Cisco’s free to use h264 encoder/decoder binaries of its open source OpenH264 are a result of this license cap so potentially it could affect others if those rates rise to the point they withdraw availability.
The license does not cover any other binaries built from the same Cisco source code, though.
The Wikipedia article is also fairly clear about this and says: "any software projects that use Cisco's source code instead of its binaries would be legally responsible for paying all royalties to MPEG LA themselves, however."
(emphasis mine)
That's interesting, I never missed it and use both Chromium and Firefox. Apparently we can do without this tax. Or might a nonfree codec package in Debian have something to do with it? I did hear someone complain once about my sending a nonfree video format (in a jovial manner), not sure about the details anymore but it played out of the box for me (in Chromium).
> OpenH264 Video Codec provided by Cisco Systems, Inc.
> This plugin is automatically installed by Mozilla to comply with the WebRTC specification and to enable WebRTC calls with devices that require the H.264 video codec. Visit https://www.openh264.org/ to view the codec source code and learn more about the implementation.
h264 is the most widely supported codec to decode in hardware, so the inclusion of a software decoder in the browser is kinda moot.
These provided MFTs have to meet certain minimum requirements for certification by Microsoft, which amounts to "good enough." Results vary in practice and can be incredibly frustrating (especially encode). It's often better to use the underlying SDKs but that comes with a lot of hassle.
(I've been working on a video capture and sharing app inspired by Shadowplay.)
Windows 10 is also rolling out support for AV1, though not bundled.[4]
[1]: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/medfound/h-26...
[2]: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/medfound/abou...
[3]: https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromium/src/+/master/medi...
[4]: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/p/av1-video-extension/9mvzqv...
Why do they need to pay for their own licence then?
IIRC, H.264 is one of a few non-Google technologies that is included in Chrome, but is not included in Chromium.
> So, how much does those rights cost? Under the terms in place for 2011-2015, the royalty rates are the same regardless of whether a product is part of an OS. There's no royalty for the first 100,000 units of a licensed product; sublicensees pay 20 cents per unit up to 5 million and 10 cents per unit above 5 million. The current agreement includes an annual limit: “The maximum annual royalty (‘cap’) for an Enterprise [is] $6.5 million per year in 2011-2015.”
What happens in 2016? Under the MPEG LA license, the terms are "renewable for successive five-year periods … on reasonable terms and conditions.” The per-copy royalty rates "will not increase by more than 10% at each renewal.” If rates go up by the maximum 10% for that five-year period, the cost of 10 million licenses will increase by $150,000 from a current rate of $1.48 million to $1.63 million.
There's a small gotcha in the new MPEG LA license agreement. Footnote 17, which appears in tiny print at the very end of the summary of license terms, notes that “Annual royalty caps are not subject to the 10% limitation.” Although that sounds like a loophole, it really only affects the largest players in the market.
1: https://www.zdnet.com/article/a-closer-look-at-the-costs-and....