Comment by bayindirh
1 day ago
That requirement is reversed in the last five years IIRC. My Sony A7-III doesn't have that, for example. Neither modern Canons, AFAIK.
The funnier thing is, you can't use the videos out of your camera for commercial purposes, because the video codecs inside your camera doesn't come with commercial licenses out of the box.
So if you are going to use your camera for production which you'll earn money, you need to pay commercial licenses for your cameras.
Hah.
> The funnier thing is, you can't use the videos out of your camera for commercial purposes, because the video codecs inside your camera doesn't come with commercial licenses out of the box.
Do you have a link? Could only find a 2010 article[1] that appears to have been debunked by MPEG-LA themselves (per the updates in the blog post).
[1] https://www.osnews.com/story/23236/why-our-civilizations-vid...
Of course. Below a selection of some user manuals, with the texts copied verbatim.
From Nikon D500 User Manual [0], page 22:
From Nikon Z6/Z7 User Manual [1], page 236:
Sony has a similar note for A9 [3], but can be grouped under here, which is almost the same:
AVC Patent Portfolio License: THIS PRODUCT IS LICENSED UNDER THE AVC PATENT PORTFOLIO LICENSE FOR THE PERSONAL AND NON - COMMERCIAL USE OF A CONSUMER TO (i) ENCODE VIDEO IN COMPLIANCE WITH THE AVC STANDARD (“AVC VIDEO”) AND/ OR (ii) DECODE AVC VIDEO THAT WAS ENCODED BY A CONSUMER ENGAGED IN A PERSONAL AND NON - COMMERCIAL ACTIVITY AND / OR WAS OBTAINED FROM A VIDEO PROVIDER LICENSED TO PROVIDE AVC VIDEO. NO LICENSE IS GRANTED OR SHALL BE IMPLIED FOR ANY OTHER USE. ADDITIONAL INFORMATION MAY BE OBTAINED FROM MPEG LA, L.L.C. S EE http://www.mpegla.com
From Canon R5 User Manual [2], page 939:
“This product is licensed under AT&T patents for the MPEG-4 standard and may be used for encoding MPEG-4 compliant video and/or decoding MPEG-4 compliant video that was encoded only (1) for a personal and non-commercial purpose or (2) by a video provider licensed under the AT&T patents to provide MPEG-4 compliant video. No license is granted or implied for any other use for MPEG-4 standard.”
THIS PRODUCT IS LICENSED UNDER THE AVC PATENT PORTFOLIO LICENSE FOR THE PERSONAL USE OF A CONSUMER OR OTHER USES IN WHICH IT DOES NOT RECEIVE REMUNERATION TO (i) ENCODE VIDEO IN COMPLIANCE WITH THE AVC STANDARD (''AVC VIDEO'') AND/OR (ii) DECODE AVC VIDEO THAT WAS ENCODED BY A CONSUMER ENGAGED IN A PERSONAL ACTIVITY AND/OR WAS OBTAINED FROM A VIDEO PROVIDER LICENSED TO PROVIDE AVC VIDEO. NO LICENSE IS GRANTED OR SHALL BE IMPLIED FOR ANY OTHER USE. ADDITIONAL INFORMATION MAY BE OBTAINED FROM MPEG LA, L.L.C. SEE HTTP://WWW.MPEGLA.COM
[0]: https://download.nikonimglib.com/archive3/4qUKV00WD5Bh04RdeC...
[1]:https://download.nikonimglib.com/archive5/8Yygr00R9Ojb058Kwq...
[2]: https://cam.start.canon/en/C003/manual/c003.pdf
[3]: https://helpguide.sony.net/ilc/1830/v1/en/contents/TP0002351...
Thanks. Yeah that seems to be the same AVC/h.264 'personal and non-commercial' text the 2010 article I linked centered on. MPEG-LA spoke to Engadget[1] (finally found a working link I could read) and said that a separate license for shooting commerical video isn't required and that distribution of commercial content via licensed providers (Google/Youtube, Apple, etc) is fine.
It seems the one caveat, per the Engadget article, is directly distributing AVC video to end users (I suppose like a direct download link on a personal site) is what requires a license but that license is free to obtain.
[1] https://www.engadget.com/2010-05-04-know-your-rights-h-264-p...
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I wonder what the commercial licenses actually cost. I know there was a big movement of shooting movies and events with canons when good video on dslrs first became a thing. I never even thought about codec licenses, because that stuff shouldn't exist. the manufacturer should buy the license so the camera can use it forever, because its just a paperweight without it, and I dont think they should be able to sell cameras with hidden text licenses like that.
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Hilarious. Reminds me of Pioneer CDJs as well, even on the flagship CDJ-3000 models. If you read the user manual it says:
> About using MP3 files
> This product has been licensed for nonprofit use. This product has not been licensed for commercial purposes (for profit-making use), […]. You need to acquire the corresponding licenses for such uses. For details, see […]
Best use an open audio codec instead.
Nowadays, MP3 is an open audio codec. The patents have expired.
The format itself is patent-unencumbered. That doesn't mean I couldn't still write a non-free decoder and license it to Pioneer for use in their CDJs. Due to organizational inertia, I suspect that's what's going on here (e.g., they licensed a decoder from Fraunhofer or another commercial implementer twenty years ago, and have been using the same one since).
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> Best use an open audio codec instead.
You will still need a separate license (or multiple separate licenses) for commercial purposes.
Music licensing is unbelievably complicated
That's about the music royalties, the comment above is about the CDJs ability to play MP3 encoded audio.
Do you need to sign an agreement to this effect before starting filming? I don't see how it can legally hold.
Nominally, yes. These are checked before your movie is being distributed, and you'll most probably face legal consequences if you don't pay for your licenses.
Not getting caught for some time doesn't count either. You'll pay retroactively, with some interest, probably.
Licensing page is at [0]. Considering the previous shenanigans they pulled against open video and audio formats in the past [1], these guys are not sleeping around. These guys call people for patent pools in a format, and license these pools as format licenses.
[0]: https://www.via-la.com/licensing-2/avc-h-264/avc-h-264-licen...
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MPEG_LA#Criticism
If you bought a legit licensed product the doctrine of first sale means their patent rights are exhausted.[0] They can't come after you for patent infringement. Those licenses are for manufacturers making new licensed products, not users of licensed products they purchased.
Can you show a single court case or even a press release where someone using a legit licensed product bought on the open market was sued for codec patent infringement?
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exhaustion_doctrine_under_U.S....
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Presumably there's no way of fingerprinting the footage itself as 'unlicenced' so the closest they get is asking the studio what camera serials they used to film.
What about if you're a YouTuber, surely they don't pay?
We need to normalize piracy like we're cheap Chinese knockoff manufacturers. Down with software patents.
That's fine, as long as I can record long movies with my iPhone.
But is it a phone that records movies or a movie recorder that can make phone calls?
[I jest, but these were almost literally the questions being asked by various commissions]
Wipe the EXIF data on the images when you make it public and nobody will be the wiser ;)
I’m not sure. Like how color printers write their serial numbers and date and whatnot on every page, these devices might be watermarking every video subtly, and we might not know it.
It’s not exactly watermarking; each encoder works in a different way and it’s readily possible to determine (for one versed in such matters) which encoder was used to generate a video by inspecting the structure of the raw (eg h264) bitstream. This might not work reliably enough for simpler codecs like JPEG but for something as complicated as modern video codec where there are a million ways to generate a compatible payload it is as unique as a fingerprint.
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