Google and MPEG LA Reach VP8 Patent Agreement 112
First time accepted submitter Curupira writes "The official WebM blog announced that MPEG LA has licensed all VP8 essential patents to Google Inc., allowing the company to sublicense the described techniques it to any VP8 user on a royalty-free basis." TechCrunch offers a bit more analysis.
Woo hoo (Score:1)
Score one for freedom
Re:Woo hoo (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, so in reality, this is actually still counted against freedom. This is fundamentally no different than allowing someone to patent Pi, and then someone and paying for a license so all their customers don't have to pay to calculate the properties of circles.
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This doesn't really substantially increase or decrease freedom. It slightly increases freedom by slightly mitigating a restriction on it, thus permitting distribution of stuff based on VP8 without having to worry about being sued by a member of the MPEG-LA codec pool.
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So, in the end, should we just say, "Thank you, Google" ?
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So, in the end, should we just say, "Thank you, Google" ?
Sure, so long as their interests and yours align. In this case, it means more VP8 in the world, and probably not much else.
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Why would anyone want more of the crudely inferior VP8 in the world?
The joke is on Google if they gave anything up. Nobody wants it except YouTube.
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It legitimizes the patents in question and if I want to abide by the license I have to use them ONLY to implement VP8, not a fork of VP8 which doesn't obey the VP8 specification ... score one for collaboration with the enemy.
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the Hollywood mafia (Score:3, Funny)
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On the contrary, the "horse's head" already hit the bed, when the MPEG LA all-but-threatened to sue if Google STFU-and-GTFO'd them. So Google bent over, let 'em through the skirt, and paid the "protection" fee.
Seems like Horn was..."pleased for the opportunity [slashdot.org]" to shake down even more video-format developers.
So MS may now back WebRTC??? (Score:4, Insightful)
TFA indicates that MS was only holding back on WebRTC (which uses VP8) because of patent concerns, so they may now move forward on it.
That seems to defy history. MS drags its feet and tries to undercut every new web tech it can. That's just MS - their strength is the desktop and they see the web and the Internet in general as a threat.
I can well believe that MS said that patents were the reason, but making random excuses for why they won't support a web tech - and then creating new ones as necessary - is just how MS operates when it comes to the web and open standards.
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Re:So MS may now back WebRTC??? (Score:5, Informative)
but that doesn't matter either because microsoft is evil.
Well spotted.
As a participant in WebRTC, Microsoft had the opportunity to improve that standard. As the developer of the protocol, they had the opportunity to make CU-RTC-Web genuinely platform agnostic. Instead they chose to preserve their ability to Balkanise VOIP communications, and ensure their platform(s) could be advantaged for the foreseeable future.
Their decision to be evil is what makes it dangerous to adopt their suggestion as a standard.
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It *is* platform agnostic, it also doesn't lock you in to specific codecs like W3C WebRTC attempts to do.
The point of having a standard codec is so two different systems always have a common codec to communicate through. Microsoft's intent is to be able to have platform-specific, patent-protected codecs so they can block interoperability with other platforms. VP8 was an excuse. Now that it's gone, they'll "discover" another one.
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I don't think you understand how this is supposed to work.
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Limiting it to a particular codec is stupidity, disallows extensibility and creates lock-in.
Limiting to a single codec makes perfect sense, that way you guarantee that every implementation supports the standard codec(s). You can always create updated versions of the spec later which support different codecs, and then users are left in no doubt over compatibility.
If you allow arbitrary codecs then you might as well not have a standard, since you have no idea what codecs any given implementation will support.
Microsoft's intent is to be able to have platform-specific, patent-protected codecs so they can block interoperability with other platforms.
Wrong again. CU-RTC-Web does no such thing, dont make up shit just because you dont know what you are talking about.
They do nothing to prevent this, thus leaving the door open for doing it in the future. Give
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Correct. The A/C has an agenda and doesn't understand that codecs have less to do with video quality, extensibility and function and more to do with royalties. Microsoft's history has always been to run as far away from standards as possible as fast as they can.
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Microsoft's intent is to be able to have platform-specific, patent-protected codecs so they can block interoperability with other platforms.
So then why would they contribute patents to and collaborate with Mozilla, Xiph.org, Google and others to create Opus which is licensed royalty free and for IETF standardization? This is also the audio codec Google has proposed to accompany VP8 video for Webrtc, also in theory I don't think there's any reason you couldn't use that codec combination with microsoft's cu-web-rtc.
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in theory I don't think there's any reason you couldn't use that codec combination with microsoft's cu-web-rtc.
Then why in practice did Microsoft not specify it as a default fall-back codec in CU-Web-RTC?
They chose not to, and chose to preserve the ability to Balkanise instead of creating the opportunity for a genuinely interoperative standard.
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So then why would they contribute patents to and collaborate with Mozilla, Xiph.org, Google and others to create Opus
They didn't -- Skype did, long before they were bought up by Microsoft.
I suppose we can give them some credit for not pulling out and threatening to sue just before standardization, but it's a sad state of affair when we have to credit a company for not enacting particular arbitrary acts of evil. It feels like giving the Catholic church credit for the altar boys their priests didn't molest.
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Then why in practice did Microsoft not specify it as a default fall-back codec in CU-Web-RTC?
Because that's not necessary and because microsoft's proposal isn't a competitor to WebRTC but an implementation of an alternative that could be adopted in part to the WebRTC standard and as we've seen it is indeed patent encumbered so until now it's not been a better choice than any other codec again they didn't have to do Opus either, but they did.
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Correct again. Microsoft likes to play the "standards" game as long as they can retain a proprietary component inside. Their very first attempt at "standards" was to contribute WMV to the HD-DVD consortium and press for its adoption for Blu-ray without releasing any information required to create the codec. The effort eventually became the VC-1 standard, but the people I knew on the standards body said Microsoft kept thinking they didn't have to release any details about the codec believing the world would
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Easy answer, make the standard read MUST support VP8, MAY support additional codecs, then allow codec negotiation.
Then you get a standard that always works and the ability to go beyond it.
Later, when the standard is updated, make it SHOULD support VP8 for backward compatibility and MUST support new-whizz-bang-codec.
A "standard" that leaves 2 fully compliant peers unable to communicate isn't much of a standard. Then it starts getting implemented in flash as a move of desperation because that is more likely
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Easy answer, make the standard read MUST support VP8, MAY support additional codecs, then allow codec negotiation.
And that's what they should do, so they should take microsoft's proposal on board and add the minimal modification of must support VP8, that provides a good solution.
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The point being that Microsoft is always wrong, no matter what it does.
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MS/Skype wanted the opportunity to include its own patent encumbered "standards" in CU-RTC-WEB.
They weren't just dragging their feet, they were actively sabotaging the process.
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No this won't change a thing. Microsoft will make up another excuse.
They are a significant party of MPEG LA after all. If they were concerned they could have done this ages ago.
Re:So MS may now back WebRTC??? (Score:5, Insightful)
Executing a blanket license to any and all patents that members of the MPEG LA may or may not hold that turn out to be essential to implementing either VP8 or VP9 (which isn't even specified yet, so that's pretty much a blank check from MPEG LA) is not admitting that VP8 is patent-encumbered. Its just an indication that the value to Google of eliminating, for potential users, the uncertainty raised by MPEG LA over VP8's status, plus the value to Google of assuring that MPEG LA can't do the same thing with VP9, is greater than the cost of paying off MPEG LA.
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VP9 (which isn't even specified yet, so that's pretty much a blank check from MPEG LA
If you look at how VP8 was based on a draft of either MPEG-4 Part 2 or MPEG-4 Part 10 (or both) then VP9 will be based on a draft of H.265 from 2007 or some such.
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Re:Remember when Google said WebM was patent-free? (Score:5, Informative)
They never said it was patent free, they said that they held all the patents (and licensed them royalty free) and that it didn't infringe on any others.
What they didn't do was indemnify people using WebM from litigation. MPEG-LA said they had a portfolio of patents that covered WebM, and said that they would indemnify... for a price.
So what Google has done is to cross-license parts of their own portfolio to ensure that people can use WebM for free and with (little) threat of litigation.
While most of use want to get rid of software and process patents, that isn't going to happen in the short term. Google did a good thing here...
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These days, if a big patent holder in a related field (e.g. MPEG-LA) says they are going to gather all their patents and attack you, then they can do serious damage regardless of what any experts might say about actual infringement.
A company deciding to license patents that it believes it hasn't infringed it pretty common-place unfortunately.
Re:Remember when Google said WebM was patent-free? (Score:5, Insightful)
MPEG-LA isn't a patent holder. They are a licensing authority
What happens is all the patent holders of various standards like h.264 got together, negotiated a fee schedule and split up the payments such that if you wanted to license everything related to h.264, you basically paid a fee per device or implementation. That licensed you all the patents you need (they're FRAND).
It's a little better than what we have in 3GPP which results in having to license patents from individual patent holders - if you need to negotiate with 10 or 20 or 50 of them, your legal feels rise substantially versus just go and paying the fixed fee.
All Google did here was negotiate with all the patent holders together through the MPEG-LA. So now as long as you paid the fee, (or in this case, it's royalty free), no patent holder in the pool can go after you for that implementation (if you didn't pay for h.264, you can be sued for that, even if the patent was granted for VP8 - it's only valid for VP8 and not for technologies related).
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Google did a good thing here...
By kicking the can further down the road? I don't think so. It only delays resolution of the matter, and in no way deters the need to abolish patents and copyright.
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they will probably still fight on the issue. What happened here is the licences the technology as a stopgap measure to buy time while they fight the good fight as it were. It is still in Googles best interest to fight against software patents and copyright reform. While some will say that Google does not really support those and use their not publish their site ranking algorithm as a example I would classafy that as a trade secret rather than as a copyright or patant issue.
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Your think patents are going to be reformed because of WebM? I think not. Patent reform isn't going to come though the courts it will only come when we the people can get the executive and legislative branches to reform the system.
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MPEG-LA said they had a portfolio of patents that covered WebM, and said that they would indemnify... for a price.
No they didn't. What they said was we will licences Their patents for a price. There is explicitly no indemnity offered in MPEG-LA licences. Its even in the licence.
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The wise guys at MPEG-LA stepped up it's game by continuously proclaiming that it would somehow find a patent to harass VP8 users with. Essentially, "nice codec you have there. It would be a real shame if anything happened to it".
It got so bad that Google finally had to pay MPEG-LA to stop threatening people so that VP8 had some chance of being used.
When Google stops paying? (Score:1)
In some future scenario when Google stops paying the licensing fees, what happens to the (developers/users/businesses/etc) who are using/developing with VP8/9/10/*/etc. Are these entities going to now be at risk?
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Depends how long in the future. Patents have a pretty short shelf-life.
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The agreement appears to cover all use of VP8 and the still-in-development VP9 forever (or, well, for the life of any of the notional patents that MPEG LA members may or may not have that impact VP8 or VP9), so I don't think there is any risk of that for VP8/9
VP10+ would require a new agreement, pre
Hardware support already in progress... (Score:1)
Pretty good timing for Renesas.
http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/2253238/renesas-announces-low-latency-vp8-hardware-encoder [theinquirer.net]
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Develop a sense of humor, you fucking Philistine.
HEVC (Score:2)
I would be absolutely amazed if Google can deliver a competitive codec before HEVC/H.265 becomes entrenched.
H.264's great strength is that it reaches far beyond the web.
Theatrical production. Broadcast, cable and satellite distribution. Home video. Industrial applications and so on. WebM is for all practical purposes a transcode for YouTube and that in the end is simply not enough.
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Perhaps you should be paying a bit more attention to matters outside of Microsoft. This is about WebRTC and VOIP in the browser.
H.284 is significant in video conferencing.
That makes it a legitimate candidate as a codec for VoIP in the browser.
Google also proposed ISO/MPEG standardize VP8 (Score:1)
Re:Google also proposed ISO/MPEG standardize VP8 (Score:5, Informative)
It's a bit more complicated than that...
For those not familar with what is going on in the video compression standards group, there were 2 independent efforts: HEVC (the so-called high-efficiency video codec to update H.264) and the IVC (internet video codec). IVC was not meant to replace HEVC, but be optimized for internet applications. Many folks seem to be confusing these in their responses.
One of the goals for IVC was for it to acheive so-called "type-1" licensing (basically free-as-in-beer) which would require all those that contribute to the standard to freely licence their patents. Of course the ISO/IEC groups that standardize this stuff (aka the MPEG group) cannot assure that the standard is free of patents, but only that no contributor to the standard will charge for the use of their patents in conjunction with the use of the standard.
The original baseline for IVC was a stripped down version of MPEG2 (basically MPEG1++ or MPEG2-- depending on your point of view) that was thought to be unencumbered by patents (MPEG1 is really old and some of the patents that cover it are even older and expired). Google submitted their VP8 for consideration for IVC. Needless to say, the ITM (IVC Test Model used to experiment with IVC) didn't perform very well relative to the more modern VP8 in recent comparison tests in Bit-Distortion modeling.
I would venture to guess that Google decided that it needed to clear the air with MPEG-LA (not related to ISO/IEC, but a separate patent-pool/licensing company created by the owners of the patents of original MPEG standard and some other corporations) so that it did not hinder its proposal for being considered as the baseline IVC codec for the test model.
Lest folks think that current VP8 is going to get through unscathed by the MPEG group, I believe that they will warp it a bit so that it isn't exactly the same as the current VP8 (as that's what the ISO/IEC group's charter is to develop new standards). That's one of the reasons why Microsoft didn't try to standardize WM9/10 codecs with the ISO/IEC standards body and they instead went to SMPTE (which has a history of just stamping "standard" on proprietary implementations). Unsuprisingly, SMPTE dutifuly stamped Microsoft's codec as SMPTE 421M (aka VC-1) w/o any substantial changes.
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ISO/MPEG has a huge problem with NIH syndrome ... every time they are involved with video standards lately they just make it worse.
H.263+ was better than MPEG4, H.264 was better before MPEG involvement ... they have the reverse midas touch.
They are happy with each other's cooperation (Score:2)
âoeThis is a significant milestone in Googleâ(TM)s efforts to establish VP8 as a widely-deployed web video format,â said Allen Lo, Googleâ(TM)s deputy general counsel for patents. âoeWe appreciate MPEG LAâ(TM)s cooperation in making this happen.â
âoeWe are pleased for the opportunity to facilitate agreements with Google to make VP8 widely available to users,â said MPEG LA President and CEO Larry Horn.
I LOLed.
So, do we know now.. (Score:2)
.. which patents MPEG LA were claiming to be essential?
It wasn't the license uncertainty (Score:2)
From a technical standpoint VP8 doesn't do anything significantly better than h.264, and isn't as good as h.264 in a number of ways. The only real advantage it ostensibly possessed was its licensing terms... and most people simply don't care about that.
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My perspective (Score:5, Insightful)
I'll add my own thoughts here, also posted at http://xiphmont.livejournal.com/59893.html [livejournal.com]
"After a decade of the MPEG LA saying they were coming to destroy the FOSS codec movement, with none other than the late Steve Jobs himself chiming in, today the Licensing Authority announced what we already knew.
They got nothing. There will be no Theora patent pool. There will be no VP8 patent pool. There will be no VPnext patent pool.
We knew that of course, we always did. It's just that I never, in a million years, expected them to put it in writing and walk away. The wording suggests Google paid some money to grease this along, and the agreement wording is interesting [and instructive] but make no mistake: Google won. Full stop.
This is not an unconditional win for FOSS, of course, the LA narrowed the scope of the agreement as much as they could in return for agreeing to stop being a pissy, anti-competetive brat. But this is still huge. We can work with this.
For at least the immediate future, I shall have to think some uncharacteristically nice things about the MPEG LA.*
*Apologies to Rep. Barney Frank"
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If Google won, full-stop, then why have they felt it necessary to license the MPEG-LA patents, and why is this license restricted to VP8 and one successor generation? Your spin on it is interesting, especially as it comes from reading the announcement by WebM which isn't exactly without interest.
Here is the press release http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20130307006192/en/Google-MPEG-LA-Announce-Agreement-Covering-VP8 [businesswire.com].
Far from the rosy picture you are painting this seems to say that Google have recognis
Re:My perspective (Score:5, Interesting)
When MPEG LA first announced the VP8 pool formation, a rush of companies applied to be in the pool, partly because everyone wanted to see what everyone else had. That gave way to some amount of disappointment. And by 'some amount' I mean 'rather a lot really, more than the MPEG-LA would care to admit.'
Eventually, things whittled down to a few holdouts. Those '11 patent holders' do not assert they have patents that cover the spec. They said '_may_ cover'. The press release itself repeats this. Then these patent holders said 'and we're willing to make that vague threat go away for a little cash'. Google paid the cash. This is what lawyers do.
That's why it's a huge newsworthy deal when companies like NewEgg actually take the more expensive out and litigate a patent. It is always more expensive than settling, even if you'd win the case, and very few companies are willing or able to do it. Google was probably able, but not willing.
We deal with this in the IETF all the time. Someone files a draft and a slew of companies file IPR statements that claim they have patents that 'may' read on the draft. Unlike other SDOs though, the IETF requires them to actually list the patent numbers so we can analyze and refute. And despite unequivocal third-party analyses stating 'there is no possibility patent X applies', these companies still present their discredited IPR statements to 'customers' and mention that these customers may be sued if they don't license. This is not the exception; this is standard operating procedure in the industry. These licensing tactics, for example, account for more than half of Qualcomm's total corporate income.
It's this last threat that Google paid a nominal sum to make go away. It's the best anyone can hope for in a broken system. If those 11 patent holders had a strong claim, it is exceedingly unlikely they would have agreed to a perpetual, transferable, royalty free license.
How does this affect Theora and Vorbis (Score:2)
What's the word I'm thinking of (Score:2)
I can't decide if Google is now just craven or cowardly.
Re:VP8 is terrible (Score:4, Insightful)
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Simple: Using x264 doesn't protect, limit you from patent litigation. If you now deliver VP8 content over the internet, or support it in your browser, you aren't going to get sued into the ground by MPEG-LA. Google licensed it for royalty-free use by others.
Near as I can tell, Google hasn't gone that far yet-- Google licensed it from MPEG-LA with the option of being able to offer royalty-free licenses to VP8 users. How much you'll have to pay Google for the royalty-free license, or whether Google will subsidize the cost for all VP8 users has not yet been announced, as far as I can tell from TFA.
And the scare tactics for x264 are getting a little old, don't you think?
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How much you'll have to pay Google for the royalty-free license, or whether Google will subsidize the cost for all VP8 users has not yet been announced, as far as I can tell from TFA.
Am I fundamentally misunderstanding some terminology here? It seems to me that a royalty-free licence is, by definition, free as in beer. Isn't that what royalty-free means?
Re:VP8 is terrible (Score:4, Insightful)
No, it means "not charged per use". You can be charged an upfront fee for a royalty-free license.
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It seems to me that a royalty-free licence is, by definition, free as in beer. Isn't that what royalty-free means?
No, royalty-free means free of the requirement to pay royalties, not that the license is free.
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If you now deliver VP8 content over the internet, or support it in your browser, you aren't going to get sued into the ground by MPEG-LA
But the quality of the codec still matters. Hardware support still matters.
If H.265 delivers on its promises, distributing video at all resolutions is going to become dramatically less expensive.
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The MPEG-LA license pools don't offer non-standard restricted licenses ... Google being a licensor for say the AVC pool wouldn't give them any rights for VP8.