FFmpeg vs. MPEG-LA royalties [LWN.net]

FFmpeg vs. MPEG-LA royalties

Posted Feb 4, 2010 13:16 UTC (Thu) by pboddie (subscriber, #50784)
In reply to: FFmpeg vs. MPEG-LA royalties by DonDiego
Parent article: Blizzard: HTML5 video and H.264 - what history tells us and why we're standing with the web

So you want them to get a patent license valid for every person on earth? That basically means buying out all those patents. Do you think such a thing would be available at all? At a price Google would be willing and able to pay?

It doesn't mean buying those patents at all, but merely licensing them, which I'm sure has happened on a large scale before. But if Google's licence means that only they are practising the associated patent claims when distributing the code, and that recipients are not able to do so without a trip via the cartel's toll booth, then I think this contradicts the advice given by the FSF. Sure, you can claim that people aren't obliged to pay up to the cartel, but that's like claiming people don't have to pay their road tax or their television licence.

What do you call the "FSF's legal opinion" on the matter?

Well, I referenced the advice given by the FSF to the GStreamer project above and in a previous comment. If that's not their legal opinion then maybe you ought to tell the GStreamer people.

Your bitterness does FFmpeg a disservice. We're a big part of the free software computing stack, thus making Desktop Linux viable. In this day and age, computing without multimedia support is unthinkable.

I'm not bitter about FFmpeg, although to claim such a thing makes for a great distraction from the points being made in the original article(s). I'm merely pointing out that there are valid reasons for considering other multimedia technologies that don't appear on the MPEG cartel's pricing menu.

(And really, I don't have that much to say about Theora, so maybe you're grouping me together with a bunch of other people. Now something like Dirac is interesting because it's definitely a "professional" format and one whose patent infringement status has been thoroughly investigated by an organisation who should be able to comment on such matters with some certainty. I'm sure that some people might like to brush such formats aside and insist that everyone should get with the MPEG programme - in which case I'd really have suspicions about those people if their arguments were not limited to "it's what people on Windows expect".)

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FFmpeg vs. MPEG-LA royalties

Posted Feb 5, 2010 10:53 UTC (Fri) by DonDiego (subscriber, #24141) [Link]

> Sure, you can claim that people aren't obliged to pay up to the cartel, but that's like claiming people don't have to pay their road tax or their television licence.

This is a good comparison in fact. Nobody would think about banning cars and television worldwide just because in some parts of the world you have to pay a tax to use them.

FFmpeg vs. MPEG-LA royalties

Posted Feb 5, 2010 14:18 UTC (Fri) by pboddie (subscriber, #50784) [Link]

Sure, you can claim that people aren't obliged to pay up to the cartel, but that's like claiming people don't have to pay their road tax or their television licence.
This is a good comparison in fact. Nobody would think about banning cars and television worldwide just because in some parts of the world you have to pay a tax to use them.

Right, but I'm not advocating a "ban". I'm saying that by introducing a de-facto standard based on known-encumbered technologies, Google and friends are setting people up for such taxation. And I think that there are those of us that grudgingly accept things like genuine taxes and regulations because there is some kind of pretense of accountability and common sense behind their imposition. So, although some Free Software project may let you, for example, operate some kind of radio station, one has to grudgingly accept that for various reasons, there may be other restrictions from place to place that curtails the practical exercise of the freedoms/rights/privileges described in the software licence.

Where patents are concerned, however, there are those of us who do not consider them to be legitimate, not least because the system that upholds patents is not accountable - it's practically set up to enrich itself as its primary objective. Now, when such instruments collide with Free Software licensing, I would certainly wish to disregard them entirely and insist that they impose no limitations on the freedoms/rights/privileges described in the software licence. However, in practice, patents are used to undermine the usage and distribution of Free Software.

By licensing the MPEG patents for themselves (contrary to advice which apparently casts this strategy in a dubious light), Google acknowledges an obligation which resides beyond the software licence; through their market position, they proliferate this obligation, and then "to compete with Windows" or "to provide a proper experience" everyone becomes exposed to this obligation; since this obligation may impose unreasonable burdens on some parties (it may not be affordable for them to license the patents, for example, or maybe the cartel tells someone that they live in a "bad" country), it thereby excludes people from exchanging Free Software, thus dividing the community between the rich (with the privilege of using and distributing Free Software) and everyone else.

Google's actions are more like a strong dose of car advocacy, or even an act to mandate car ownership, when having a car at the very least probably doesn't make sense for many people, and it might even be an unwanted financial burden for others. All I and others are trying to do is to encourage more sustainable alternatives.