Patent Troll Larry Horn of MPEG-LA Assembling VP8 Patent Pool

http://www.osnews.com/story/23335/Patent_Troll_Larry_Horn_of_MPEG-LA_Assembling_VP8_Patent_Pool

by silkodyssey • 16 years ago

68 40 16 years ago

po• 16 years ago

Surely, Google saw this coming. What I want to know is what is Google's strategy here? They are not indemnifying VP8 adopters. Technology flaws aside, how do they expect anyone to take up VP8? I feel like it's a sacrificial pawn in some other strategy.

silkodyssey• 16 years ago

Google has stated that they are already using vp8 on youtube so I guess this may be part of their strategy. Youtube is a big target and if they don't have patent troubles then this may ease the concerns of other users. Alternatively if Youtube is taken to court then the ruling would settle the dispute once and for all.

lurch_mojoff• 16 years ago

Google's issue with h.264 is that they are not part of MPEG LA. They don't have a say on licensing fees or terms and as result it becomes theoretically possible for the companies part of MPEG LA (amongst which are Apple and Microsoft, direct competitors to Google) to fuck'em over. That happening is extremely unlikely, if not outright impossible, but google could be playing it extra safe.

How will this pan out I have no idea, but the closest thing to a resolution that I see is Google will try to make MPEG adopt VP8 or the whole WebM in some way and join MPEG LA.

Of course they could be hoping to fight the patent allegations and not lose, but I doubt that Google have become so carelessly cocky.

noibl• 16 years ago

I think it's even simpler than that. MPEG-LA is basically a cartel. Google has consistently demonstrated that it considers monopolies and cartels that slow down the technological development of the web or create technological bottlenecks for web developers to be its 'problem'.

DrSprout2• 16 years ago

They don't have to indemnify VP8 adopters. VP8 is only patent-free if you agree not to do what MPEG is doing. And while it may be true that MPEG holds some patents that apply to VP8, Google clearly holds some patents that apply to H.264 (because this is a huge mess.)

So they can sue, but it will be an ugly battle, and unlikely to finish before the H.264 patents expire. It's really not a good idea.

pbhjpbhj• 16 years ago

>it may be true that MPEG holds some patents that apply to VP8, Google clearly holds some patents that apply to H.264 (because this is a huge mess.)

I presume you mean MPEG-LA hold patents over VP8? Which? Also if the reverse is true, why aren't Google having MPEG-LA pay them license fees? Or, perhaps that is what's going to fall out of all this now.

In any case I think all of this clearly shows that the MPEG-LA are all about controlling the web and squeezing every cent out of it possible contrary to their apparently lax attitude [until 2012].

ethermeme• 16 years ago

MPEG-LA should just ask Google for half the money they're going to spend this year on development, YouTube conversion, marketing and legal defense for VP8, distribute the windfall to the companies in their patent pool, and submit H.264 to SMPTE or IEEE. Everyone gets a free, high-quality codec, the patent pool gets a big buyout, and Google saves a lot of time and money. It's hard to imagine them actually doing that, though.

mikeryan• 16 years ago

Really there's no way around this without a fight and without spending some serious money.

Google (in particular YouTube) has 2 options.

1. Pay to license h.264 (or some other proprietary codec) 2. Release alternative and competing codec and do battle in the court room.

Both options were going to require spending money so they're going with route 2 which is likely the better long term option. There's also a good chance they can get some other heavyweights to back them in support.

roc• 16 years ago

Actually they went with "all of the above". All that h264 youtube video, as well as the h264 support in Chrome and Android aren't going anywhere.

Google is playing for control. Likeliest outcome of VP8 being found infringing is some cross-licensing deal and new patent pool with Google as major stakeholder. They would thus have significant control over the resulting VP8 license costs vs being "just a customer" to the h264 group. Having a compete product thus acts as a powerful check on h264 licensing too.

Google is simply trying to ensure that its business isn't held hostage by someone else. Either they win and no-one controls video, or they 'lose' and Google at least gets a hand on the wheel.

vetinari• 16 years ago

Read the webm license.

If you launch or join attack against VP8, either directly or by proxy, for next 20 years (or however long it takes to VP8 patents to expire) you cannot ship anything that wants to play VP8 video.

For most H.264 patent holders (not MPEG-LA, think Hitachi, LG, Panasonic, Samsung, Sony, Toshiba...) that could be a problem, if VP8 is successful. Would you want to be CE producer and unable to play Youtube?

mambodog• 16 years ago

The article repeats itself a fair bit, doesn't it?

mdasen4• 16 years ago

If you read the license for VP8, it specifies that you get a royalty-free patent license for anything Google owns or has the right to license to you free of charge for any of the technologies that VP8 uses. However, that license is instantly revoked if you take any action against a VP8 user. I'm guessing that On2 might have a patent library to potentially defend against MPEG-LA. I'm guessing that Google had highly qualified patent attorneys go over VP8 before buying On2 (and Google's Mike Jazayeri says, "We have done a pretty thorough analysis of VP8 and On2 Technologies prior to the acquisition").

VP8 is a huge threat to H.264. Microsoft, Google, Mozilla, and Opera have instantly committed to it for HTML5 video. If MPEG-LA fails against it, Apple will likely come on board as well since it's an open technology (vs. Flash which is closed) and the fact that chip makers look like they'll implement it (Broadcomm has already committed for its mobile chips). So, MPEG-LA is clearly going to fight against it. Theora was more of a curiosity (no offense intended)* - an older video codec (based on VP3, IIRC) that didn't have the support of major companies or chipset makers. VP8 is being pushed hard by heavyweights.

Google is not indemnifying users of VP8, but they're going to defend it. I'm sure Google has a decent patent library that they'd be more than happy to use to strike against not just MPEG-LA, but also its constituent members. It's important to remember that a corporation is made up of shareholders. If Google has a patent that many shareholders infringe on, they can strike at those shareholders to get them to pressure MPEG-LA not to go after VP8. Shareholders ultimately control companies including MPEG-LA. I'm sure Google could make life more difficult for those shareholders.

*The Theora developers have done an awesome job, but they're working from a base specification that's, well, old.

IgorPartola• 16 years ago

I think the more important thing is that nobody is supporting Theora. If the difference is "expensive, but takes 10% less storage once encoded" vs "free, but needs more storage", I think the choice is obvious. The bigger problem is that at this moment there is almost no device or browser I can play a Theora video on.

Mgreen4• 16 years ago

-vs. Flash which is closed.

Flash Player is not completely open sourced, because of H264( the patent pool of which, Apple is part of). Adobe pays the licensing fee for using H264 . Adobe has released enough code and specification to let anyone build a flash playing software. Completely open sourcing Flash Player wont be possible unless H264 is open and patent free. So if Apple really wants, they can build their own Flash Player without Adobe's approval.

src: http://blogs.adobe.com/open/2010/02/following_the_open_trail...

tvon2• 16 years ago

So we can all safely assume that since Adobe has pledged support for VP8, there will be an OSS Flash player released soon?

stcredzero• 16 years ago

That's very interesting. What about a VP8 based Flash?

mdasen4• 16 years ago

I will respectfully disagree here. Yes, you are totally correct that Adobe has released the specification for a lot of things. However, Adobe is still causing problems: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XBMC#RTMP_SWF_Verification. Right there we see that Abobe's Flash uses RTMP to stream video and servers can implement a simple ping request that the client has to return. This ping request is considered by Adobe to be a copy protection mechanism (similar to me putting a note on my unlocked door saying "please don't steal my stuff" I guess) and they have gone after people who have implemented it (more info: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/02/24/iplayer_xbmc_adobe_s...).

Flash is mostly open. There are still portions that Adobe isn't so open about. Plus, when something is created and maintained and extended by a single company, it's very different from something like HTML. I mean, Adobe can implement something, launch a working player and then tell people about the specification for it. At which point, alternative implementations are always behind. And there's a part of me that says that any situation where one company is essentially 100% of the market can't be open. Openness means coding to a spec and making sure that your stuff works on multiple implementations. If I'm a Flash developer, I'm not going to code to a spec - I'm going to code to the Flash player since it's the only implementation of the spec that people really use.

So, Adobe does restrict certain things, there isn't an open development of the spec ala HTML, they haven't open sourced the vast majority of the Flash player that doesn't rely on licensed technologies (and whose open-sourcing would greatly help). . . Adobe likes being the only game in town for Flash.

Frankly, even when you look at the WebM stuff, you can see that Google is trying to make it a place for more than just Google. The WebM project website (http://www.webmproject.org/) is actually copyrighted by the WebM Project - not Google! There's no Google branding - Google is barely mentioned more than other companies like Opera. That's open. I'm guessing Google would love contributions and enhancements from non-Google people. That's different from Adobe. That's a community process. And it is different.

Flash still feels very much under Adobe's thumb. No, it isn't closed like many technologies (and that's a positive thing), but there's a meaningful difference between the openness of Flash and the openness of HTML and other truly open technologies.

bradleyland• 16 years ago

Until there are a large number of inexpensive VP8 hardware decoders in the market and deployed in devices, H.264 isn't going anywhere.

The large number of H.264 decoders in the wild is akin to the large Flash player install base. The key difference is that you can't simply download a hardware VP8 chip.

ZeroGravitas4• 16 years ago

Of course all those hardware devices only support H.264 baseline profile, which according to the x264 developer isn't as good a spec as the WebM one. Backwards compatibility cuts both ways. Which means you ethier double your encoding and storage costs or send the same, lower quality file to everyone. This must be what Steve Jobs means by holding back the platform.

(And you can indeed "download a hardware VP8 chip" if you happen to have a Nokia N900, Palm Pre or Motorola Droid and want better quality video since they have a general purpose OMAP3 setup to do exactly this kind of thing, as already shown by Theora DSP work. And OMAP4 has already been announced by TI to have WebM built in so maybe TI themselves will do the work necessary.)

akavlie• 16 years ago

Well, I wouldn't say Microsoft has committed to it. All the commitment they've given is that it will work in IE if it's installed on your machine -- just like any other external plugin.

As for Apple, I'd be really surprised if they embrace it any time soon.

devinj• 16 years ago

Not any-- only whitelisted codecs work with the <video> element from what I understand. Sure, QuickTime (or whatever) can play it, but that's a different story.

ZeroGravitas4• 16 years ago

I wouldn't be too confident about Apple getting on board. They can easily treat it in the same way they've treated other free, popular, better than the proprietary alternative codecs like FLAC and Vorbis and simply ignore it in the hope that it'll go away.

They'll be under some amount of pressure as people will be able to view WebM in Safari via Flash which will make their browser a second class citizen compared with Chrome, Firefox and Opera. (A quicktime plugin will be released in a few weeks that will enable HTML5 in Safari as you currently can for Theora but Flash will probably quickly overtake it for installed base once it gets WebM support).

Hey, I've just realised that Macs come with Flash pre-installed, which curretly includes VP6 and soon will include VP8. Wonder what Steve thinks about that?

mdasen4• 16 years ago

I don't know why people are down-voting you. I shouldn't be that confident. Steve Jobs did reply to someone asking him about VP8 and Jobs just linked to the x264 author's post about VP8 (http://www.macrumors.com/2010/05/21/jobs-responds-to-googles...). However, I think this situation might be different.

MP3 and AAC had better hardware decoding support than Vorbis. That affects Apple a lot. Theora (to my knowledge) doesn't have chipsets made for it. On a mobile device, you kinda need hardware decoding for both processing time and battery life. With Google's weight behind VP8 and Vorbis, Broadcomm has committed to implementing it in their chips. Qualcomm is also on board with WebM. So, that might assuage Apple's concerns.

In terms of patents (which is one way Apple argued against Theora): I think this situation might be different as well. First, it looks like it'll be implemented by a large number of rich companies quickly (Google, Qualcomm, AMD, Broadcom. . .). When people pushed Apple for Theora support, who was implementing it? Who has implemented it? Few. Having lots of rich companies in the same boat means more people to to defend against patent holders. And, to be fair to Apple, I don't really know of mobile devices that have implemented Theora. It's nice to have someone else go first and prove that it can be done. I mean, from what I know, Android doesn't support Theora. Anyway, with the weight and excitement, we're likely to see patents come to light, if any, sooner rather than later.

Plus, Google wisely put a clause in the license saying that you lose rights to their patents if you take action against anyone using WebM. If there's enough weight behind WebM, it's going to be hard for people to pass up access to those patents. If WebM becomes web video, you're not going to want to sue a WebM user and then potentially be permanently banned from playing in the web video game. Think about it: 5 years down the line Qualcomm, Broadcom, and other chipset makers decide they can save a lot of money implementing WebM rather than MP3/AAC/H.264. Most web video has gone WebM. It's what people support. Then someone comes along with a patent. They're not going to want to be excluded from being able to push video to the millions of devices out there that are WebM devices.

But yes, I shouldn't be so confident. I think I've made my case that Apple is more likely to support this than previous free stuff, but you make a good point.

bcl• 16 years ago

Good. Better to get this all resolved now so we can move on and start spreading this to every corner of the net and mobile device. I have no doubt that Google was anticipating this and are ready to deal with it.

Qz• 16 years ago

"Yes," Horn answered, "In view of the marketplace uncertainties regarding patent licensing needs for such technologies, there have been expressions of interest from the market urging us to facilitate formation of licenses that would address the market's need for a convenient one-stop marketplace alternative to negotiating separate licenses with individual patent holders in accessing essential patent rights for VP8 as well as other codecs, and we are looking into the prospects of doing so."

I'll give the guy one thing -- he speaks good run-on.

protomyth• 16 years ago

The funny thing is that the MPEG-LA could have taken a much different strategy and had all the money to themselves. If they had only charged a fee for hardware devices, no one really would have cared.

Hoff• 16 years ago

There's nothing really all that interesting here until this mess gets hashed out in the courts; it's all academic (and legal) for now.

Nobody (that matters) is going to aggressively move to VP8 prior to that; you'll get the usual lip service. Or you'll get ignored. Or both. Until there's some standing and some idea of the patent landscape, any commercial entity (with money to move forward, which is also money to lose in a patent tussle) will be making an investment that may get the company either nowhere, or sued.

If it proves unencumbered, VP8 would put a ceiling on MPEG-LA and H.264, and thus the patent holders will undoubted get to tussle this in court.

If encumbered, you'll either pay or you'll be blocked depending on what the patent holder(s) want.

Apple has H.264 in hardware. They'll either ignore VP8, or it'll take multiple replacement cycles or a software work-around to get a new CODEC out. And given that Apple already has H.264, they'll likely be disinclined just because VP8 is not Better Enough to warrant the migration effort.

Either way the tussle ends, we'll know VP8 is in the clear or not. Odds are that there are patents. But until the legal tussles end and the CODEC is unencumbered or encumbered and licensed, it's all academic.

jheriko• 16 years ago

If we would just all collectively stop tolerating this crap and treat it with the contempt it deserves then patents would disappear.

kilps• 16 years ago

If it is true that it is impossible to create a video codec which doesn't infringe on existing patents then surely it is impossible for anybody to argue that there isn't something wrong with the patent system? My understanding is that the idea is to force innovation to find new ways of getting things done, not preventing them from happening all together. A compressed video file must be obvious enough for the concept itself not to be subject to patents.

Patent Troll Larry Horn of MPEG-LA Assembling VP8 Patent Pool

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