We haven’t talked about this one for a while, but now there’s news from the MPEg-LA camp. The MPEG-LA, known patent troll and chief supplier of FUD for well over ten years, is apparently feeling the pressure from Google’s WebM project, and has done a complete 180. While promising earlier this year not to charge royalties for internet video that is free to end users until the end of 2015, they’ve now extended this promise to eternity. This may sound like a big deal, but it changes nothing – H264 is still a legal minefield even lawyers and the MPEG-LA itself have trouble understanding.
Effectively, nothing changes about the current situation. Right now, no royalties are collected for internet video that is free to end users, and this promise was extended to December 31, 2015, earlier this year. All they’ve done now is extend this promise perpetually, without saying why.
The why is pretty clear to anyone who’s been following this debate, of course. It’s no secret that with YouTube, Google pretty much mandates the default codec for web video. Now that Google has launched the WebM project with wide industry support, the sword of Damocles is dangling above YouTube’s H264-centric approach to web video. Adobe’s promise to include WebM support in Flash, as well as Microsoft’s change in policy to also allow WebM support in IE9’s HTML5 video implementation surely turned up the heat for the MPEG-LA.
Effectively though, nothing has changed. H264 is still a legal minefield that nobody really seems to understand, and you’re no safer from these mythical possible submarine patents when implementing H264 than when implementing WebM. While Theora did not have a large industrial backing, WebM does, meaning the MPEG-LA can no longer rely on the FUD-tactics of yore.
New promise or no, any form of commercial use still requires paying money to the MPEG-LA; even having an advertisement on your website which also happens to host an H264 video can be dangerous. Since the MPEG-LA has already stated in no uncertain terms that they’re willing to go after individual end-users, H264 is simply not a wise choice.
Luckily, WebM already has better browser support as it is, so it’s only a matter of time before the MPEG-LA’s license to print money starts to smear a bit. Mozilla and Opera have already made it very clear they’re not going to pay the MPEG-LA, so these two will only support WebM and Theora. Google’s Chrome does support H264 (Google is rich enough), but obviously, Chrome does WebM and Theora as well.
While Internet Explorer 9 was supposed to use H264 exclusively for HTML5 video, Microsoft later changed this policy to also allow WebM when the user has this codec installed. Nothing has come out of Apple just yet, but Apple has been a very active proponent of H264 from day one, and it’s unlikely their mobile devices will ever support WebM. Safari on the Mac will eventually support WebM through a QuickTime plugin, but I’m sure Google is waiting for QuickTime X to mature and actually get a plugin framework before committing to that one.
its not free but at least it doesn’t cost money! </sarcasm>
There are two definitions of free and i think its important people identifying what “free” they are using when making arguments for or against h.264 and any other competing media technologies.
definition 1: Free as does not have any patents and no royalties required for implementing the specification and no restrictions are imposed on how the implementor can distribute the implementation..
definition 2: Free as the technology is available in a non discriminatory way and anybody who care to implement the technology can do so after they pay for royalties if required and agree to licensing terms if present
both h,264 and vp8 are free by the second definition but only vp8 is free with the first.
I like the main definitions of free:
Libre – With few or no restrictions.
Gratis – For zero price.
I don’t think H.264 is free by either definition at least not yet anyway. Unless you’re a viewer or (for now) hosts of free internet video.
Yes, the latinate words make the distinction a lot clearer… the English word ‘free’ is just too ambiguous.
According to the guy who developed the VP8 decoder for ffmpeg, VP8 and h264 are very similar. He even called VP8 a derivateve of h264 Baseline.
Why should patents apply to h264 but not VP8?
Where are all those saying that MPEG-LA was evil and will sue everybody if the H264 where the standard of the web ?
It’s funny how Thom’s turned this article, just as MPEG-LA cares about Google’s WebM format when H264 is already the chosen format by all the industry.
YOU WERE WRONG *DOT*
Yeah, I doubt WebM and Google’s defense attorneys had anything to do with MPEG-LA’s change in attitude.
Edited 2010-08-26 14:25 UTC
Agreed; MPEG-LA is merely a holding company – two of the biggest holders are Apple and Microsoft plus a few others. I’m sure that the holders came the conclusion that it is best to allay fears regarding patent fee’s than having a festering sore that results in fragmentation of half a dozen different formats which pushes end users back to square one – who benefits from fragmentation? Adobe pushing Flash as the ‘swiss army knife’ that will solve all of the online media’s problems.
Edited 2010-08-26 14:35 UTC
MPEG-LA is merely a holding company – two of the biggest holders are Apple and Microsoft plus a few others.
Those others are global giants in manufacturing.
Cisco. Ericsson. Fujitsu. JVC. Mitsubishi. Philips. NTT. Panasonic. Samsung. Siemans. Sony. Toshiba.
Microsoft is a bit player here – and Google microscopic when compared to the raw economic power of the 867 H.264 licensees.
H.264 is deeply entrenched outside the web.
In industrial, medical, security and military applications. Theatrical production. Home video. Broadcast, cable and satellite distribution.
The enterprise cap on H.264 licensing is $5 million a year.
If WebM fails to gain traction Google has nothing to lose but a few coins swept up off the washroom floors.
Apple is not one of the biggest holders. They have 1 patent.
he must of meant “apple is the biggest company that i hate that has anything to do with h264 and i will hate them because they clearly are trying to make billions of dollars off their insignificant patent count”
No, you
First because the MPEG-LA still may proceed to act in an Unisys-like fashion if H.264 catches up on the web. As Thom points out a simple ad already is “commercial use of H.264”. (This is probably why Google currently helps us to get rid of H.264 by the way).
Second because the H.264 format isn’t as tightly coupled with the computer world as you may think. Last time a friend told me about getting H.264 video from a mid-end camcorder in AfterEffects and Premiere, it was still a nightmare. Flash video is partly VP6 content, not always H.264. Most videos found on the web use things like DivX, XviD in an MKV container, or WMV.
H.264 has won the war in a few areas, like camcorders, video discs, and Apple devices. But in the PC world, video encoding still is a mess with no dominant standard. In the mobile world, there is more or less a de facto standard, but if I remember well it’s H.263 (probably because of how much it hogs a poor low-end cellphone CPU to decode H.264 video).
The MPEG-LA can fear about WebM, despite what you may think, because it’s backed by Google. Google, who own Youtube, so… say… 85% of the videos seen on the web everyday. And Android, too. They have some serious firepower, more than enough to banish the MPEG-LA’s profitable baby from the profitable PC world and a growing part of the mobile world if they want to. What they will do with this power, however, still remains to be seen…
Edited 2010-08-26 15:37 UTC
I would rather H.263 becomes entrenched rather than H.264, since it is getting old enough that any patents will start expiring in the next five or so years.
I’m one and I’m right here.
This changes nothing. All this does is permit the use of h264 for cases when the video is being delivered “free to end users”–which covers a fraction of potential uses. And, I must remind you, it only covers web video besides.
None of the arguments against h264 *relied* on them eventually beginning to charge for all video used on the internet. It certainly was one of the more nightmarish scenarios, but even without that outcome the use of encumbered h264 is still unwise and unhealthy.
The above was quoted from “http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20100825006629/en“
So what about BBC iPlayer videos?
Videos shipped with Video games?
If it is not internet videos, or a paid for service then we will still be hit by royalty fees.
What happens what with new licenses or renewal of licenses?
…trust the mpeg-la just yet.
What is preventing them from pulling a switcheroo?
What is the definition of internet video? as in: if I use a machine as a cache for videos which I then stream to a second one would it still be internet video?
All license holders have to agree first.
All charges apply only for more than 100,000 per year. Every use case that affects fewer people has always been free of charge.
Apple still hasn’t said anything about webm. so it is basically mobile devices + safari, chrome, and IE, or supporting FF, chrome, and IE. If you take the whole royalty thing off the table, h264 is going to make more sense, at least until apple decides where they are going to go with webm.
Given that Mozilla cannot legally integrate h264 and html5 allows coded alternatives it simply makes sense to run a dual encoding and host the file twice and be done with it and cover every platform.
but I prefer WebM / VP8 / Vorbis / Theora and royalty free codecs.
And all the hardware vendors prefer the opposite.
Nonsense. ARM and many of its major licensees are WebM backers.
It takes time to catch up. Hardware vendors prefer a certain balance of quality vs price. WebM can be a winner here, because there are no licensing fees involved.
Just as vorbis has slowly become the de facto standard for audio that is used within an application (e.g. not to the end user), webm will for video unless there is another compelling AND free alternative.
Safety to use commercially trumps all the (mostly specious anyway) arguments about video quality
End user products may be still a battlefield for a while because users are already sold on how much better h.264 is than vanilla mp4 or mpeg2.
And we dumb end users are hard to convince there is a legal problem until long after somebody has actually started suing people.
More info about MPEG formats and patents:
http://en.swpat.org/wiki/MPEG_video_formats
It’s also worth noting that this patent promise, with its “no commerce” limitation, won’t permit Red Hat to ship H.264 support in their GNU/Linux distro 🙁
Who cares about end users? No one charges the end users for use anyway. H.264 will still require a license for all OS makers, all sites using it, and basically anyone who wants to do anything even remotely interesting with it. If you can’t see the need here for a truly free solution, you just aren’t looking or you have your head in the sand.
Hmmm…WebM must have had something to do with this one!
Only if the page you use it on has no commercial content. Got an ad on the page? Bang! You’ve got to pay the patent.
This is no gift, it’s just a trick.
Steven