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| By Thom Holwerda, submitted by aa on 2011-02-11 16:00:00 |
| Well, well, well. The MPEG-LA is showing its true colours. After a decade of threatening to patent troll the living heck out of Theora, the company led by a patent troll has now finally put its money where its mouth is. Well, sort of. They don't actually have any patents yet, they're asking people to submit patents they believe are essential to the VP8 specification. Update: MPEG (so not the MPEG-LA) has announced its intent to develop a new video compression standard for the web which will be royalty-free. "The new standard is intended to achieve substantially better compression performance than that offered by MPEG-2 and possibly comparable to that offered by the AVC Baseline Profile. MPEG will issue a call for proposals on video compression technology at the end of its upcoming meeting in March 2011 that is expected to lead to a standard falling under ISO/IEC 'Type-1 licensing', i.e. intended to be 'royalty free'." |
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| About time. |
| By RichterKuato on 2011-02-11 16:13:34 |
| I was beginning to think they were just going to stick to FUDing. |
 - Score: 1 |
| Comment by Kroc |
| By Kroc on 2011-02-11 16:18:01 |
| "Prediction: MPEG-LA will sue someone before the year is out. They’re sitting pretty atm. But they have everyone’s arse on a collecting plate"--Kroc--13th Jan. |
| - Score: 5 |
| I want to sue for millions but feeling a bit lazy |
| By Adurbe on 2011-02-11 16:18:59 |
|
any chance you could do all the hard work and track down all relevant patents so I can buy them/ persuade the owner to sue? Would save me a lot of time and I still make millions. You get... umm.. you beat Pirates! Well done you! |
| - Score: 8 |
| RE: I want to sue for millions but feeling a bit lazy |
| By Praxis on 2011-02-11 16:28:52 |
| It reads more like a call to find out who all wants to sue, or form a patent pool in their language. Its saying 'hey if you feel you have a patent that you can stick to vp8 join in we are gonna start a party'. Its less desperate than you make it sound. |
| - Score: 3 |
| RE[2]: I want to sue for millions but feeling a bit laz |
| By Adurbe on 2011-02-11 16:40:52 |
| I am sure your analysis is more factually based than mine ;) |
| - Score: 2 |
| A Good Sign in a Way |
| By segedunum on 2011-02-11 16:41:12 |
|
I can't say any of us will be surprised, but it shows the MPEG-LA feels they have to do something and they're feeling a bit desperate. If they do nothing then VP8 will end up encroaching outwards from the web and the whole h.264 house of cards will start falling. Edited 2011-02-11 16:41 UTC |
| - Score: 3 |
| RE[2]: I want to sue for millions but feeling a bit lazy |
| By segedunum on 2011-02-11 16:43:58 |
| Yer. Probably what they would ideally want to do is stick a set of patents against VP8 so anyone using it will end up having to 'license' them through a bit of well worked FUD (worked for MP3), so making VP8 not free in practice. The MPEG-LA at least then gets a cut. |
| - Score: 2 |
| RE: About time. |
| By qbast on 2011-02-11 16:48:36 |
| They are still FUDing. |
| - Score: 8 |
| M(umblety)Peg |
| By fretinator on 2011-02-11 16:50:05 |
|
Eventually, the whole software patent system is going to come crumbling down. This might be the one to push it over the top. We have foisted on the rest of the world one naked greed maintenance system. Assuming there is even a shred of decency left anywhere, the whole insane thing will be chucked over the side. "The times they are a-changing". It's time for the "content corps" to adapt or move out of the way. |
| - Score: 3 |
| I agree, but |
| By Carewolf on 2011-02-11 16:51:30 |
| Thom, I agree with you, but still... Headlines like that bugs me, true of not. A little superficial journalist professionalism would make this site a lot easier to just pass off as the "absolute truth" ;) |
| - Score: 6 |
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