Huh? What are you talking about? [LWN.net]

Huh? What are you talking about?

Posted Jul 7, 2009 14:11 UTC (Tue) by madscientist (subscriber, #16861)
In reply to: Huh? What are you talking about? by khim
Parent article: Ogg codecs dropped from HTML5

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.

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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.