https://www.reuters.com/technology/exclusive-eu-antitrust-regulators-probing-tech-group-aoms-video-licensing-policy-2022-07-07/
EU antitrust regulators are investigating the video licensing policy of the Alliance for Open Media (AOM), whose members include Alphabet (GOOGL.O) unit Google, Amazon (AMZN.O), Apple (AAPL.O) and Meta , the European Commission said on Thursday.
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>"The Commission has information that AOM and its members may be imposing licensing terms (mandatory royalty-free cross licensing) on innovators that were not a part of AOM at the time of the creation of the AV1 technical, but whose patents are deemed essential to (its) technical specifications," the paper said.
Is that like copyleft? The horror.
daily reminder this is what ukropia dying for
BHUHAHHAHAHAH
Freedom?
They are dying for AV1? Wow Video encodes are serious business
>just surrender bro. you wouldn't even die if you'd just let Russia invade you. fake war
Unironically true though. What are they gonna do? Put normal people in gas chambers or somerhing?
>>"we're not gonna let ukros enter nato with crimea and its south eastern parts"
>"yo, we're gonna enter nato"
>>"k"
This is like playing "I'm not touching you" with a bear. Ok, you were not touching the bear. Congrats on winning the "I'm not touching you" game, good fricking job.
Could you link to the news article where Ukraine announced their intention to join NATO? Thanks, Ivan.
https://twitter.com/ZelenskyyUa/status/1404512788966514689
Well that's a swing and a miss. Again, please link to the article where Ukraine actually announced its intention to join NATO.
>I-I-It's not official, it's just the president clearly showing his govt's intention
>"I'm not touching him, I'm not touching him!!"
I'd just like to congratulate Ukraine on its crushing victory in the "I'm not touching you" game.
hard cope
It's funny to see how kremlin mutts try to invent excuses and change them everyday.
There is no other reason than kremlin's clique attempt to save their power and distract plebs from some unpleasant things.
>ukropia
I smell judeo-russian shit.
>imposing licensing terms (mandatory royalty-free cross licensing)
Oh no!
>you promise you won't sue them for infringing ANY of your patents
>in return you get a license to ONLY their patents pertaining to media codecs
It's lopsided. Google, Amazon, Apple, Meta, etc all have huge warchests of patents that don't get cross-licensed in this deal. They can still glass you from orbit with patent lawsuits, but if you use their media codec you can't respond in kind. Once again, the EU is in the right to investigate this.
Note that the technical merits of AV1 are irrelevant to this discussion.
>if you use their media codec you can't respond in kind
uhhHHHH is AV1 a trap? does it REALLY give them that amount of leverage? clarify please
The way it works is they let you use AV1 "for free" and grant you a license to any of their patents which might be relevant to AV1. But if you ever sue them over any other patent unrelated to media codecs entirely, they revoke your license to use AV1 patents.
Effectively, this gives them a license to violate any of your patents, in exchange for you getting to use AV1.
holy frick, OK. picrel.
thanks for explaining that
what the frick
That's not it because you have to voluntarily join the AOM foundation for any of your ideas to even take part in the codec's foundation. Additionally, that's not what the defense termination clause says.
https://aomedia.org/license/patent-license/
>1.3. Defensive Termination. If any Licensee, its Affiliates, or its agents initiates patent litigation or files, maintains, or voluntarily participates in a lawsuit against another entity or any person asserting that any Implementation infringes Necessary Claims, any patent licenses granted under this License directly to the Licensee are immediately terminated as of the date of the initiation of action unless 1) that suit was in response to a corresponding suit regarding an Implementation first brought against an initiating entity, or 2) that suit was brought to enforce the terms of this License (including intervention in a third-party action by a Licensee).
There's nothing stating that anything not relating to AV1 would terminate use and access to AV1. Seems legally clean and frivolous if Sisvel was involved in bringing this up to the EU since they maintain they have AV1 patents despite them never being in the AOM Foundation.
You're both wrong:
>“Necessary Claims” means all claims of patents or patent applications, (a) that currently or at any time in the future, are owned or controlled by the Licensor, and (b) (i) would be an Essential Claim as defined by the W3C Policy ... as if the Specification was a W3C Recommendation; or (ii) are infringed by the Reference Implementation.
>"Essential Claims" shall mean all claims in any patent or patent application in any jurisdiction in the world that would necessarily be infringed by implementation of the Recommendation. A claim is necessarily infringed hereunder only when it is not possible to avoid infringing it because there is no non-infringing alternative for implementing the normative portions of the Recommendation.
Basically, all patents held (and ever will be held) by the holder adhering to this license, ever, for any usage of av1 ever. The essential bullshit basically says that they have the right to use any patent of yours, as long as they just "absolutely need" your patent for any reason whatsoever.
>2.11. Reference Implementation. “Reference Implementation” means an Encoder and/or Decoder released by the Alliance for Open Media as a Final Deliverable.
>2.12. Specification. ... Final Deliverable for which this License was issued.
The "final deliverable" is how aom fricks you. You decide to use av1 or any of aom's products for any reason whatsoever, aom learns of this and does a bait and switch / sneaky rewrite of their specs to use certain patents of yours free of cost. None of this contradicts the initial claim in
. And no AOM foundation membership required.
>frivolous if Sisvel was involved in bringing this up to the EU since they maintain they have AV1 patents despite them never being in the AOM Foundation.
No, you're just looking for an excuse to paint your epic sisvel bogeyman as a comic book villain, where google would incidentally be the superhero of your favorite capeshit.
Is this from the same fine gentlemen who claimed to own technology in VP9, but never actually initiated legal action regarding it?
As someone who has been employed by a patent troll in the past, this is run of the mill shit.
If they had an actual stake in AV1, they would've sued one of the many organizations involved with AV1 already... they can see what technology is in it because it's entirely in the public domain. The reason these dickheads don't ever sue (particularly against a reasonably wealthy defendant like Google) is because a court is entirely likely to find that their claims don't apply to VP9/AV1/whatever comes next, or that potentially the patents are invalid entirely.
They cry "oh woe is me the big scary [insert actual tech company here] is stealing my invention and I can't stop them", hoping to get some sympathy from a government not 'skilled in the art'.
Or they threaten smaller firms to which paying up is cheaper than a court case even if they're successful, and keep their head down.
Yeah, sure whatever. If they had an actual claim to so much patent covered technology, they'd have begun enforcement already. "You don't get to use our patents if you sue us" clauses aren't really dangerous if you have a legitimate claim to something in the standard, because they'll have to license from you, on your terms.
This bullshit is only because they probably *can't* enforce their patents.
>Yeah, sure whatever.
I accept your concession
>If they had an actual claim to so much patent covered technology, they'd have begun enforcement already.
You don't just go up against gayman unprepared doofus.
>"You don't get to use our patents if you sue us" clauses aren't really dangerous if you have a legitimate claim to something in the standard, because they'll have to license from you, on your terms.
Except the license explicitly grants them the permission to use any patent of theirs they want for av1, homosexual. I literally just said that. Did you not read or did my post cause a buffer overflow in your feeble brain?
>You don't just go up against gayman unprepared doofus.
If they have a legitimate claim, they'd be fine.
You can't say that "oh no muh big corporation is too powerful" if you've got one of the world's largest economic blocs considering granting you magical fairy privileges over your shitty IP.
>Except the license explicitly grants them the permission to use any patent of theirs they want for av1, homosexual.
That's not how licenses work, dipshit.
>whoaah i wrote a license now i'm president of the usa it says here no takebacksies
The license only exists to protect *licensee* from a patent lawsuit if they use the patents covered by the license. Also known as... the status quo.
If they're not using any of Google's technology through this license, they have no problem.
You can't force a non-party to a contract to conditions of that contract.
Either they're using Google, Netflix, etc patents (royalty free, I might add) and this license exists to protect them from being sued by the big guys. Or they're not using the patents, and they can go to town with whatever lawsuit they like.
The only penalty for suing Google, is you don't get to use Google's shit for free.
I can see the argument you're trying to make.
>but google is so biggggg it's not fAir
But none of this prevents Sisvel or any other idiot with a shitty patent from suing them.
Like I said before... if they had a legitimate right to even one(1) patent used by AV1, they'd be able to bring an injunction preventing the whole thing. They'd get to set their terms. You know... what you'd do if you *actually had a patent*.
I'd like to draw your attention to the fact that the patent troll scam at the caliber you're talking about only happens in the case of small businesses without lawyers, and one very specific and very corrupt court in texas. Not exactly representative of how patent litigation works.
>The license only exists to protect *licensee* from a patent lawsuit if they use the patents covered by the license. Also known as... the status quo. If they're not using any of Google's technology through this license, they have no problem. You can't force a non-party to a contract to conditions of that contract. Either they're using Google, Netflix, etc patents (royalty free, I might add) and this license exists to protect them from being sued by the big guys. Or they're not using the patents, and they can go to town with whatever lawsuit they like. The only penalty for suing Google, is you don't get to use Google's shit for free.
Exact that's exactly what's stipulated by the license butthole. Whether they're valid and/or truly enforcable in court, well we'll fricking see won't we?
>>but google is so biggggg it's not fAir
I never made this argument, it was just a snide insult at your stockholm syndrome like subservience to gayman.
>Like I said before... if they had a legitimate right to even one(1) patent used by AV1, they'd be able to bring an injunction preventing the whole thing. They'd get to set their terms. You know... what you'd do if you *actually had a patent*.
This is insane cope. Do you even have an actual idea of how the process would work?
>one very specific and very corrupt court
Whoa, did you hear guys?
Every patent lawsuit that happens outside of Eastern District is legitimate, all the time?
>Exact that's exactly what's stipulated by the license butthole.
So how does this affect someone like Sisvel then? They notorious for implementing AV1 and shipping a trillion units? Big licensees of Google patents? I don't see how they would need to license any of them.
>well we'll fricking see won't we?
No, we won't. They never have tried this in a court, and never will. This most recent action is political, not legal.
If they get their way here, they'll make 3¢ per whatever through the EU. If they don't get their way they'll shut up like they did last time (with VP9) and hope an idiot will throw a few cents per unit their way every now and then.
>Do you even have an actual idea of how the process would work?
It'll be long and drawn out, even obvious trolls last years with enough financial backing. But it is the primary dispute resolution mechanism for patents. If they don't like that they don't need to register them.
>subservience to gayman
I don't have any dealings with these guys outside of the occasional dregs (like AV1, AOSP) that they throw freely to the masses.
Bullshit is bullshit no matter who it's thrown at.
>Every patent lawsuit that happens outside of Eastern District is legitimate, all the time?
You say this like bullshit patent infringement cases are still a dime a dozen even in well functioning courts.
>So how does this affect someone like Sisvel then?
Dunno, I'm only arguing about the lawsuit. The reuters article has zero mentions of sisvel, I don't know why you keep bringing that up.
Everything else is just speculation, and I can only speculate on what will happen myself and I have no interest in that.
>The reuters article has zero mentions of sisvel, I don't know why you keep bringing that up.
They're the only group claiming to have any non-AOM patents covering AV1.
It might be another third party, but it really isn't likely. And anything I've said would apply to this elusive "other organization" as well.
>like bullshit patent infringement cases are still a dime a dozen
They may or may not be common, but I was explicit questioning the idea that patent trolling "only happens in the case of small businesses without lawyers, and one very specific and very corrupt court in texas"
That's a ridiculous statement.
>Basically, all patents held (and ever will be held) by the holder adhering to this license, ever, for any usage of av1 ever. The essential bullshit basically says that they have the right to use any patent of yours, as long as they just "absolutely need" your patent for any reason whatsoever.
>The "final deliverable" is how aom fricks you. You decide to use av1 or any of aom's products for any reason whatsoever, aom learns of this and does a bait and switch / sneaky rewrite of their specs to use certain patents of yours free of cost. None of this contradicts the initial claim in
Is that like copyleft? The horror.. And no AOM foundation membership required.
As said again, being in the AOM Foundation covers whether your patent gets in or not in making the codec itself and what I said in theory is how it is supposed to work. I know how the argument comes about and why the investigation happened but the only real way that there is an issue if you have a patent that was used and are not part of the foundation which the courts will figure out which will decide what happens.
>No, you're just looking for an excuse to paint your epic sisvel bogeyman as a comic book villain, where google would incidentally be the superhero of your favorite capeshit.
Sisvel is the only entity on Earth that has publicly stated they hold AV1 patents and aren't part of the AOM foundation. Moreover, they are in the EU. No other tech company in the EU like Nokia or Ericsson even though not being part of the EU have claimed the same as Sisvel which would allow for this.
If they change the spec then it's not AV1 anymore, and the prior agreement doesn't apply. Anyway, you're as free to not use AV1 as you are to not use HEVC and VVC, and you have no reason to license AOMedia's patents if you don't use it.
Hell, if this wasn't a royalty-free standard, what non-participant company has patents that are worth more than the entirety of the actual members' patents? A normal cross-licensing agreement leaves you in the red.
this is a fricking meme patent troll in europe trying to reeeee about them offering freedom
I bet if you looked deep into it, the patent troll would be a relative of some MPEG member or something, frick them.
nope, they are complaining about the royalty-free part.
EU's all over copyright stuff because their music labels and studios want royalties whenever their content is played. That's why they wanted the upload filters, the link tax and all that jazz. Everytime you open a EU-made video on youtube, you (or youtube) is supposed to pay royalties to the european TV networks or music labels.
Yeah this.
If Microsoft, Apple & Oracle were European, GNU/Linux would be illegal.
They're not mad at copyleft or royaltyfree. They're mad at Americans. Like always.
Glad I don't live in YUROPOOR, how moronic can you be?
moronic enough to end up on 4ch of all places in the world.
Better than most sites.
Amerimutt?
wait, how the frick is an open source project a trust?
theora is the only true open video codec.
vp8, vp9 and av1 are just corporate larps to enslave you
Good thing that I live in the EU, where software patents don't exist
Does that mean that we could use x264, x265 and so on if IQfy was hosted in Europe?
What IQfy allows is up to IQfy and has just about no relevance with patents. You cannot play HEVC on any non-Safari browsers, though, regardless of where you are.
? I thought they would have to pay a fee if they allowed people to upload x264 content.
Why else would they shy away from non open codecs? Let's think about this logically...
They have to pay if they monetize it or have their own players a la YouTube phone app. I'm not exactly sure what the deal would be with purely unmodified user-contributed content, but I kinda doubt that filehosts have to pay patent licenses for every uploaded file.
They sell a digital product and ads maybe that's why?
Else again use logic why would they avoid adding x264 support?
I saw that some American porn websites where users can upload content also enforce open codecs, they also sell adds.
>why would they avoid adding x264 support?
Why would they avoid AV1 support as well? Who knows.
Either way, AVC isn't all that useful once you have AV1.
The EU action against AV1 is literally predicated on the licensing terms for software patents
Don't you love that?
Things like this convince me that the EU leadership (a big committee of bored stuffed suits in a smoke-filled room?) has lost all grip on reality.
Right about how things were in Rome before the barbs sacked it.
So, in 3.. 2.. 1..
No, they're right. Americans got too wienery with their garbage corporate standards and ultracapitalism. If they wish to trade in EU territory, they need to be kept on a leash.
Based! I need the EU to save me from royalty free cross licensing. Such a horrible thing to have to endure.
Fortunately the cookie popups will save us from capitalism.
>Nothing the EU does is ever wrong because I'm European and I'm superior
EU simps are mentally-ill.
they never had a grip to begin with dude. this is just business as usual at the EC
It's just patent flunkies scared for their free income. At least they're merely complaining and launching investigations that will be shut down immediately in the EU, while in the US, they lead the scene and actually have patents on algorithms and are the reason why AV1 was necessary in the first place.
isn't like royalty free? what licensings?
Royalty free is exclusive to having a license.
If you've ever delt with royalty free music site you notice the music isn't free. You pay for a license, the royalty free part just means they won't come asking for money based on the amount of views or listens.
Don't care 265 is more than enough.
Is ANYONE going to read the fricking article??
>"The fact that the Commission has a preliminary investigation does not prejudge the outcome of the investigation on the existence of an infringement," the spokesperson said, without providing further details.
Nothingburger for the moment. They do these investigations all the time.
>"The Commission has information that AOM and its members may be imposing licensing terms (mandatory royalty-free cross licensing) on innovators that were not a part of AOM at the time of the creation of the AV1 technical, but whose patents are deemed essential to (its) technical specifications," the paper said.
The last part is important:
>but whose patents are deemed essential to (its) technical specifications
So AOM maybe be imposing licensing on companies whose patents they used to create AV1 and that's what they're investigating.
And as usual OP is a huge homosexual for making that title, nowhere in the article was the word "ban" used.
>So AOM maybe be imposing licensing on companies whose patents they used to create AV1
So? Isn't the point that the companies willingly joined up to create an open pool of patents? Nobody is imposing something on anyone but themselves.
>live in EU
>EU "bans" something
>continue using the thing
It's literally that simple.
I've been saying this from the start, google made av1 with blatant disregard for existing patents and did not do sufficient due diligence with regards to avoiding existing patents with the express intent to do better in their codec than vvc. Where MPEG reimburses the patent holders, google actively ignores this and avoids dealing with them.
Google succeeds in using patented work without getting sued to oblivion because they only use patents not held by patent troll orgs. Instead what you see is individuals forming a grassroots coalition in an attempt to get google to listen. Also, patent trolls do not sue rich megacorporations, only those with the money to pay up but not enough to hire full-time lawyers without breaking a sweat.
Also, the infringed patents aren't worthless troll patents from the Black folk in muttland, but real patents of technical merit. Whatever your stances on patent law, fact is google scammed individuals out of their due cash (that ironically mpeg would have paid up for), and my hatred for google outweighs my honestly communist hatred for patents and copyright.
I'm gonna be honest, I read the entire article, and I still have no fricking idea what's going on. Can someone explain what the EU fricked up this time?
the EU doesn't frick up, comrade.
see
I still don't entirely understand the situation. So apparently this group of tech giants created the AV1 codec, and it uses technology patented by some one them, and they are fine with each other using AV1, but in theory, anyone else could be sued for patent violations if they use it?
I thought these fricking codecs were free and open source, and everybody does with the code whatever the frick they please. If this is not the case, then it's trash.
No. Your reading comprehension sucks balls.
I literally made that up myself thinking about what may be logical, I really don't understand the what the article is talking about.
>but in theory, anyone else could be sued for patent violations if they use it?
They grant everybody else a license to use AV1 relevant patents, but that license is conditional on you never suing them for them violating any of your patents.
EU fricky sucky beuraucrauts sold themselves out for mpeg-la money. So instead of putting a bullet in these guys heads we put it in our foots via glorious communist revolution.
Probably they will force a change in the licensing or its interpretation.
Software patents are a mistake by the way.
Software patents are only bad when the concept of intellectual property is bad
EU vs Google, Amazon and Apple!
Fight fight!
*gets the popcorn*
>salty european patent trolls (sisvel) get shitty that google, netflix, etc have an arrangement that you can only use their patents in relation to av1 if you also licence your patents reciprocally
>this means that they can't charge royalties for a codec they had no hand in developing, even if they have patents that might "cover" av1 (protip: the trolls seldom do)
>trolls cry to the european commission that their "innovations" are being harmed by the big evil american companies that won't let them leech
>shitty european politicians see this as easy political brownie points
it's literally nothing
Read the article moron
I did, spastic
What in the article contradicts what I said?
All of it.
The whole thing.
>Yuroop mad at US company again
its getting pathetic already, better go suck Putins wiener so you get gas to not freeze to death this winter
Quick rundown on copyleft issue?
And here I was posting this image as a joke.
av1 is an investment by google to lower the cost of youtube's hosting and internet usage.
Just as VP9 support gets enabled on IQfy.
TL;DR: Antitrust creates trusts.
This makes no sense. Don't those patents only apply in America? How the frick does the EU have a say in this?
The MPEG israelite strikes again.
EU doesn't even recognise software patents, why are they doing dirty job for MPEG patent pools and Sisvel?
Also are they moronic? They don't investigate MPEG patent pools for being anti-competitive bastards
>Also are they moronic?
Legitimately yes, if it hasn't become clear by every decision they made relating to technology.
How pathetic do you have to be to shill for the 0.0000001% richest?