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'Free' H.264 a Precursor To WebM Patent War?
webmink writes "The MPEG LA seem unwilling to explain why they have extended their 'free' H.264 streaming video policy now. This article unpacks the history of MPEG LA and then suggests the obvious — it's all because of WebM — and the worrying — maybe it's preparing the ground for opening a third front in the patent war against Google."
ARM and W-CDMA work in similar ways. ARM happens to own the patents and licenses them to whomever for a reasonable fee. W-CDMA works in much the same way as H.264. You have a bunch of companies that decide to share patents into one resource. It makes it easy for other companies to pay 1 fee and then use the technology. And H.264's licensing terms are reasonable. There is a cost of doing business. I know that is not popular around here, but it's the truth.
Unfortunately it's going to be harder for Free software going forward. Try writing an opensource point-of-sale or e-commerce program that can directly process credit cards. You can't without spending around $20,000 for PA-DSS auditing. And I see more of these types of industry barriers to entry popping up.
"The problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other people's money" - Thatcher.
Cases like this are ones where the US government (assuming these are US patents) should step up and use their powers of eminent domain to acquire these patents, declare H.264 a government standard (like AES and DES before it) and release the patents (or a perpetual license thereto) into the public domain.
The developers of H.264 and other codecs have certainly put in a lot of research and hard thinking. I believe their algorithms should be patentable (as opposed to "software" patents that are really on UI patterns and business methods), and I believe the inventors should be justly compensated. However, for maximal furtherance of the creative arts, information interchange formats need to be standardized and unencumbered. The visual entertainment industry contributes far, far more to the US economy than the codec-designing industry, and always will. An indirect subsidy like this would be an excellent stimulus.
If they had any sense, the MPAA would by lobbying the government to make this happen, rather than trying to shore up their old distribution models with copyright crackdowns. Getting free (gratis), standard, H.264 decoders into the hands of billions of people worldwide would give them a huge boost to their audience. Unfortunately, since they represent motion picture distributors, they're probably in favour of steep licensing fees to keep the barrier to entry high for content producers wishing to distribute independently.
Be careful. People in masks cannot be trusted.
When he says "free", he means "free of patents threats". Of course you can do it "for free", but they will eventually come after you.
Ah, and when you "pass it to the OS", you need to have paid for and OS from a vendor that has paid the licensing...
exp(i*pi)+1=0
The government can take patents away for more or less any reason it likes, that congress has passed a law allowing it to. Reason is because patents are a power specifically granted to the government. Physical property ownership is considered more of a natural right. The government doesn't grant you ownership because they can't deny it either. Eminent Domain exists because they can take private property for public use, in certain circumstances, however there has to be compensation.
With patents that's not the case. The government doesn't have to grant patents at all. They have the power to do so, but it isn't required. What that means is the government owns all patents ultimately and can do as they want.
As such there are some peculiarities with patent law many don't know about. The NSA can fine secret patents. If a civilian files the same patent, the NSA patent is then revealed and granted at the time it is revealed. The government is allowed to make a law like that, since patents are one of their explicit powers.
Likewise they can take them for various reasons. Congress hasn't granted unlimited power in that regard, but there are a list of reasons for which they can say "That's ours now," and you get nothing. That was actually threatened in the NTP-RIM case and is probably part of the reason NTP took a settlement that didn't include future fees. NTP was requesting an injunction to shut down Blackberry service. The federal government wrote a brief to the court saying they believed that would have an impact on national security (the US government loves them some Blackberries, they are the biggest customer) and they'd prefer the court didn't grant it. They also noted that if it was, they might simply have to void the patent, which can be done on national security grounds. The judge then strongly suggested the two sides work their shit out now.