really alter based on the financial thresholds needed to trigger "commercial licensing" requirements on the end-user. I have a visceral objection to the idea that if I buy a camera from (say) Sony that I then have potential financial and legal obligations to MPEG-LA when using that camera for the kind of purposes that it was designed, built and sold. MPEG-LA should have extracted their pound of flesh in the form of a one-off royalty payment from the manufacturer, and the manufacturer should have factored that cost into the purchase price that I payed.

It's all perfectly legal

[catmistake]

They have a patent pool for criminal activity, too.

pick your sides

[dx40sh]

So is Nero throwing its lot in with VP8 ?

Re:pick your sides

[robot256]

I thought VP8 still violated MPEG-LA's patent pool...? Has anybody actually sued over that yet?

Re:pick your sides

[jonwil]

MPEG-LA claims that VP8 violates patents in their pools.
Until such time as MPEG-LA has sued someone over an implementation of VP8 and won (or at the very least shown specific patents VP8 supposedly violates), what they say means nothing.

Nero are still in Business?

[16K Ram Pack]

There's a company I thought had gone the way of the Ashton-Tates.

Plenty of free burners for the rare time I need to do a DVD now, and their video editor sucked.

HOLY SHIT.

[Khyber]

It seems Nero listened to my e-mail. I told them they should be doing something about this because it would drastically affect their market otherwise. I sent that e-mail right after the original MPEG-LA brouhaha broke a couple weeks ago.

Re:HOLY SHIT.

[BikeHelmet]

Antitrust suits aren't started with mere weeks of research. They've probably been preparing for months.

Re:HOLY SHIT.

[Mr Thinly Sliced]

Incredible job. If I forward my landlords address any chance you can get him to look into the sperm/hairball blocking the shower pipes?

Mr Dopely Lazy
Reluctant Owner Street
Wankingstone
Spermorton
England

For anonymity, please only call me "Dave", and the sperm and hair were from some big guy who broke in one night and went all "pope cleansing" in there.

Re:HOLY SHIT.

[sumdumass]

I guess you and some windows Users have something in common.

Now all you need is a camera and some commercial time. Maybe a slogan like "nero 7,it was my idea".

All joking aside, they probably did listen to your email. There was probably a ton of others they listened to also. but rest assured, there is something in it for them outside of making you a happy customer. Companies tend to operate towards what is beneficial to them. IT may be that your email and they line up perfectly, but lets not get to carried away.

Re:HOLY SHIT.

[xavierpayne]

Sorry but for some reason I can't help but picture you in a "I'm Khyber, and Windows 7... er the Nero law suit was my idea!" commercial! :-)

Re:HOLY SHIT.

[Bigjeff5]

"My name is Khyber, and Nero's anti-trust complaint was my idea."

Re:HOLY SHIT.

[517714]

Let me guess. You're a PC and Windows 7 was your idea?

Re:HOLY SHIT.

[u17]

This idea was invented by Shampoo.

Non-infringing video

[crow]

Well, you probably would have trouble getting a modern compression system that doesn't infringe on one or more of their patents, but you can use an older video format.

Consider that DVD was developed in 1995, so the base MPEG-2 patents expire within 5 years, if not earlier.

The draft MPEG-1 standard was out in 1990, so a codec based on MPEG-1 technology should be free of patent issues.

H.264 dates from 2003, so we probably have another 13 years there.

Ultimately, it may take a legal battle with Google to invalidate or narrow some of the H.264 patents such that VP8 or something similar can compete patent-free.

Re:Non-infringing video

[Anonymous Coward]

Thing is that in computing, stuff gets obsolete extremely fast.

Re:Non-infringing video

[Bigjeff5]

Consider that DVD was developed in 1995, so the base MPEG-2 patents expire within 5 years, if not earlier.

Patents last 28 years (in the US at least), that puppy has another 13 years or so on it.

Re:Non-infringing video

[Dragoniz3r]

Thing is that in computing, stuff gets obsolete extremely fast.

Consider that DVD was developed in 1995, so the base MPEG-2 patents expire within 5 years, if not earlier, and people are still using it.

Better for you?

Re:Non-infringing video

[reebmmm]

Consider that DVD was developed in 1995, so the base MPEG-2 patents expire within 5 years, if not earlier.

Patents last 28 years (in the US at least), that puppy has another 13 years or so on it.

Huh? US Patents don't last 28 years. New patents have a term of 20 years from the earliest filing date. Patents filed before June 8, 1995 have a term that is the longer of (i) 20 years from the earliest filing date; or (ii) 17 years from the date of issue.

Re:Non-infringing video

[TheRaven64]

He's confusing patents and copyright. He's also confusing 2010 and 1910. He is, in fact, a very confused person.

Re:Non-infringing video

[TheRaven64]

That would have worked better if I hadn't typo'd and said 1910 instead of 1810. Now I'm the confused one...

Re:Non-infringing video

[cpghost]

Huh? US Patents don't last 28 years. New patents have a term of 20 years from the earliest filing date.

You're right, but if past experience with Copyright extentions (last to date: Mickey Mouse Protection Act) taught anything, it's that we can expect those terms to be extended too soon(ish).

Re:Non-infringing video

[Sir_Lewk]

If that was going to happen, it would have happened by now. There are a lot of very very rich people that would have loved to see that done at various points in history but so far it's remained quite sane (20 since 1995, 17 before that).

Re:Non-infringing video

[bhtooefr]

Patents last a maximum of 21 years after initial publication (1 year to file, and then either 20 years after filing or 17 years after acceptance, whichever comes first.)

However, submarine patents mean that it's not safe until 20 years after 1995 is also reached - at that point, any submarine patents that were forced out into the open in 1995 will have expired as well.

So, MPEG-1 will be freed in 2015 (it's old enough that any patents on the original implementation will be gone circa 2012, IIRC, except for submarine patents.)

Don't forget

[ArchieBunker]

BurnAware. Its how Nero used to be many years ago. I stopped using Nero when the "suite" stopped fitting onto a 650Mb CDR.

Re:Don't forget

[drinkypoo]

BurnAware. Its how Nero used to be many years ago. I stopped using Nero when the "suite" stopped fitting onto a 650Mb CDR.

To what diameter do you cut a CD to get 650 megabits on it?

I bought Nero for Linux because it seems to be the only GUI-based burn software for same that lets you gracefully burn a DVD.

No, probably because there's nothing to sue for.

[Anonymous Coward]

No, probably because there's nothing to sue for. It's just FUD.

THEY ARE SAFE

[Anonymous Coward]

Blobus the giant galatic penis bird will fight for them !

Citation, please?

[KingSkippus]

No, I'm not being facetious. This is not a passive-aggressive way of saying you're wrong, I simply do not know.

I've seen a lot of people talking about MPEG LA, including veiled threats against people who use Theora and WEBM, but I haven't heard much from MPEG LA itself. Where exactly is this "official stance" you speak of? I'd like to read it for myself.

It's my understanding that what MPEG LA does is gather patents that apply to encoding, license them out, and pay the owners of said patents. They also indemnify any manufacturers and/or users in case any of its patents are deemed to be invalid or infringing on other patents. Now, I 100% agree that we need to do away with these patents altogether. I also 100% agree that given that they exist, we should be use patent-free software so that the whole issue would be moot.

But given that they exist and that the issue isn't moot, has MPEG LA actually threatened to go after someone who violates one of these patents, or that creating any compressed video violates their patents? I've always viewed MPEG LA not so much as the enforcement arm of evil, but more like the record keepers of evil. Hell's accountants, so to speak.

Re:Citation, please?

[Kalriath]

Actually, they don't indemnify at all. I've seen stories that apparently they are forming a patent pool for Theora and WebM/VP8, but the only place I can't find any confirmation of that is from MPEG LA themselves. The "official stance" referred to by the AC was mentioned in the story about them forming a VP8 pool, but said statement (and VP8 plan) doesn't exist on their site.

And they sue. A lot.

They are founding a patent pool for human gene patents though. That can't be evil at all.

Re:Citation, please?

[ldobehardcore]

Where Exactly does it say anywhere that theora is participating in any patent pool? AFAIK it's an oft flaunted fact that theora has no patents or trademarking issues. I would be very interested to know if they'd started patenting parts of theora. I know theora's based on VP3, but the source for VP3 was released years ago wasn't it? PS I DO understand that Theora is a horribly outdated video codec that only does marginally better than basic mpeg4 asp, and can't compare in quality to Xvid, h.264 or VP8.

Re:Citation, please?

[ZachPruckowski]

Theora isn't participating. What's supposedly happening is that MPEG LA is saying "we owned Patents X, Y, and Z that we claim cover Theora, you can pay us $$ to license them" The Theora project is not involved in this patent pool, and the patents are mostly patents that companies own that were originally gotten for MPEG-2 or MPEG-4 stuff that they claim also apply to Theora.

Re:Citation, please?

[bhtooefr]

Xiph isn't participating in any patent pool, MPEG-LA is assembling a patent pool to use to sue those distributing Theora.

What timing!

[Anonymous Coward]

This couldn't have come at a worse time for MPEG-LA. They're just now preparing for an epic struggle with Google over VP8 and Nero comes from behind and sticks a dagger in their spine.

Re:What timing!

[PitaBred]

In other news, it couldn't have come at a better time for the American citizen and consumer.

Re:What timing!

[mbkennel]

It seems it's more "Nero comes from behind and pokes a toothpick into their boron-titanium-tungsten self-healing powered exoskeleton, and turn on their T-800's lawbot swarm aggro mode".

Re:What timing!

[Anonymous Coward]

e tu, Nero?

Re:What timing!

[Anonymous Coward]

Man, someone plays too much Dungeons and Dragons.

Re:What timing!

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd prefer it if someone stuck a real dagger in their backs. Or impaled the slimy fuckers on a hand-and-a-half sword - you know, just to make sure.

Re:What timing!

[Jesus_666]

Great. Nero draws aggro, Google goes DOT and the EFF is on healing duty. Sounds like this raid is going well.

Re:No, probably because there's nothing to sue for

[Anonymous Coward]

It's just FUD.

Does FUD now mean "something that I don't really know anything about, but want very badly to not be true?"

The supreme court would say MPeg LA is illegal

[gr8_phk]

The supreme court just ruled today that the NFL can't license the team trademarks collectively. It seems to me this should extend to any collective pool of IP - including patents. Each patent holder should have to license their patents individually.

Re:The supreme court would say MPeg LA is illegal

[Bigjeff5]

It seems to me this should extend to any collective pool of IP - including patents.

Possibly, it depends on how broad the SCOTUS ruling was. The laws for trademarks and the laws for patents are very different, and each are different from the laws for copyrights.

We'll have to wait and see, but it definitely sounds like this case could be used for a strong argument in Nero's case.

Re:The supreme court would say MPeg LA is illegal

[Anonymous Coward]

That's not what they said and your interpretation is wrong. The closest analogy... let's say Sony has a patent that's part of the MPEG-LA h.264 pool. You want to license Sony's patent (and only Sony's patent) but the MPEG-LA steps in and says, "Sorry, you have to license through us and you need to license all these other patents as well." The supreme court said, "You can license patents individually". They didn't say patent pools are invalid.

Re:The supreme court would say MPeg LA is illegal

[Anonymous Coward]

That's not really the point of the ruling. The point of the ruling is that the NFL cannot claim it is immune from an anti-trust lawsuit filed over the team trademarks. So, MPEG-LA is potentially an illegal trust which can be sued. That is a far cry from saying that the NFL cannot license team trademarks collectively, only that it can be sued with the possibility that the NFL could still win the suit. MPEG-LA, similarly, might win the anti-trust action should one be brought by NERO.

In sum, NERO can now sue under anti-trust, but we can't say if they would win.

Re:The supreme court would say MPeg LA is illegal

[AK Marc]

The supreme court just ruled today that the NFL can't license the team trademarks collectively.

No. They ruled that the Sherman Antitrust Act would apply for collective licenses. They could still collectively license trademarks without a problem. The specific issue was that the NFL argued they didn't need to worry about antitrust issues while issuing an exclusive collective contract. They may still be able to do exactly what they've already done, and there was no ruling banning collective licensing at all (and nothing that could even be construed to hold back any collective agreement of any kind).

But if you have a collection of competitors agreeing to to work together, antitrust issues apply. It may have some impact on this case if it's found that the cross licensing is an antitrust issue, but there's nothing that would prevent any group from collective licenses (presuming other laws not examined in this ruling aren't broken).

Re:The supreme court would say MPeg LA is illegal

[Teancum]

The problem is the exclusive nature of the agreements signed by the various parties, where those joining the pool are barred by contract from joining another licensing pool. That is significant and may apply to the NFL as well if there were to be a team that would want to independently license its logos and mascots or team uniforms under a separate licensing agreement.

It is this exclusive arrangement that is at the heart of the MPEG-LA lawsuit by Nero. The major media companies and consumer media equipment manufacturers certainly have been engaging in acts for some time that locks potential competitors out of the market for some time.

It is good that this regime is being called on the carpet and being called exactly what it should be: A trust in the classic sense like the rail barons of a previous century were doing that caused the anti-trust legislation to be enacted in the first place. It is about bloody time!

That's just what Microsoft did to Spyglass

[Rob Y.]

When Microsoft bought the spyglass browser and turned it into IE, they agreed to pay spyglass a percentage of the sale price. Ultimately, they made the sale price $.00, wiping out spyglass's revenue stream in a classic MS double-cross.

I don't know why Spyglass never sued. IE was made a part of Windows, which was definitely not free. Sure, they made IE available as a free download, but they also included it on every Windows CD. Maybe there was a quiet suit and settlement?

Re:That's just what Microsoft did to Spyglass

[Kalriath]

Although I agree that it was bad, the outcome (free browsers - as in beer and in speech) certainly was to everyone's benefit. Netscape needed to die.

Re:That's just what Microsoft did to Spyglass

[Fnkmaster]

They did sue. The settlement, however, was for a pathetic $8M according to this source.

Re:That's just what Microsoft did to Spyglass

[Anonymous Coward]

"I am altering the deal. Pray I don't alter it any further" works in a lot of situations.

Re:That's just what Microsoft did to Spyglass

[Anonymous Coward]

Spyglass got a paltry $8m payoff. That's how much it cost to take down the billion dollar netscape.

Re:That's just what Microsoft did to Spyglass

[smash]

Netscape did the majority of the destruction themselves. Anyone who used Netscape since day dot can agree that their product degenerated into a buggy unstable pile of shit. Ms screwing spyglass was simply a nail in the coffin. I remember when I stopped installing Netscape on windows boxes back in the ie4 days. It was nothing to do with ie being great - Netscape simply got worse from an end user experience with newer versions.

Re:That's just what Microsoft did to Spyglass

[drinkypoo]

I remember when I stopped installing Netscape on windows boxes back in the ie4 days. It was nothing to do with ie being great - Netscape simply got worse from an end user experience with newer versions.

I'm trying really hard to remember a time when using IE was better than using Netscape, and no time actually comes to mind. IE always crashed more, and rendered pages more poorly, until the time when we had IE6, but we also got post-Netscape browsers.

Re:That's just what Microsoft did to Spyglass

[shutdown -p now]

IE5 was vastly superior to NN it competed against on all counts - standards compliance, rendering speed, stability. IE4 is more arguable, but at least it was more standards compliant, while NN was still stuck in its own universe with <layer> and whatnot.

Re:That's just what Microsoft did to Spyglass

[smash]

Also ie4 and 5 were pretty much required for windows update to work anyway. There was No gain by installing Netscape after ie4 more so version 5. Other browser? Sure. But not Netscape. Navigator peaked in v2 or 3.

Re:That's just what Microsoft did to Spyglass

[shutdown -p now]

Also ie4 and 5 were pretty much required for windows update to work anyway.

That is not relevant when comparing IE and NN as browsers in their own right.

Re:That's just what Microsoft did to Spyglass

[drinkypoo]

You forgot security. Even back then IE was the less secure browser. But frankly, I think you're way way way off base on the stability issue. I've NEVER had Netscape be crashier than IE, NEVER. And I've been using and authoring for the web since there was only one GUI browser that worked, so I have plenty of perspective. Further, I ran Netscape on SunOS4 and 5, Linux, and Windows from 3.1, and I simply do not believe you :)

Re:That's just what Microsoft did to Spyglass

[shutdown -p now]

Well, apparently, sufficiently many users have had experiences different from yours to have the following written in NN article on Wikipedia:

The aging Netscape Communicator 4.x code was slower than Internet Explorer 5.0. Typical web pages had become heavily illustrated, often JavaScript-intensive, and encoded with HTML features designed for specific purposes but now employed as global layout tools (HTML tables, the most obvious example of this, were especially difficult for Communicator to render). The Netscape browser, once a solid product, became crash-prone and buggy; for example, some versions re-downloaded an entire web page to re-render it when the browser window was re-sized (a nuisance to dial-up users), and the browser would usually crash when the page contained simple Cascading Style Sheets. Moreover, Netscape Communicator's browser interface design appeared dated in comparison to Internet Explorer and interface changes in Microsoft and Apple's operating systems.

which certainly does mesh well with what I remember. To be more specific, though, this is strictly NN4 (I haven't ever used the preceding versions).

And WP is far from being Microsoft-friendly in general, which is not exactly surprising, given a large proportion of geeks in the audience. Just check articles on OOXML...

Re:That's just what Microsoft did to Spyglass

[drinkypoo]

which certainly does mesh well with what I remember. To be more specific, though, this is strictly NN4 (I haven't ever used the preceding versions).

4 was a bit of a mess but 3 was still being updated when 4 was out.

Further, there are no citations in your copied paragraph, and only one citation in the entire section in which it appears. Not a very good Wikipedia article to cite in turn as a result.

Frankly, I never had IE3 or IE4 actually stay running long enough to perform a decent evaluation, the browser would crap itself and explode when I tried to view pages that worked fine in Netscape. The complaint about standards compliance is laughable, since in those days, Netscape was the de facto target. In those days, ISPs and OEMs alike actually bundled Netscape with their products. IE was simply not worth using until IE5, and that's when security got totally horrible as well.

Obligatory...

[DoofusOfDeath]

Correlation does not imply causality :)

Re:Obligatory...

[Anonymous Coward]

Cause and Effect does not imply correlation.

Patent pools. Now small feudal fiefs

[unity100]

isnt the patent thing way past the point it should be abolished ? we were dreading the basic logic concepts being patented, but it seems these people already found ways to even circumvent such stuff, and created fiefs with 'pools' instead.

this is ridiculous beyond this point.

Where?

[Anonymous Coward]

I just got a 100 disk cakebox of taiyo yuden Cds for around I think 30 bucks shipped. Where can I get 100 1 gig flashdrives for similar, plus a few cents more a unit?, call it total price 33 bucks?

No, what it means is

[Anonymous Coward]

You seem to be implying that because MPEG-LA says it infringes, of course it must!

The parent poster is saying that VP8 does not infringe. He is absolutely right. Unless you can find a judge that agrees with your thinking, you have to acknowledge that you're full of crap.

the NFL decision from the court

[ciaran_o_riordan]

Here's the Supreme Court's decision:

http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/09pdf/08-661.pdf

No other way.

[snadrus]

I can buy a steel plate that has 10-billion holes per square inch (used for an industrial centrifuge). I'm sure there's a patent on how they made it. Just looking at it, I've got no idea how they did it. It must have taken research effort. Many of today's patents take no research effort (obvious), so they're unavoidable.

Errata

[westlake]

On subscription sales:

500,000 - 1 million

$75,000/yr

Re:Errata

[statusbar]

Apparently though, they have a history of retroactively changing pricing structures and demanding retroactive payments.

Can you trust them?

Codec greed

[Anonymous Coward]

People like to complain about Microsoft, Google, Wal*Mart, oil companies...If the average person knew how much of their money went to mpeg-la and Dolby it would be staggering. And they keep trying to find more ways to make you pay. Pretty soon they will expect a payment every time you watch movie you already own. Have a family of four? They'll want you to have to buy four licenses.

Re:Codec greed

[marcosdumay]

"If the average person knew how much of their money went to mpeg-la and Dolby it would be staggering."

Let's keep things on perspective. That is quite a small industry, the average person gives them very little money. It is just that they are a kind of thugs specialized on making noise, and most of the noise appears on areas that we are interested on.

Waiting for this?

[Trogre]

I wonder if Nero AG had been waiting for a ruling on software patents in their homeland before deciding to move on this.

Anything that takes down MPEG-LA seems like a good thing IMO. Software patents must die.

Eminent Domain for ideas?

[mstrcat]

So I'm pretty much convinced that the US patent system is completely borked as far as its 'promote the arts and sciences', at least in the realm of software and business methods. These patents easily lend themselves to patent abuse and Apple, HP, MPEG-LA are some of the worst of bunch. And even if we get some decent patent reform, previously filed patents are still going to cause head-aches for a couple of decades. Perhaps the solution is similar to Eminent Domain, only in this case things like the MPEG-LA patent pools are forcibly bought up for a few million dollars and pushed into the public domain. Once the patents are pushed into the public domain, MPEG-LA can use their expertise to develop the new generation of video codecs, instead of claiming 'no one can develop any compressed video software without a license from us.

How can there be 1000 patents!?

[91degrees]

The spec is 282 pages. This would mean that for each page of specification (including examples, contents, explanations) there are at least 3 innovative "technologies".

Doesn't sound all that believable.

Re:How can there be 1000 patents!?

[TheTurtlesMoves]

Its not. If you read some of the patents they probably won't last long in court. But the starting price for court proceedings in about $1M, and 1000 patents makes challenging the patents untenable.

No i am not a lawyer, but i did get legal advice.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

how about...

[sxpert]

attacking the MPEG-LA under the RICO statutes ?
after all, they're a mafia that uses intimidation and racketeering

MPEG/LA == SCO's $699 Linux license

[Anonymous Coward]

MPEG/LA == SCO's $699 Linux license

Do I have to say any more?

Re:MPEG/LA == SCO's $699 Linux license

[ZachPruckowski]

In this case, there's actually a legitimate chance that they own relevant patents that'll survive a challenge.

Yeah, wrong use of "use"

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, wrong use of "use". Deliberately so you can kill the truth: you can use a patented product yourself, you can reverse engineer the method of production, you can make copies and see how they work with various changes. If you COULDN'T, how could you improve on someone else's work?

But if you make your business over the patented product, that's ABUSE, not use.

Claims and description

[tepples]

When does an idea or set of ideas become an implementation?

Every patent has both a set of claims and a description of the preferred embodiment. The description is supposed to be a spec that any competent programmer can translate into code, while the claims describe the essential steps for something to fall under the patent. Software patents tend to claim "a computer system that performs task X by performing steps A, B, C, and D", and in the case of a video codec, task X is "prepares a video signal for transmission through a network".

Convince 51%

[tepples]

You gave a legal answer to a moral question: which means you didn't answer the question.

Then add the following at the end of any legal answer to a moral question: "The dissonance between law and morality is because 51% of voters do not think like you."

I find it hilarious...

[CondeZer0]

When people tries to use antitrust legislation to fix what is the result of government granted monopolies.

Why not instead get rid of the government granted monopolies instead? Yet one more example of how government loves to 'fix' the unintended consequences of its intervention in the free market with an endless spiral of further intervention.

True patent reform

[Anonymous Coward]

The antitrust argument doesn't seem to have been too successful in court, at least in the arena of pharmaceutical pay-for-delay agreements (see In re Ciprofloxacin Antitrust Litigation, decided last month). Courts have been loath to inject public interest arguments into issues concerning settled law. That being the case, likely it will be up to Congress to take action to address antitrust concerns in regard to patents. Perhaps when the next patent reform bill is introduced, ten years from now?

MPEG-LA burn in hell

[Anonymous Coward]

i bought an ice-cream maker. now each time i make ice-cream with it, i need to pay the manufacturer a license fee. and each time i sell my ice-cream to someone, i again need to pay the license fee on behalf of the buyer so that he can legally taste my ice-cream. also, each time i buy milk, the milk vendor collects license fee from me on behalf of the manufacturer because i may use the milk to make ice-cream.

Anonymous Coward