Microsoft backs H.264.

Re:Microsoft backs H.264. by kenjackson on Wednesday February 02, 2011 @11:39AM (#2170852)

patent holders who are looking for a piece of the video decoding royalty pie would have jumped on the MPEG-LA gravy train already.

They have... they're called members of the pool. The same ones that came after Microsoft when MS did VC-1. The same ones who will come after WebM.

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Re:Microsoft backs H.264. by haberman on Wednesday February 02, 2011 @12:49PM (#2171194)

Google already knows about them. And has bet the future on WebM anyway. I trust Google's legal counsel more than I trust you.

What if H.264 infringes on some of Google's patents? Google could countersue and go after members of MPEG-LA, or even end-users of H.264. Google's patent license only covers Google's WebM implementation.

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Re:Microsoft backs H.264. by kenjackson on Wednesday February 02, 2011 @01:11PM (#2171305)

You do realize that Google's legal counsel has very little say in this. Google's engineers are making the call and the counsel is just providing legal advice. The legal counsel doesn't know what is infringing on what.

With that said, you'd probably say that you trust Google's engineers more than me. I'd hope so. You have no idea who I am.

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Re:Microsoft backs H.264. by haberman on Wednesday February 02, 2011 @02:17PM (#2171620)

> Google's engineers are making the call and the counsel is just providing legal advice. The legal counsel doesn't know what is infringing on what.

[citation needed]

What makes you think that a big company with enormous potential for legal liability would let engineers make decisions that are of legal consequence, like whether to aggressively push a video format amidst a patent minefield?

Do you think the engineers wrote the patent license too?

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Re:Microsoft backs H.264. by recoiledsnake on Wednesday February 02, 2011 @01:49PM (#2171486)

If so then what is the reason Google is not providing patent indemnification? If it does, MS would bundle it with IE9 (perhaps even the OS) instantly allowing about 40% of worldwide to seamlessly watch WebM content.

I guess Google is afraid of being sued for billions for the hundreds of millions of installs that Windows and/or IE9 ship.

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Re:Microsoft backs H.264. by haberman on Wednesday February 02, 2011 @02:19PM (#2171630)

> If so then what is the reason Google is not providing patent indemnification?

You could ask the same question of MPEG-LA: they don't indemnify their customers either.

> If it does, MS would bundle it with IE9

That is not at all clear. I would even call it unlikely.

> I guess Google is afraid of being sued for billions

I guess MPEG-LA is afraid of the same thing.

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Re:Microsoft backs H.264. by kenjackson on Wednesday February 02, 2011 @03:06PM (#2171867)

You could ask the same question of MPEG-LA: they don't indemnify their customers either.

But Microsoft does. Why doesn't Google?

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Re:Microsoft backs H.264. by haberman on Wednesday February 02, 2011 @04:23PM (#2172204)

I wasn't aware that they did -- interesting. But actually that only covers "any Microsoft software licensed for a fee for your end use." [0] Since Google does not charge end-users for any of its software that it distributes, you could argue that Google's indemnification program is just as extensive as Microsoft's.

[0] http://download.microsoft.com/download/9/D/0/9D0A6265-A509-4...

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Re:Microsoft backs H.264. by kenjackson on Wednesday February 02, 2011 @04:45PM (#2172298)

Really? That's your argument? If that's your argument an equally valid one is you get what you pay for. ;-)

As a consumer you stick with WebM and all that the royalty freeness buys you. I'll stick with H264 knowing that MS has already paid the royalty, the patent pool has virtually every player in the game, and MS indemnifies me as an end user. We'll call it a day.

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Re:Microsoft backs H.264. by haberman on Wednesday February 02, 2011 @05:40PM (#2172550)

Sounds fine if all you want to do is go home, watch TV, and surf the Internet. But if that's what you're doing, you're probably not going to get sued anyway.

This is a community of entrepreneurs. What's at stake here is the next YouTube. If you're just a fledgling startup that shows videos online, can you afford a sudden surge in popularity, or will it bankrupt you in patent royalties? Can you estimate your future costs in royalties, or is it subject to change when MPEG-LA thinks it can get some more money from you? If you want to use video in some disruptive new medium, what will MPEG-LA decide to charge for that once they see its promise? Or will they refuse to license the patents at all for this purpose, in favor of giving MPEG-LA members exclusive dibs on this new medium?

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Re:Microsoft backs H.264. by recoiledsnake on Wednesday February 02, 2011 @09:32PM (#2173288)

I think the MPEG-LA's terms are pretty good for the next Youtube. First free web video is free. If you charge your customers, for the first 100K subscribers, it's free.

100,001 - 250,000 subscribers/year = $25,000; 250,001 - 500,000 subscribers/year = $50,000; 500,001 - 1,000,000 subscribers/year = $75,000; and more than 1,000,000 subscribers/year = $100,000.

That's about 10 to 25 cents per paying customer PER YEAR with first 100K subscribers free. And there are limits and caps on the increases.

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