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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."
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.
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
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
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.
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).
Learn to love Alaska
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.