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.
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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.