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Nero Files Antitrust Complaint Against MPEG-LA

Posted by Soulskill on from the hot-topics-getting-hotter dept.

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."

5 of 247 comments (clear)

  1. About time. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Good luck guys, may the force be with you.

    1. Re:About time. by DavidR1991 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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

  2. Re:MPEG_LA Isn't the devil by MBGMorden · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    --
    "People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
  3. Re:MPEG_LA Isn't the devil by Darkness404 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    --
    Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
  4. Re:MPEG_LA Isn't the devil by forkazoo · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.