Comment by threeseed

9 years ago

> The AV1 format is and will always be royalty-free

Not sure how they can make this statement.

VP8 was patent encumbered all over the place and eventually required licensing from MPEG-LA. Surely AV1 would be infringing on at least some of HEVC's expansive patent pool. Unless of course Google is willing to indemnify user's against patent infringement lawsuit. Which would be really big news.

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threeseed

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pavlov  9 years ago

Apparently Google does IP diligence for AV1 to navigate around patents.

Matt Frost of Google is quoted as saying:

"Obviously, if we have an open source codec, we need to take very strong steps, and be very diligent in making sure that we are in fact producing something that's royalty free. So we have an extensive IP diligence process which involves diligence on both the contributor level – so when Google proposes a tool, we are doing our in-house IP diligence, using our in-house patent assets and outside advisors – that is then forwarded to the group, and is then again reviewed by an outside counsel that is engaged by the alliance. So that's a step that actually slows down innovation, but is obviously necessary to produce something that is open source and royalty free."

The original source is a video, but this quote transcript is on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AV1#cite_note-frost-sme2017-16

  • mtkd  9 years ago

    How did we end up at this point? It's like a self-enforced ceiling on evolution of technology. The tar pit gets more tarry every year.

    • pavlov  9 years ago

      Fortunately patents are fairly short-lived (at least compared to copyright). A lot of the worst software patents were granted in the '90s and early 2000s and are reaching their 20-year expiration date.

      5 replies →

    • rayiner  9 years ago

      The "evolution of technology" requires dollars. Gobs of them. R&D thus must have a monetization model. The monetization model used by AV1 didn't exist until relatively recently, but MPEG's patent-based monetization model worked just fine for two decades before that.

      For decades, companies like Sony, Sharp, NTT, etc., bankrolled that R&D by licensing patents to the technology, and selling devices incorporating the technology.

      Today, the Internet enables new monetization models. Companies like Apple and Google can directly monetize video content through iTunes and Google Play (or indirectly through Youtube). They can use that to bankroll their investment in new video codecs.

pgeorgi  9 years ago

Why should Google indemnify users when MPEG-LA isn't willing to do so for their licensees? (see the mess that HEVC is in now, or even good old MP3 with Sisvel)

stepik777  9 years ago

> Surely AV1 would be infringing on at least some of HEVC's expansive patent pool

Yes, it probably would, but if these patents are owned by members of AOM it is not an issue

Thaxll  9 years ago

From wikipedia:

AOMedia Video 1 (AV1), is an open, royalty-free video coding format designed for video transmissions over the Internet. It is being developed by the Alliance for Open Media (AOMedia), a consortium of firms from the semiconductor industry, video on demand providers, and web browser developers, founded in 2015.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AV1