O'Callahan: The Fight For Patent-Unencumbered Media Codecs Is Nearly Won
O'Callahan: The Fight For Patent-Unencumbered Media Codecs Is Nearly Won
[Briefs] Posted Jan 10, 2018 13:33 UTC (Wed) by corbet
Robert O'Callahan notes
an important development in the fight for media codecs without patent
issues. "Apple joining the Alliance for Open Media is a really big
deal. Now all the most powerful tech companies — Google, Microsoft, Apple,
Mozilla, Facebook, Amazon, Intel, AMD, ARM, Nvidia — plus content providers
like Netflix and Hulu are on board. I guess there's still no guarantee
Apple products will support AV1, but it would seem pointless for Apple to
join AOM if they're not going to use it: apparently AOM membership obliges
Apple to provide a royalty-free license to any 'essential patents' it holds
for AV1 usage.
"