Unfortunatelly this argument does not fly [LWN.net]

Unfortunatelly this argument does not fly

Posted Jul 7, 2009 1:08 UTC (Tue) by PaulWay (guest, #45600)
In reply to: Unfortunatelly this argument does not fly by khim
Parent article: Ogg codecs dropped from HTML5

I don't think you're truly comparing apples and oranges. If you can point out a company about the same size as Microsoft, Apple or Nokia who is also publishing their work unencumbered by patents then I think we can fairly say that publishing work without patents takes longer. But your example misses the obvious detail that the companies working on patent-free technologies (e.g. Xiph) are small, relatively low-budget groups - even the Dirac project has been slow simply because it's a very small part of the BBC and has about three developers over its lifetime. This is probably related to the fact that these groups don't charge for licenses for using their products.

In reality, swift development is caused by large, well-funded teams, not by patent licenses. (And it's still not a guarantee of smooth sailing - look at all the companies now claiming to own patents on parts of the MP3 decoding or playback process...) Patent licenses are just coincident with well-funded teams.

Another counterexample: the CELT codec developed by Xiph.org is an excellent low-latency codec that competes with the best high-latency codecs in quality, and it was developed over two years by a very small team. Its core mathematics is unpatentable as the main paper covering the idea was written in 1975...

I agree with you on the point that patents improve the landscape for creators at the expense of technology adopters. Other organisations and governments are realising this too and I think we are starting to see a shift in the landscape away from encouraging pure creation to encouraging adoption.

(We need to keep the balance, however, because it's easy to argue that adoption is best served by a monopoly on who can create new software, and that's just what Apple and Microsoft would be happy to support.)

Huh? What are you talking about?

Posted Jul 7, 2009 3:51 UTC (Tue) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] (10 responses)

But your example misses the obvious detail that the companies working on patent-free technologies (e.g. Xiph) are small, relatively low- budget groups - even the Dirac project has been slow simply because it's a very small part of the BBC and has about three developers over its lifetime.

Miss? What miss? This is central part of my example: wave smell of future royalties - and "big boys" will come and make everything swiftly and effectively. Remove this smell - and development takes years because only small groups of enthusiasts are doing it.

This is probably related to the fact that these groups don't charge for licenses for using their products.

Bingo!

In reality, swift development is caused by large, well-funded teams, not by patent licenses.

Sure, but patents are one way to make large, well-funded team possible. Not the way to do, but a way to do it. If it's the best way - that's the question.

Another counterexample: the CELT codec developed by Xiph.org is an excellent low-latency codec that competes with the best high-latency codecs in quality, and it was developed over two years by a very small team. Its core mathematics is unpatentable as the main paper covering the idea was written in 1975...

And that's it's probably why it was not use in H.26x standards. Patents are two-edged sword, and that is my point.

(We need to keep the balance, however, because it's easy to argue that adoption is best served by a monopoly on who can create new software, and that's just what Apple and Microsoft would be happy to support.)

It's not easy at all. Sure, it's easy to push one new idea if you have the monopoly, but then the temptation is high to stifle all other ideas (again: think mobile phones and VoIP), so monopoly is not an answer. I can not see how you can ever argue it's the best way: problems with adoption of patented/copyrighted solutions are the monopoly (that's what the patents and copyrights grant the creator). To try to fix this problem of excessive monopolization by introduction of another monopoly is like the advice to extinguish a fire with gasoline...

Huh? What are you talking about?

Posted Jul 7, 2009 5:01 UTC (Tue) by wblew (subscriber, #39088) [Link] (2 responses)

Digital video technology has been developed and sold in Europe where software patents are (mostly?) not applicable.

The argument fails to hold water.

Huh? What are you talking about?

Posted Jul 7, 2009 5:14 UTC (Tue) by gmaxwell (guest, #30048) [Link]

What are all these European patent numbers? http://www.mpegla.com/avc/avc-att1.pdf

Are you sure?

Posted Jul 7, 2009 5:17 UTC (Tue) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link]

1. How many codecs developed in Europe without help from US companies do you know? How successfull they are?

2. MPEG-LA does have patens in other countries besides US. The full list is not easy to find (why the hell do we have "open standards" which unclude closed list of patents), but here are list of MPGE-audio-related from a single ~~patent troll~~ firm. I presume video patents include equally impressive list.

Learn the facts before writing the answers. It's not clear what role patents played in audio/video codecs development, but to claim that the fact that some codecs can be used in some small parts of the world without fear changes the situation totally is to fool yourself.

Huh? What are you talking about?

Posted Jul 7, 2009 5:08 UTC (Tue) by gmaxwell (guest, #30048) [Link]

There is an effort underway to get the IETF to allow an (audio) codec working group which would focus on the creating and standardization of royalty free (audio) codecs for the Internet.

If you're interested in this I strongly suggest you read the archives and get involved: http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/codec/current/mail9....

Huh? What are you talking about?

Posted Jul 7, 2009 14:11 UTC (Tue) by madscientist (subscriber, #16861) [Link] (5 responses)

I don't see what makes video codecs so much different/more special than other areas of software development. Surely you're not suggesting that software development was stymied and slow before patents? Surely you're not suggesting that the only motivating factor for interesting or innovative (or rapid/efficient) software development is patents? That is demonstrably false. So why are video codecs unique in this way?

For what it's worth I've worked on a LOT of software projects for companies both big and small, and never once in all those years was ANY decision about what to build or whether or not to build something EVER based on whether we could get a patent or not. It's just not true that that this is something companies think at all about, or depend on in revenue forecasts etc., before they commit resources. Similarly, I've NEVER been involved with or even heard about a situation where development was stopped because it was discovered that the work was not patentable after all (obviously stopping or changing work because it was discovered that the work was or might have been already patented is quite another thing).

What really happens is that mid-to-late in the software development cycle managers ask the more senior developers to consider whether anything they've been working on might be patentable, and if so to help the legal department fill out a patent application. Most of the time you don't hear anything about the patent until you've already moved on to completely new things.

There are similarities, there are differences...

Posted Jul 7, 2009 17:12 UTC (Tue) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] (4 responses)

I don't see what makes video codecs so much different/more special than other areas of software development.

There are no differences if we are talking about "just a codec" (things like Theora, Vorbis or Dirac). There are big differences if we are talking about "media format" (be it VHS, CD, DVD or MPEG4).

Surely you're not suggesting that software development was stymied and slow before patents?

Not at all.

So why are video codecs unique in this way?

Videocodecs are not unique: there are audio codecs too. That's because it's place where software development mets content distribution. CD, VHS, DVD, ATRAC, MPEG, etc - all these developments are heavily influenced by future royalties and huge firm create and break huge alliances in fight to control future markets. The latest such battle was HD-DVD vs Blu-Ray - have you already forgotten about this? Questions about patents and future royalties figured prominently in the fight.

For what it's worth I've worked on a LOT of software projects for companies both big and small, and never once in all those years was ANY decision about what to build or whether or not to build something EVER based on whether we could get a patent or not.

How many of these projects were about collaborative development by fierce competitors?

The fact that as result of this collision we've got all this patent mess is unfortunate, but it's quite obvious that we only get these standards (H.261, MPEG1 and all others) as early as we did is because software become patentable at this point.

There are similarities, there are differences...

Posted Jul 7, 2009 23:50 UTC (Tue) by bojan (subscriber, #14302) [Link] (3 responses)

> Videocodecs are not unique: there are audio codecs too. That's because it's place where software development mets content distribution. CD, VHS, DVD, ATRAC, MPEG, etc - all these developments are heavily influenced by future royalties and huge firm create and break huge alliances in fight to control future markets. The latest such battle was HD-DVD vs Blu-Ray - have you already forgotten about this? Questions about patents and future royalties figured prominently in the fight.

This is by far the biggest pile of crap big copyright holders are peddling. Even if there was not a patent in site, these would still hold true:

- many people would go and watch films in theatres
- many people would rent media
- many people would buy media

It is not about whether they can make good money on all this. Oh, no! It is about whether they can rip you off for _more_ than they would normally be able to. That's why they want patents - no other reason.

Huh? What are you talking about?

Posted Jul 8, 2009 3:15 UTC (Wed) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] (2 responses)

It is not about whether they can make good money on all this. Oh, no! It is about whether they can rip you off for _more_ than they would normally be able to. That's why they want patents - no other reason.

Nice new collection of straw mans you have here. Again: we are talking not about guys who develop DRM and sell movies, but about guys who develop codecs for these movies. Some (but not all!) of them have one and only one incentive: future royalties from associated patents. Kinda like Rambus. People may hate them, people may love them but it does not change the fact that such firms do exist.

Huh? What are you talking about?

Posted Jul 8, 2009 11:39 UTC (Wed) by pboddie (guest, #50784) [Link]

I too am struggling to see what is being discussed now:

I don't see what makes video codecs so much different/more special than other areas of software development.
There are no differences if we are talking about "just a codec" (things like Theora, Vorbis or Dirac). There are big differences if we are talking about "media format" (be it VHS, CD, DVD or MPEG4).

Plus...

The fact that as result of this collision we've got all this patent mess is unfortunate, but it's quite obvious that we only get these standards (H.261, MPEG1 and all others) as early as we did is because software become patentable at this point.

Then...

Again: we are talking not about guys who develop DRM and sell movies, but about guys who develop codecs for these movies.

If I understand you correctly, you're saying that a significant incentive for people to develop codecs is the ability to patent them, although that incentive doesn't exist for other software. But then you suggest that a patent isn't really an incentive for developing a codec after all, but it's the ability to bundle the patent in a standard which is the incentive, and by insisting on everyone using that standard, a nice little tax is imposed on a whole domain.

Again, there's an assumption that one thing follows from another: in this case, that patents lead to standards. Yet we know that standards quite happily emerge without people asserting patents on those standards: various Web standards have convincingly demolished the top-down, patent-heavy, pay-per-copy standardisation model. If anything, patents merely lead to standards cartels and that pernicious little tax I mentioned above that becomes impossible to avoid.

Meanwhile, I think it's disingenuous to claim that the people who want DRM are distinct from those making the standards. An insistence on the most egregious DRM mechanisms is a well-known excuse used to discourage people from using open formats on an open Web, all under the banner of standardisation.

Huh? What are you talking about?

Posted Jul 8, 2009 21:57 UTC (Wed) by bojan (subscriber, #14302) [Link]

> Some (but not all!) of them have one and only one incentive: future royalties from associated patents.

For something to be distributed, it has to exist (i.e. you need to make a movie, music etc.). So, without these folks (the content providers), there is no mass distribution. If they want to distribute this in digital format, one has to exist. If software patents exist and one technology corners the market, royalty collection is not just from the content, but also from the patents enabling the content to be seen (in some cases it is the same company collecting both: see Sony). That would be the double dipping.

Now, if software patents didn't exist, digital media still would (same reason as before: smaller, faster, cheaper, better). Content producers would make sure someone develops the codecs for them, so they can sell the content. Everyone still gets paid, just not in perpetuity.

Unfortunatelly this argument does not fly