Original context from 2010: http://x264dev.multimedia.cx/archives/377
This is actually a huge badge of honor for VP8, and a repudiation of the meme that somehow it's just an H.264 knock-off. It's always stunned me that the same community that hates on patent trolls is in love with H264 (aka MPEG4++). MPEG-LA are IMSHO the very definition of trolls -- patenting (and charging royalties for) techniques that were obvious and known art in the video compression community for ages.
The risk for MPEG-LA in not agreeing is that the patent pool would collapse - if Google isn't in then why should anyone else remain in the pool?
I do agree that this agreement seems to be pretty good for Google though. Their ability to sub license VP8 has the potential to undermine royalties for H264 to the patent pool.
BTW, MPEG-LA isn't a patent troll by any conventional definition.
Firstly, MPEG-LA doesn't patent anything itself, they are merely an organisation to pool related patents amongst member organisations.
Secondly, the member organisations are mostly (all?) the opposite of patent trolls, too: they hold patents in the field because they are actively producing software in the field. That is the opposite of the typical non-practising-entity patent troll model.
Thirdly, if you do accept software patents then the patent pool model is actually quite a nice way to manage them. It means people who want to work in the field only have to deal with one entity and gain protection from patent claims from any other company in the field. (Note: I don't accept software patents at all - just pointing out that while they exist this isn't a bad way to do them).
I have no real opinion on VP8 vs H264, but I do know that the patent situation is much more complex than you seem to believe.
The same community that hates patent trolls continued to use gif and MP3 for many years, so I'm not sure why use of H264 would surprise you. And are people really 'in love' with it? All I see is people who prefer the clearly technically superior option. Not to mention the fact that many of us live in places where software patents are not relevant, and don't feel inclined to use inferior technology just because of the idiocies of the US legal system.
The reason why people tend to be fans of H.264 is that it has a wide range of hardware that can encode/decode and that hardware has been available for years. This saves greatly on power for embedded devices/phones/etc.
While implementations of VP8 in hardware do exist, I'm not aware of it shipping in any sort of volume. Are there any modern Android phones that can do VP8 in hardware?
There is no hypocrisy here; I am allowed to love technology while simultaneously hating the practices if its authors. I am allowed to benefit from the good produce of a bad regime. In no way does that compromise my argument for reform.
Those who try to argue that reformers ought to boycott everything they disagree with are making a kind of appeal to hypocrisy; a logical fallacy.
Huh? Whether or not they had VP8 dead to rights, they would agree to a licensing deal. The MPEG-LA's purpose is to make licensing deals for the patents in their pools. They litigate when they cannot get an agreement for a licensing deal.
Litigation is rarely a smart move for a licensing organisation. During the years wasted going back/forth during appeals etc the competitor has a price margin advantage which they can use to increase market share. It's not that easy to quantity that if damages are awarded.
And seriously you either need to put up or STFU. If you have some prior art that invalidates specific patents then speak up. Plenty of companies would be very, very interested. But I'm going to take a guess that you don't.
IMHO, MPEG-LA probably just scored some free cash. However, by avoiding a legal battle, and getting a 'clean bill of health' for VP8 from their main detractor, Google's VP8 is now ready for much wider adoption. After all, the principle patent-free niggle issue has now been dealt with cleanly.
I honestly don't know why Google bothered to buy the company in the first place. Seems an odd place to assert a competing position.
Microsoft ended up giving Barnes & Noble (a bookstore for goodness sake) half-a-billion dollars after going after them for Android/Linux patents, but if you read the press release then they focus on an ongoing royalty payment going in the opposite direction.
Google may have entered negotiation with these 11 patent holding firms and threatened to destroy them with either a giant patent lawsuit or just by bullying them with their massive bank account, team of corporate lawyers, and market control. I would suggest the royalty free licence to these patents for use in VP8 or VP9 would take either that or a very big bag of cash from Google (or some combination of the two).
It's not really to either sides benefit to reveal what happened after they've got the best deal they thought they could though.
Or have they? The press release says that Google can sublicense the patents to other VP8 implementors...
edit: never mind, the rtcweb post (below) nails it down a bit.
(I also see they're playing a bit of the martyr by saying "This agreement is not an acknowledgment that the licensed techniques read on VP8." As if the truth has anything to do with patents.)
http://blog.chromium.org/2011/01/html-video-codec-support-in...
I'd really like to see them actually follow through on this.
Leave the highly common hardware accelerated that's the _only_ one all browsers support alone.
VP8 can beat it on technical grounds.
No, both the wording and explicit statements made make it clear that VP8 doesn't infringe anything: "if any"..."may be essential".
As if they can't tell whether the patents apply after all those years of throwing FUD at it.
Why don't you tell us all why you're so personally invested in this argument?
> we may sublicense those techniques to any VP8 user on a royalty-free basis
What did Google put in their drinks?
It would have been nice to have examples of video that didn't step on MPEGLA's patents.
Those people didn't have an argument and can't even pretend they have one now.
What's going to happen next is that all in the MPEG-LA will still oppose making VP8 MTI (because the licensing for it is obviously way less interesting for them compared to H.264), but any neutral bystanders might be swayed more in the direction of VP8.
It would have been nice to have examples of video that didn't step on MPEGLA's patents.
We have, it's called VP8.
Hmmm... Why doesn't that seem right?
