Not true either. Google negotiated a very good license, with those 11 MPEG-LA patent holders agreeing "that any patented techniques used by VP8 can be used without payment of a royalty, forever."
That's a strangely out of context quote you made there. Pity you'd go so far out of your way to cite one line of an Ars story to claim "NOT TRUE!!!" when you have to know you are purposely disgorging false information yourself.
Google paid money for this, and there are more than 11 MPEG members aggrieved by VP8's use of H.264 pool's "patented techniques."
Do you even listen to yourself?
Google is good at covering over its guilt, but to said there was no admission of infringement makes you look like an idiot.
Not that any of it matters. Nobody uses VP8, and nobody is going to suddenly flock to an inferior product just because it still exists 3 years after its failed launch.
That's a strangely out of context quote you made there. Pity you'd go so far out of your way to cite one line of an Ars story to claim "NOT TRUE!!!" when you have to know you are purposely disgorging false information yourself.
Google paid money for this, and there are more than 11 MPEG members aggrieved by VP8's use of H.264 pool's "patented techniques."
Do you even listen to yourself?
Google is good at covering over its guilt, but to said there was no admission of infringement makes you look like an idiot.
Then simply post the reference where Google admits they infringed any MPEG-LA IP relating to WebM. You can't of course. So why write as fact that they admitted to infringement? Why write that WebM was found to infringe on any MPEG-LA patents? And what is there for Google to "subsidize" if the MPEG-LA patent license is royalty-free? None of those three claims you made appear to be true.
It would have been just as good a news story without embellishing it.
One thing you wrote I can agree with: It's not likely that VP8 is suddenly going to attract wide adoption due to the new licensing agreement. That ship already sailed and H.265 is the preferred video codec.
WebM was fucking stupid the moment it was announced, and simply a way for Google to try to sabotage where web video was going, H.264, thanks to Apple. The same reason it decided to bake flash into its web browser, which did nothing but sabotage the transition of flash to better technologies and slow this down- all to spite Apple. It's disgusting.
Exactly. Google really is the "new Microsoft." MS tried to "embrace, extend, and extinguish" Java. Google tried the same with H.264. Here are the three steps, quoted directly from the Wikipedia article:
"The strategy's three phases are:
Embrace: Development of software substantially compatible with a competing product, or implementing a public standard.
Extend: Addition and promotion of features not supported by the competing product or part of the standard, creating interoperability problems for customers who try to use the 'simple' standard.
Extinguish: When extensions become a de facto standard because of their dominant market share, they marginalize competitors that do not or cannot support the new extensions."
Didn't work for Microsoft when they tried to distort and kill off Java. They were sued successfully by Sun Microsystems in 2002 and settled out-of-court for $2 billion.
Didn't work for Google either, in their attempts to subvert and/or sidestep H.264.
It's nice to see Google being open, especially at how VP9 is behind HEVC.
They started development in Q3 2011... By Q4 2011 they were only 7% slower than the 'future' standard which had been in development for some time. It is actually quite impressive. If they can build something faster, I say great. I like video. If not, stick with the existing standard. Simple enough.
Google's adoption of WebM that split the video support of H.264 based on a flawed knock-off has pushed video software back by years.
Dealing with this nonsense has been a colossal pain for video software developers.
Thanks, Google.
Pretty much. A clear example of Google not acting in the best interests of consumers, but only to sabotage competitors. Same thing with baking in flash into chrome, right when other browsers like IE, safari, and mobile platform were dropping it completely. Due to the popularity of chrome, it slowed the momentum of flash dying and other solutions taking hold. Strange, since Google is such an advocate of "open" why it would prop up such a plugin, which is mobile ufriendly and just happens to be a security nightmare. No, it's actually not strange- it shows that Google at its core is incredibly hypocritical, and only uses buzzwords like "open" when it suits them, and when they have another agenda, like sabotaging Apple and making them look bad, they'll happily prop up a dying technology like flash.
THe jury found Google guilty. The judge ruled (incorrectly IMO and that of many others supporting the ORCL appeal) that API software was no patentable. The jusry did not deliver a verdict on "fair use". IMO appeal will overturn judge on patentability and remand the case to the court. I bleie a nerw trial will be required on "fair use", which Google's use was not. In the end, this case may require a rewrite of Android along with some steep penalties - although it may end up being the phone makers who pay.
"<span style="color:rgb(24,24,24);font-family:arial, helvetica, sans-serif;line-height:18px;">making it much less inefficient to present on any mobile device"</span>
<span style="color:rgb(24,24,24);font-family:arial, helvetica, sans-serif;line-height:18px;">I think AI means "more </span>
<span style="color:rgb(24,24,24);font-family:arial, helvetica, sans-serif;line-height:18px;">inefficient" or else "less </span>
<span style="color:rgb(24,24,24);font-family:arial, helvetica, sans-serif;line-height:18px;">efficient". One or the other.</span>
<span style="color:rgb(24,24,24);font-family:arial, helvetica, sans-serif;line-height:18px;">I'm all over that automated slave today. Argggh!</span>
Proof reading is dead.
They still haven't fixed it. This site has the greatest number of grammatical & spelling mistakes in one place I've seen that aren't blatantly ESL. No shame, I guess.
However, the chips used by most smartphones and other mobile devices don't support WebM, making it much less inefficient to present on any mobile device, as the devices must do all the decoding work in software.
No. The first SoCs with VP8 support were available over two years ago:
While Google was previously able to offer WebM as a 'licensing free' alternative to H.264, its new licensing agreement means that WebM and its future versions can only offer a cheaper alternative if Google chooses to subsidize the technology.
Google will be licensing VP8 and VP9 under royalty-free terms, exactly as they are currently doing. All that's changed is that the MPEG LA has given up its attempt at forming a VP8 patent pool after two years of trying. The MPEG LA has failed to control the license for VP8 and the future VP9. See:
The thing that pisses me off about Googles actions here is that but for them (and the ever standards un-compliant Microsoft), this is an example of technology companies just being flat out sensible and understanding that standards are great, in certain areas. MPEG group do a good job of corralling things in a way that allows consumers to benefit, but Google have to come along, pretending not to be evil, trying to control everything themselves.
Aside from that, one thing in this article got me thinking - the reference to Flash. Can you remember just how much of a big deal not having Flash on the iPhone was made out to be? Seems incredible now that it was ever a discussion.
That's a strangely out of context quote you made there. Pity you'd go so far out of your way to cite one line of an Ars story to claim "NOT TRUE!!!" when you have to know you are purposely disgorging false information yourself.
Google paid money for this, and there are more than 11 MPEG members aggrieved by VP8's use of H.264 pool's "<span style="background-color:rgb(241,241,241);color:rgb(38,48,52);font-family:Arial, sans-serif;font-size:14px;line-height:20px;">patented techniques."</span>
<span style="background-color:rgb(241,241,241);color:rgb(38,48,52);font-family:Arial, sans-serif;font-size:14px;line-height:20px;">Do you even listen to </span> <span style="font-size:14px;line-height:20px;">yourself? </span>
Google is good at covering over its guilt, but to said there was no admission of infringement makes you look like an idiot.
<span style="font-size:14px;line-height:20px;">Not that any of it matters. Nobody uses VP8, and nobody is going to suddenly flock to an inferior product just because it still exists 3 years after its failed launch. </span>
Well caught.
He lies all the time, just posts URL after bloody URL.
Hoping that no one checks and digs deeper
Never a cohesive or intelligent post, ever.
But the mods love him.
I honestly don't understand why Google is even attempting to do this? I can understand why someone like Mozilla (non-profit, open source, anti-proprietary ideology) would care, but why would Google put so much money and effort into this? consumer-grade video codecs seem like the perfect use case for a single, widely supported industry standard which we have with MPEG-LA. Unless they were charging wholly unreasonable fees for licensing, what is gained by making an alternative codec?
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.
I always knew that, but 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.
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'. That little cash was far less than what it would cost to litigate a winning case. Google paid the cash. This is what lawyers do. If those 11 patent holders had a strong claim, it is exceedingly unlikely they would have agreed to a perpetual royalty free license.
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.
This isn't a problem for Google. They can pay the patent, and in case they couldn't, then they can change the codec they use in a very short timeframe because they've the resources to do so.
It is a problem for small developers, though. The motivation behind patents is protecting individual inventors. But it's become the opposite: a market for buying and selling IP, where none of the parties have nothing to do with inventors.
Patents should be bound to the income generated by the product. If a product is free, patents should be allowed to be used free-of-charge, provided that the name of the inventor is acknowledged, and the patent is mentioned in the product info together with the inventor's name.
If the product isn't free, the patent should be payed as a percentage of the product income, to the inventor. Never more money than the generated income, as this would be nonsense (patents are meant to protect the inventor, so that he gets the benefit that the patent produces, and not more benefit... it's nonsense to pay more than the benefit it generated).
Patents shouldn't be transferable. It's nonsense to pay a royalty to somebody who didn't invent the patent.
If patents were like this, their real motivation would be guaranteed.
I like Dan's articles they are well researched.
How come you are not hired by AI to write articles?
I know why, is because you have nothing of value to share with others.
Just one-liner swarmy obnoxious remarks.
Comments
Google's adoption of WebM that split the video support of H.264 based on a flawed knock-off has pushed video software back by years.
Dealing with this nonsense has been a colossal pain for video software developers.
Thanks, Google.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Gatorguy
Not true either. Google negotiated a very good license, with those 11 MPEG-LA patent holders agreeing "that any patented techniques used by VP8 can be used without payment of a royalty, forever."
http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/03/google-mpeg-la-agree-to-royalty-free-terms-for-vp8-video-codec/
That's a strangely out of context quote you made there. Pity you'd go so far out of your way to cite one line of an Ars story to claim "NOT TRUE!!!" when you have to know you are purposely disgorging false information yourself.
Google paid money for this, and there are more than 11 MPEG members aggrieved by VP8's use of H.264 pool's "patented techniques."
Do you even listen to yourself?
Google is good at covering over its guilt, but to said there was no admission of infringement makes you look like an idiot.
Not that any of it matters. Nobody uses VP8, and nobody is going to suddenly flock to an inferior product just because it still exists 3 years after its failed launch.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Corrections
That's a strangely out of context quote you made there. Pity you'd go so far out of your way to cite one line of an Ars story to claim "NOT TRUE!!!" when you have to know you are purposely disgorging false information yourself.
Google paid money for this, and there are more than 11 MPEG members aggrieved by VP8's use of H.264 pool's "patented techniques."
Do you even listen to yourself?
Google is good at covering over its guilt, but to said there was no admission of infringement makes you look like an idiot.
Then simply post the reference where Google admits they infringed any MPEG-LA IP relating to WebM. You can't of course. So why write as fact that they admitted to infringement? Why write that WebM was found to infringe on any MPEG-LA patents? And what is there for Google to "subsidize" if the MPEG-LA patent license is royalty-free? None of those three claims you made appear to be true.
It would have been just as good a news story without embellishing it.
One thing you wrote I can agree with: It's not likely that VP8 is suddenly going to attract wide adoption due to the new licensing agreement. That ship already sailed and H.265 is the preferred video codec.
Originally Posted by Slurpy
WebM was fucking stupid the moment it was announced, and simply a way for Google to try to sabotage where web video was going, H.264, thanks to Apple. The same reason it decided to bake flash into its web browser, which did nothing but sabotage the transition of flash to better technologies and slow this down- all to spite Apple. It's disgusting.
Exactly. Google really is the "new Microsoft." MS tried to "embrace, extend, and extinguish" Java. Google tried the same with H.264. Here are the three steps, quoted directly from the Wikipedia article:
"The strategy's three phases are:
Embrace: Development of software substantially compatible with a competing product, or implementing a public standard.
Extend: Addition and promotion of features not supported by the competing product or part of the standard, creating interoperability problems for customers who try to use the 'simple' standard.
Extinguish: When extensions become a de facto standard because of their dominant market share, they marginalize competitors that do not or cannot support the new extensions."
Didn't work for Microsoft when they tried to distort and kill off Java. They were sued successfully by Sun Microsystems in 2002 and settled out-of-court for $2 billion.
Didn't work for Google either, in their attempts to subvert and/or sidestep H.264.
Quote:
Originally Posted by SolipsismX
It's nice to see Google being open, especially at how VP9 is behind HEVC.
They started development in Q3 2011... By Q4 2011 they were only 7% slower than the 'future' standard which had been in development for some time. It is actually quite impressive. If they can build something faster, I say great. I like video. If not, stick with the existing standard. Simple enough.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ifij775
Google's adoption of WebM that split the video support of H.264 based on a flawed knock-off has pushed video software back by years.
Dealing with this nonsense has been a colossal pain for video software developers.
Thanks, Google.
Pretty much. A clear example of Google not acting in the best interests of consumers, but only to sabotage competitors. Same thing with baking in flash into chrome, right when other browsers like IE, safari, and mobile platform were dropping it completely. Due to the popularity of chrome, it slowed the momentum of flash dying and other solutions taking hold. Strange, since Google is such an advocate of "open" why it would prop up such a plugin, which is mobile ufriendly and just happens to be a security nightmare. No, it's actually not strange- it shows that Google at its core is incredibly hypocritical, and only uses buzzwords like "open" when it suits them, and when they have another agenda, like sabotaging Apple and making them look bad, they'll happily prop up a dying technology like flash.
THe jury found Google guilty. The judge ruled (incorrectly IMO and that of many others supporting the ORCL appeal) that API software was no patentable. The jusry did not deliver a verdict on "fair use". IMO appeal will overturn judge on patentability and remand the case to the court. I bleie a nerw trial will be required on "fair use", which Google's use was not. In the end, this case may require a rewrite of Android along with some steep penalties - although it may end up being the phone makers who pay.
Proof reading is dead.
They still haven't fixed it. This site has the greatest number of grammatical & spelling mistakes in one place I've seen that aren't blatantly ESL. No shame, I guess.
Quote:
However, the chips used by most smartphones and other mobile devices don't support WebM, making it much less inefficient to present on any mobile device, as the devices must do all the decoding work in software.
No. The first SoCs with VP8 support were available over two years ago:
http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/rockchip-and-webm-release-rk29xx----worlds-first-soc-to-support-webm-hd-video-playback-in-hardware-113069829.html
Rockwell supports it, Nvidia supports it (http://www.nvidia.com/object/tegra-3-processor.html), Texas Instruments supports it (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ObBu6FjpR0), Samsung supports it (http://www.androidauthority.com/samsung-exynos-5-dual-specs-features-106609/), etc. The "no hardware decoding" argument was never strong and is even less so now.
Quote:
While Google was previously able to offer WebM as a 'licensing free' alternative to H.264, its new licensing agreement means that WebM and its future versions can only offer a cheaper alternative if Google chooses to subsidize the technology.
Google will be licensing VP8 and VP9 under royalty-free terms, exactly as they are currently doing. All that's changed is that the MPEG LA has given up its attempt at forming a VP8 patent pool after two years of trying. The MPEG LA has failed to control the license for VP8 and the future VP9. See:
http://blog.webmproject.org/2013/03/vp8-and-mpeg-la.html
The thing that pisses me off about Googles actions here is that but for them (and the ever standards un-compliant Microsoft), this is an example of technology companies just being flat out sensible and understanding that standards are great, in certain areas. MPEG group do a good job of corralling things in a way that allows consumers to benefit, but Google have to come along, pretending not to be evil, trying to control everything themselves.
Aside from that, one thing in this article got me thinking - the reference to Flash. Can you remember just how much of a big deal not having Flash on the iPhone was made out to be? Seems incredible now that it was ever a discussion.
Quote:
Originally Posted by petrosy
Apple Insider.... Keeping Fanbois heads securely up their own assholes!
...and when it involves assholes, it naturally involves yourself.
Is that correct?
He lies all the time, just posts URL after bloody URL.
Hoping that no one checks and digs deeper
Never a cohesive or intelligent post, ever.
But the mods love him.
I honestly don't understand why Google is even attempting to do this? I can understand why someone like Mozilla (non-profit, open source, anti-proprietary ideology) would care, but why would Google put so much money and effort into this? consumer-grade video codecs seem like the perfect use case for a single, widely supported industry standard which we have with MPEG-LA. Unless they were charging wholly unreasonable fees for licensing, what is gained by making an alternative codec?
Quote:
Originally Posted by hfts
Well caught.
He lies all the time, just posts URL after bloody URL.
Hoping that no one checks and digs deeper
Never a cohesive or intelligent post, ever.
But the mods love him.
Gatorguy: the original wolf in sheep's clothing.
He attempts to be perceived as a well-rounded, reasonable individual, but his true nature is that of a biased jerk.
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.
I always knew that, but 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.
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'. That little cash was far less than what it would cost to litigate a winning case. Google paid the cash. This is what lawyers do. If those 11 patent holders had a strong claim, it is exceedingly unlikely they would have agreed to a perpetual royalty free license.
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.
[mn, got it to work on third try]
Classic Dan Diggler piece...
This isn't a problem for Google. They can pay the patent, and in case they couldn't, then they can change the codec they use in a very short timeframe because they've the resources to do so.
It is a problem for small developers, though. The motivation behind patents is protecting individual inventors. But it's become the opposite: a market for buying and selling IP, where none of the parties have nothing to do with inventors.
Patents should be bound to the income generated by the product. If a product is free, patents should be allowed to be used free-of-charge, provided that the name of the inventor is acknowledged, and the patent is mentioned in the product info together with the inventor's name.
If the product isn't free, the patent should be payed as a percentage of the product income, to the inventor. Never more money than the generated income, as this would be nonsense (patents are meant to protect the inventor, so that he gets the benefit that the patent produces, and not more benefit... it's nonsense to pay more than the benefit it generated).
Patents shouldn't be transferable. It's nonsense to pay a royalty to somebody who didn't invent the patent.
If patents were like this, their real motivation would be guaranteed.
How come you are not hired by AI to write articles?
I know why, is because you have nothing of value to share with others.
Just one-liner swarmy obnoxious remarks.