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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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| RE[4]: M(umblety)Peg |
| By Radio on 2011-02-12 19:05:00 |
| > Science is better than open source. It's open collaboration, and like capitalism, it engenders competition. You publish your methods and findings for peer review, and then others get to build on your work.And then, you say h.264 is open? If you build on their work, they would sue you. |
 - Score: 5 |
| RE[3]: I agree, but |
| By vodoomoth on 2011-02-12 19:16:45 |
| Just to make things clearer, I hope you don't feel insulted by my previous comment; it was meant to convey that your degrees don't matter to me given that (like I've told you before) I do appreciate the work editors do here. |
| - Score: 2 |
| Abuse of Monopoly Power anyone? |
| By korpenkraxar on 2011-02-12 19:29:41 |
| If they go after every competing technology, shouldn't it be a pretty straightforward monopoly case for the courts? |
| - Score: 3 |
| RE[3]: M(umblety)Peg |
| By DerGenosse on 2011-02-12 20:36:15 |
|
> You mean like Google? Yes, please, let's not forget Google! The good Samaritan! Champion of the people! ROFL. You know what really pushed democracy everywhere? When new elites finally realized that they basically could do what they wanted within a legitimized democratic framework. |
| - Score: 2 |
| RE[4]: M(umblety)Peg |
| By TheGZeus on 2011-02-12 20:38:12 |
| Screaming sarcastically proves nothing. |
| - Score: 3 |
| RE[3]: Comment by Kroc |
| By pafipe on 2011-02-12 22:20:02 |
|
"It won’t be long before every TV is Internet connected and video capable". Where can I get a "video incapable" TV? I really really want one. Even if its not internet connected. |
| - Score: 2 |
| RE: Comment by Kroc |
| By kaiwai on 2011-02-12 23:06:11 |
|
> "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. But at the end of the day the direction of MPEG-LA is decided by the members who make up the h264 patent portfolio: > Apple Inc. Cisco Systems Canada IP Holdings Company DAEWOO Electronics Corporation Dolby Laboratories Licensing Corporation Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute France Télécom, société anonyme* Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft zur Foerderung der angewandten Forschung e.V. Fujitsu Limited Hewlett-Packard Company Hitachi, Ltd. Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V. LG Electronics Inc. Microsoft Corporation Mitsubishi Electric Corporation NTT DOCOMO, INC. Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation Panasonic Corporation Polycom, Inc. Robert Bosch GmbH* Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. Sedna Patent Services, LLC Sharp Corporation Siemens AG Sony Corporation Tandberg Telecom AS Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson The Trustees of Columbia University in the City of New York Toshiba Corporation Victor Company of Japan, Limited Maybe instead of putting the pressure on MPEG-LA who are merely a front organisation that maybe it is better to put the pressure on the above organisations instead. |
| - Score: 2 |
| RE[2]: Comment by Kroc |
| By 1c3d0g on 2011-02-13 01:41:26 |
|
When you have scum like Apple on the top of the list, no wonder these fuckers think about nothing but suing everyone and their dog. Those damned lawyers sure know how to piss people off! I swear I will laugh my ass off the day WebM becomes the dominant codec for the Internet. Go Google Go! |
| - Score: -1 |
| RE[4]: M(umblety)Peg |
| By lemur2 on 2011-02-13 01:44:39 |
|
> > Scientific research is open source. It has worked very effectively for hundreds of years. So you would have all software development funded by public research grants just to keep it out of the hands of profit-driven enterprises? Science is better than open source. It's open collaboration, and like capitalism, it engenders competition. You publish your methods and findings for peer review, and then others get to build on your work. H.264 was built in the open by multiple collaborators pooling together their previous efforts to come up with the best possible methods. Meanwhile, VP8 was created behind closed doors by a single company, and only the finished product released both as binaries and now as source. That's more akin to having the Roman Catholic Church, and then Google Luther comes along and distributes a common language copy of the Bible. Obviously both specs ended up frozen, but you're right, scientific conventions produced the superior product here. There are patents for VP8. Google owns them now. Given that they are patents, they disclose the technology. Therefore, the invention process of VP8 is just as open as h264. Look, On2's business model, for years, was to develop codecs, and apply for patents. Some applications were granted, some applications were rejected bcause of prior art, and some were rejected because someone else already had a patent. On2 simply avoided the latter. On2's business model for years was to develop codecs that avoided patents held by other parties. On2 would ofer their codec to the world as an alternative codec that did not need a patent license from MPEG LA. On2 undercut MPEG LA. Other than the facts that On2's codecs were held (in the open like all patents must be) by On2, and MPEG LA's were held by a group; and that On2's price was much cheaper than MPEG LA's, there is absolutely nothing different between the way that h264 was developed and the way that VP8 was developed. Now Google has bought out On2, and offers an even lower price (being zero) for anyone to use VP8. For years, MPEG LA were unable to stop On2. I can't see why it should be any different now. |
| - Score: 5 |
| RE[3]: Comment by Kroc |
| By TheGZeus on 2011-02-13 01:48:31 |
|
How would that day be different from today? ;) |
| - Score: 2 |
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