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Company Sues MPEG-LA, Claiming Antitrust Violations Over Patents
,----[ Quote ]
| It's no secret (though certain copyright
| and patent system defenders insist
| otherwise) that copyrights and patents are
| monopoly privileges, granted by the
| government. In fact, some of our elected
| officials have made the argument that
| antitrust law should be used against the
| worst abuses of intellectual property law.
| While it's unclear how successfully that
| will play in courts, we may soon have a
| bit of a test case. Slashdot points us to
| the news that German company Nero AG is
| suing MPEG-LA, claiming abuse of monopoly
| power with its patent pools for licensing
| digital video codecs.
`----
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100524/1451239553.shtml
Nero Files Antitrust Case Against MPEG-LA
,----[ Quote ]
| Nero AG, a company with one of the most
| fitting names ever (can you imagine a
| company called Hitler or Stalin 2000 years
| from now?), has filed an anti-trust
| lawsuit against the MPEG-LA. The German
| technology company claims the licensing
| body has abused its monopoly power, and
| that is has not honoured agreements made
| with the US Department of Justice. There's
| some juicy stuff in here.
`----
http://www.osnews.com/story/23346/Nero_Files_Antitrust_Case_Against_MPEG-LA
Patent Troll MPEG-LA Takes Aim at GOOGLE/VP8
,----[ Quote ]
| They make no bones about it. These trolls
| are âgoing afterâ users of technology.
| They are pirates. Let us hope SCOTUS pops
| their balloon today.
`----
http://pogson.6k.ca/2010/05/24/patent-troll-mpeg-la-takes-aim-at-googlevp8/
WebM (VP8): safe and royalty-free?
,----[ Quote ]
| For the time being, I believe it's best to
| wait until there are news, either positive
| ones from Google (concerning its patent
| clearance and/or its indemnification
| policy) or negative ones from other patent
| holders. One way or the other, this
| situation should be clarified before
| anyone takes a risk.
`----
http://fosspatents.blogspot.com/2010/05/webm-vp8-safe-and-royalty-free.html
An analysis of WebM and its patent risk
,----[ Quote ]
| So, calling Google out for releasing the
| study on possible patent infringement is
| something that has no sense at all: they
| will never release it to the public.
`----
http://carlodaffara.conecta.it/?p=420
Google support aside, WebM carries patent risks from MPEG LA
http://arstechnica.com/open-source/news/2010/05/google-support-aside-webm-carries-patent-risks-from-mpeg-la.ars
FUD pushing back hard against Google WebM
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/open-source/fud-pushing-back-hard-against-google-webm/6548
WebM Poised to Bring Open Video to the Masses
http://www.linux-mag.com/cache/7786/1.html
Some personal comments about Google's WebM
,----[ Quote ]
| Now, Dark Shikari of x264 fame dissected
| the codec and in part the file format; his
| words are â not unexpectedly, especially
| for those who know him â quite harsh, but
| as Mike put it âThis open sourcing event
| has legs.â
`----
http://blog.flameeyes.eu/2010/05/22/some-personal-comments-about-google-s-webm
Re: VP8 and WebM--Thank you, Google! (P.S. Let's talk)
,----[ Quote ]
| This note from Apple was like a rabid dog
| barking at the pound, for it seemed to set
| off a flurry of patent-rattling from all
| corners, with Microsoft quickly claiming
| that Salesforce.com infringed nine of
| their patents, Nokia claiming that Apple
| infringed 5 more of its patents, HTC
| getting into the fray, etc.
|
| And then along comes Google. And instead
| of piling on to this patent suit scrum,
| they offer immunity instead. Which is
| astonishing.
|
| I have to give some props to the FSF for
| asking for precisely what Google seems to
| have decided to do. They wrote an open
| letter asking Google to free VP8 and use
| it on YouTube. The bigger part of that
| decision now seems to have been effected.
| Which, to use the FSF's own adjective, is
| amazing. And cause for both gratitude and
| celebration.
|
| And of course this is not the end of the
| story, but the beginning. The license
| Google wrote for VP8 smacks of OSD
| goodness, but it has not yet been
| submitted to the OSI for approval. Should
| the OSI approve yet another license?
| Should the OSI treat a patent grant
| attached to a license we've already
| approved as two separate items, a patent
| grant (which is great) and a license we've
| already approved? Clearly Google is trying
| to do the right thing. We are trying to do
| the right thing. What remains to be seen
| is whether the H.264 are going to do the
| right thing and offer all their patents as
| required by the Open Standards
| Requirements (OSR) or whether Apple will
| do the right thing and defend, rather than
| attack, the open source community and its
| right to enjoy watching a movie on the
| laptop of their choice.
`----
http://opensource.org/node/521
â Problems With WebM?
http://webmink.com/2010/05/24/%e2%98%9e-problems-with-webm/
WebM: Missing The Assurances Open Source Needs?
,----[ Quote ]
| The announcement last week at Google IO of
| the creation of the WebM project and the
| release of the VP8 codec was a positive
| and welcome development, finally offering
| an alternative for online media to the
| royalty-liable H.264 and to Theora. WebM
| arises from Google's purchase of ON2 last
| year and had been widely anticipated
|
| Google did their homework, securing
| endorsements from competing browser
| vendors Opera and Mozilla and even from
| Adobe (possibly in exchange for Google's
| endorsement of Flash on their TV platform)
| and, weakly, from Microsoft. The parade is
| now in full swing, and we can expect many
| more announcements of support like the one
| from the Miro Project. Only Apple was
| painfully absent, pushing the Google-Apple
| tension further into the spotlight
|
| [...]
|
| Despite their claims that WebM was been
| checked for patent risks when ON2 was
| acquired, Google has neither made its
| research available nor does it offer a
| patent indemnity. Google has expressed
| extreme confidence in the patent safety of
| WebM, yet has failed to create a patent
| pool with its other endorsers and grant
| free and indemnified licenses to WebM
| contributors.
|
| That means the path is open for those
| hostile to digital liberty, such as the
| MPEG-LA licensing cartel, to 'tax' VP8
| users - they have already declared an
| intent to do so. Google should rapidly
| create "WebM-LA" with $0 licensing terms
| for those willing to commit to digital
| liberty.
`----
http://www.computerworlduk.com/community/blogs/index.cfm?entryid=2973&blogid=41
Phipps: WebM/VP8 "not currently open source"
,----[ Quote ]
| According to OSI board member Simon
| Phipps, the VP8 codec, which Google
| released last week as part of the WebM
| project, is "not currently open source".
| In a blog posting, Phipps notes that the
| licence used by Google has not been
| submitted to the Open Source Initiative
| (OSI) for approval and that it "possibly
| can't be approved". The problem is that
| although the licence Google uses for VP8
| is based on the Apache licence, it
| includes a "field of use" restriction in
| the patent grant section which is limited
| to "this implementation of VP8".
`----
http://www.h-online.com/open/news/item/Phipps-WebM-VP8-not-currently-open-source-1006014.html
When video gets ugly
,----[ Quote ]
| Unsurprisingly, Apple and Microsoft are
| among the companies licensing the use of
| H.264, so stand to make money, and lots of
| it if the format is widely adopted.
|
| The only other competitor to H.264, until
| a couple of days ago, was Theora, an open
| source format favoured by Mozilla, Google
| and Opera. But the chances of Theora
| succeeding have always seemed very slim,
| particularly as Jobs has already made it
| clear that Apple was looking at hitting
| Theora hard with patent suits.
|
| Apple and Microsoft have also made it very
| clear that they wouldn't be supporting
| Theora in their future browser releases.
`----
http://mybroadband.co.za/news/columns/12551-When-video-gets-ugly.html
Moovida Media Player now supports WebM (VP8) Video format
,----[ Quote ]
| Looking for a media player to playback
| your videos converted to open WebM with
| Miro Video Converter, then grab Moovida
| media player. Open Source Moovida media
| player formerly known as Elisa is one of
| the first media players to boast support
| of the open source VP8 codec.
`----
http://www.kabatology.com/05/22/moovida-media-player-now-supports-webm-vp8-video-format/
Linux WebM Labs, minor update
http://my.opera.com/desktopteam/blog/2010/05/22/linux-webm-labs-minor-update
MPEG-LA Considering Patent Pool For VP8/WebM
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/10/05/21/133249/MPEG-LA-Considering-Patent-Pool-For-VP8WebM
x264 on the Google WebM move
http://arebentisch.wordpress.com/2010/05/23/x264-on-the-google-webm-move/
First Look: H.264 and VP8 Compared
,----[ Quote ]
| VP8 is now free, but if the quality is
| substandard, who cares? Well, it turns out
| that the quality isn't substandard, so
| that's not an issue, but neither is it
| twice the quality of H.264 at half the
| bandwidth. See for yourself, below.
|
| To set the table, Sorenson Media was kind
| enough to encode these comparison files
| for me to both H.264 and VP8 using their
| Squish encoding tool. They encoded a
| standard SD encoding test file that I've
| been using for years. I'll do more testing
| once I have access to a VP8 encoder, but
| wanted to share these quick and dirty
| results.
`----
http://www.streamingmedia.com/Articles/Editorial/Featured-Articles/First-Look-H.264-and-VP8-Compared-67266.aspx
Recent:
10 questions for MPEG LA on H.264
,----[ Quote ]
| MPEG LA: Yes, since the Web site is
| receiving remuneration for the AVC video
| content it makes available on a
| subscription basis, it would benefit from
| the coverage our AVC License provides. The
| amount of royalties owed, if any, would
| depend on the number of Subscribers to
| that website during a calendar year:
|
| 100,000 or fewer subscribers/year = no
| royalty;
| 100,001 - 250,000 subscribers/year =
| $25,000;
| 250,001 - 500,000 subscribers/year =
| $50,000;
| 500,001 - 1,000,000 subscribers/year =
| $75,000;
| and more than 1,000,000 subscribers/year =
| $100,000.
`----
http://www.betanews.com/article/10-questions-for-MPEG-LA-on-H264/1274306999
Canonical clarifies its H.264 licence
,----[ Quote ]
| When purchasing an OEM machine with Ubuntu
| pre-installed, there is currently no way to
| tell, without the manufacturer explicitly
| specifying them, which software and codecs
| are bundled with the machine. A device may
| be validated as Ubuntu Compatible, which
| means the OEM has tested the system and
| Canonical has verified the test, or as
| Ubuntu Certified, which means that
| Canonical have performed the testing.
| Kenyon points to the Ubuntu Certified list
| on the Canonical site, which lists systems
| from Lenovo, ASUSTek, HP, Toshiba, Samsung
| and Dell. Kenyon added "We have explored
| setting some minimum requirements for
| codecs, but this is not something that we
| presently do".
|
| So the rule of thumb is that an arbitrary
| Ubuntu system does not have a H.264 licence
| via Canonical, unless it's an OEM system
| which specifically lists the H.264 licence
| in its documentation or marketing
| materials.
`----
http://www.h-online.com/open/news/item/Canonical-clarifies-its-H-264-licence-993182.html
Canonical explains Ubuntu unfree video choice
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/05/05/canonical_h264_video/
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