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Google Announces WebM Community Cross Licensing
theweatherelectric writes "Google's WebM project has announced the formation of the WebM Community Cross-License Initiative. Members of the WebM-CCL agree to license patents they may hold that are essential to WebM technologies to other members under royalty-free terms. This initiative would seem to address some of Microsoft's concerns about WebM. Meanwhile, the MPEG LA appears to have remained silent after the submission period of its call for patents essential to WebM ended over a month ago."
It appears that Google isnt so sure any more about how much of WebM it owns. While there have been no public statements about what patents VP8/WebM infringes on, there have almost certainly been cases of patent holders making specific claims in private. How many of those claims are valid remains to be seen, but it sure looks like at least a few of them are being considered by Google as too risky to fight, so here we are with a patent pool proposal that offers a win-win for all involved rather than patent fights.
"His name was James Damore."
I wonder if apple will support this format on mobile devices.
It won't go anywhere unless they do, since apple is a huge player in this space.
The important thing is the royalty free part.
See, there are 2 kinds of reasons to contribute to these codecs: 1) to collect license fees 2) to actually sell products that use them.
For the companies in (2), the license fees are a nuisance that potentially stops their products from getting more widespread acceptance. This is why some big guys, which are mostly (2), already joined Google. Even if they gain from the license fees, its much smaller than the actual product sales. They tend to be in the MPEG-LA only because that makes it cheaper to do (2), not because they want (1).
So, if you revenue "depended on video codecs", the critical question is if your revenue is coming only from the patents (also called "patent troll") or if you were actually making products.
VHS had worse picture quality than Betamax, but you could do much more with it.
MPEG-LA is now in the position of having to compete against a free alternative, that's probably good enough for most applications.
Two or three times now they've announced a ramp-up in royalty rates, to be beaten back by industry pressure. Their business model has always been to start out with low prices, then ramp them up later. What's their business model now?
If h.264 stays cheap forever, then Google has won. If People switch to WebM, then Google has won. Either way, their investment pays back; and people wonder how anybody can ever make money with free software.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
So MPEG-LA is the root of evil because year after year they remain silent?
Hardly silent. Most people don't like them because their business plan is to "get 'em hooked first, then start charging them" like a drug dealer does.
It's just that WebM prevents a credible enough threat to that business plan that it keeps getting revised to be less offensive. If WebM weren't around, they'd be charging individuals per minute of their home movies of the kids. Which would create a market incentive for something like a WebM.
The market works, except for government interference. In this case, patents could tilt this balance, which is what this article is about.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)