If you encode a video into mpeg4 format, even using a commercial tool whose makers pays mpeg4 license, that license doesn't extend to the resulting video.
If you post such video on your website, you're violating mpeg4 patents and have to pay mpeg4 licensing fee (up to $5 million/year).
That basically puts mpeg4 out of reach for 99.9% content creators that cannot afford even talking to mpeg4 consortium about the license.
Not to mention that most people don't use commercial tools. We use ffmpeg/x264, which is not only free but has better quality than expensive commercial tools. Even using those tools without paying a license is not permitted (although, obviously, most people simply don't understand that or willfully ignore banking that mpeg4 la won't sue them).
Microsoft and Apple pays so that users of their software can CONSUME mpeg4 format.
All CREATORS are left out in cold and have to license the patents.
Given that video becomes more and more ubiquitous, it's not an acceptable situation for the web just as it wasn't acceptable to have to pay for using .gif format to post a picture on your website (http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/gif.html)
> If you post such video on your website, you're violating mpeg4 patents and have to pay mpeg4 licensing fee (up to $5 million/year).
No. There is a (in my opinion) fairly permissive "free" tier[1]. Posting a h264 encoded video on your website does not immediately mean you need to pay royalties.
> That basically puts mpeg4 out of reach for 99.9% content creators that cannot afford even talking to mpeg4 consortium about the license.
I think that's a bit of hyperbole.
It's not cheap, but the MPEG-LA don't charge you for talking to them. If you submit a valid request for a license based on your units[2], then they will provide you with one. In fact, you don't need to pay fees if your paid-for content is less than 12 minutes long[2], and you're looking at $5000/year + $2500 per encoder for a 500k - 999k audience.
As always comes up in the discussions of AVC/h264 vs WebM/Theora/VP8-9: there's no guarantee that use of the latter solutions provides protection from patent litigation. AVC/h264 isn't immune either, but at least you have an idea and (so far) there doesn't appear to have been any major trolls chasing h264 content distributors. WebM/VP8/etc are untested here; not just because of their youth but also because there are few (if any?) big deployments outside of YouTube (and even then).
Saying the free tier means you don't need to pay royalties is a bit of a stretch. Are you suggesting everyone who wants to post videos should somehow configure their web server to power itself off after serving up exactly N copies of the mpeg-4 video stream? That's ridiculous.
If you put mpeg-4 video up on the internet, eventually the MPEG-LA will come calling for royalties; the question is just how long you can stay under the radar. Maybe you can forever, but counting on it is bad business. Making choices for how to build internet technologies (and businesses) based on the MPEG-LA's current licensing terms is not great thinking either. What do you suggest people do if the terms change in 2016 to be more aggressive, once the MPEG-LA no longer feels the need to offer free tiers to improve adoption?
I also don't know how you can say there are no big trolls chasing h264 content distributors. Motorola rolled up with submarine h264 patents and asserted them against one of the biggest players in the business - the only thing stopping them from going after companies that do pure content distribution is whether it would be profitable.
If I use my Canon 5D/iPhone to film a movie then edit with Final Cut Pro and upload my video to YouTube at what point am I required to pay the MPEG-LA for a license ? Are you really suggesting that tens of millions of people are in breach of MPEG-LA licensing requirements ?
Not in this case because then technically YouTube is a publisher and Google pays the license.
But if you were to post this video on your website and and if there was any income attached (e.g. you also have AdSense ads on your website), then you have to pay.
If there is no income attached, you don't have to pay royalties but still need to get the license and good luck with that if you're a dad and all you want is post a video of your kid on the internet so that his grandparents can see it.
"Where MPEG-4 Visual material is provided for remuneration, video providers may be required to pay royalties for the right to use the decoders and encoders in the following circumstances:
* MPEG-4 Visual material is provided for direct remuneration (for example, remuneration is from a user for a subscription and the number of different subscribers exceeds certain minimums, or for specific video titles).
* Remuneration is from other sources (for example, free over-the-air broadcasting).
However, in the case of video that is delivered via the Internet to a user without charge, no royalties are payable during the first term of the license (ending December 31, 2008), but you still need to obtain the license."
So let me get this straight -- Patents not only cover the right to produce instances of an invention, but also for usage of those instances/devices also? So what happens if for example Ford is found to be violating someones patent on an engine part. Then even if Ford pays up a license, could the patent owner sue me for driving the car, and charge me a per mile royalty?
Part of me would love to see this happen, simply so that enough "regular people" will force their politicians to change the laws.
This is, after all, why many U.S.-based distros refused to package and ship patent-encumbered code by default, is because end-users would also be theoretically liable.
I'm not sure this has ever been tested in court. But yes, as far as I can tell, that is what they are trying to claim.
It's interesting, because to stream H.264 video, you don't even need to necessarily have encode it. You could get video encoded by a third party (perhaps you got it that way, or perhaps you sent it to a third party to re-encode), serve it to your users, and they could play it with licensed H.264 player. The MPEG-LA seems to think that for doing that, you should have to pay them a license, despite the fact that you have never touched an H.264 encoder or decoder.
I would find it hard to believe that they could sue you for this and actually succeed, though they could probably bleed smaller players dry in the process of defending themselves.
It would be interesting to set up a video service that did this; used H.264 without ever using an encoder. You could make your users upload it encoded appropriately, or use Zencoder or AWS Encoding to transcode it for you.
Comments
Because "Microsoft and Apple pay for the licenses on behalf of developers and users so licensing cost only affects a very tiny minority" is not really true. See http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/licensing/mpeg...
If you encode a video into mpeg4 format, even using a commercial tool whose makers pays mpeg4 license, that license doesn't extend to the resulting video.
If you post such video on your website, you're violating mpeg4 patents and have to pay mpeg4 licensing fee (up to $5 million/year).
That basically puts mpeg4 out of reach for 99.9% content creators that cannot afford even talking to mpeg4 consortium about the license.
Not to mention that most people don't use commercial tools. We use ffmpeg/x264, which is not only free but has better quality than expensive commercial tools. Even using those tools without paying a license is not permitted (although, obviously, most people simply don't understand that or willfully ignore banking that mpeg4 la won't sue them).
Microsoft and Apple pays so that users of their software can CONSUME mpeg4 format.
All CREATORS are left out in cold and have to license the patents.
Given that video becomes more and more ubiquitous, it's not an acceptable situation for the web just as it wasn't acceptable to have to pay for using .gif format to post a picture on your website (http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/gif.html)
> If you post such video on your website, you're violating mpeg4 patents and have to pay mpeg4 licensing fee (up to $5 million/year).
No. There is a (in my opinion) fairly permissive "free" tier[1]. Posting a h264 encoded video on your website does not immediately mean you need to pay royalties.
> That basically puts mpeg4 out of reach for 99.9% content creators that cannot afford even talking to mpeg4 consortium about the license.
I think that's a bit of hyperbole.
It's not cheap, but the MPEG-LA don't charge you for talking to them. If you submit a valid request for a license based on your units[2], then they will provide you with one. In fact, you don't need to pay fees if your paid-for content is less than 12 minutes long[2], and you're looking at $5000/year + $2500 per encoder for a 500k - 999k audience.
As always comes up in the discussions of AVC/h264 vs WebM/Theora/VP8-9: there's no guarantee that use of the latter solutions provides protection from patent litigation. AVC/h264 isn't immune either, but at least you have an idea and (so far) there doesn't appear to have been any major trolls chasing h264 content distributors. WebM/VP8/etc are untested here; not just because of their youth but also because there are few (if any?) big deployments outside of YouTube (and even then).
[1]: http://www.streaminglearningcenter.com/articles/mpeg-la-h264... [2]: http://www.mpegla.com/main/programs/avc/Documents/AVC_TermsS...
Saying the free tier means you don't need to pay royalties is a bit of a stretch. Are you suggesting everyone who wants to post videos should somehow configure their web server to power itself off after serving up exactly N copies of the mpeg-4 video stream? That's ridiculous.
If you put mpeg-4 video up on the internet, eventually the MPEG-LA will come calling for royalties; the question is just how long you can stay under the radar. Maybe you can forever, but counting on it is bad business. Making choices for how to build internet technologies (and businesses) based on the MPEG-LA's current licensing terms is not great thinking either. What do you suggest people do if the terms change in 2016 to be more aggressive, once the MPEG-LA no longer feels the need to offer free tiers to improve adoption?
I also don't know how you can say there are no big trolls chasing h264 content distributors. Motorola rolled up with submarine h264 patents and asserted them against one of the biggest players in the business - the only thing stopping them from going after companies that do pure content distribution is whether it would be profitable.
$5000 for 1 million users is a CPM of $5. That seems pretty expensive for advertising funded content.
I don't believe any of this is correct.
If I use my Canon 5D/iPhone to film a movie then edit with Final Cut Pro and upload my video to YouTube at what point am I required to pay the MPEG-LA for a license ? Are you really suggesting that tens of millions of people are in breach of MPEG-LA licensing requirements ?
Not in this case because then technically YouTube is a publisher and Google pays the license.
But if you were to post this video on your website and and if there was any income attached (e.g. you also have AdSense ads on your website), then you have to pay.
If there is no income attached, you don't have to pay royalties but still need to get the license and good luck with that if you're a dad and all you want is post a video of your kid on the internet so that his grandparents can see it.
This is clearly stated in e.g. http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/licensing/mpeg...
"Where MPEG-4 Visual material is provided for remuneration, video providers may be required to pay royalties for the right to use the decoders and encoders in the following circumstances:
* MPEG-4 Visual material is provided for direct remuneration (for example, remuneration is from a user for a subscription and the number of different subscribers exceeds certain minimums, or for specific video titles).
* Remuneration is from other sources (for example, free over-the-air broadcasting).
However, in the case of video that is delivered via the Internet to a user without charge, no royalties are payable during the first term of the license (ending December 31, 2008), but you still need to obtain the license."
When Apple shipped an encoder they paid a license fee, and YouTube has to pay a license fee as well. So you're fine.
But yes, quite possibly millions of people have been violating the H264 patent terms without knowing it.
So let me get this straight -- Patents not only cover the right to produce instances of an invention, but also for usage of those instances/devices also? So what happens if for example Ford is found to be violating someones patent on an engine part. Then even if Ford pays up a license, could the patent owner sue me for driving the car, and charge me a per mile royalty?
Part of me would love to see this happen, simply so that enough "regular people" will force their politicians to change the laws.
Yes. That's how patents work. Patents violations cover both creators of the infringing device and users.
This is, after all, why many U.S.-based distros refused to package and ship patent-encumbered code by default, is because end-users would also be theoretically liable.
I'm not sure this has ever been tested in court. But yes, as far as I can tell, that is what they are trying to claim.
It's interesting, because to stream H.264 video, you don't even need to necessarily have encode it. You could get video encoded by a third party (perhaps you got it that way, or perhaps you sent it to a third party to re-encode), serve it to your users, and they could play it with licensed H.264 player. The MPEG-LA seems to think that for doing that, you should have to pay them a license, despite the fact that you have never touched an H.264 encoder or decoder.
I would find it hard to believe that they could sue you for this and actually succeed, though they could probably bleed smaller players dry in the process of defending themselves.
It would be interesting to set up a video service that did this; used H.264 without ever using an encoder. You could make your users upload it encoded appropriately, or use Zencoder or AWS Encoding to transcode it for you.
Yes. It's as basic as that the license on your device is explicitly limited to usage for non-commercial stuff.
Uploading to YouTube (which serves ads to earn profits) is not non-commercial.
Don't trust me. Read the license agreement which came with your device.