A lot of commercial software comes with H.264 encoders and decoders, and some computers arrive with this software preinstalled. This leads a lot of people to believe that they can legally view and create H.264 videos for whatever purpose they like. Unfortunately for them, it ain’t so.
Maybe the best example comes from the Final Cut Pro license:
To the extent that the Apple Software contains AVC encoding and/or >decoding functionality, commercial use of H.264/AVC requires additional >licensing and the following provision applies: THE AVC FUNCTIONALITY IN >THIS PRODUCT IS LICENSED HEREIN ONLY 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 AVC VIDEO THAT WAS OBTAINED FROM A >VIDEO PROVIDER LICENSED TO PROVIDE AVC VIDEO. INFORMATION >REGARDING OTHER USES AND LICENSES MAY BE OBTAINED FROM MPEG LA >L.L.C. SEE HTTP://WWW.MPEGLA.COM.
The text could hardly be clearer: you do not have a license for commercial use of H.264. Call it “Final Cut Pro Hobbyist”. Do you post videos on your website that has Google Adwords? Do you edit video on a consulting basis? Do you want to include a video in a package sent to your customers? Do your clients send you video clips as part of your business? Then you’re using the encoder or decoder for commercial purposes, in violation of the license.
Now, you might think “but I’m sticking with MPEG-4, or MPEG-2, so it’s not a problem for me”. No. It’s just as bad. Here’s the relevant section of the license:
1. MPEG-2 Notice. To the extent that the Apple Software contains MPEG-2 >functionality, the following provision applies: ANY USE OF THIS PRODUCT >OTHER THAN CONSUMER PERSONAL USE IN ANY MANNER THAT COMPLIES >WITH THE MPEG-2 STANDARD FOR ENCODING VIDEO INFORMATION FOR >PACKAGED MEDIA IS EXPRESSLY PROHIBITED WITHOUT A LICENSE UNDER >APPLICABLE PATENTS IN THE MPEG-2 PATENT PORTFOLIO, WHICH LICENSE >IS AVAILABLE FROM MPEG LA, L.L.C., 250 STEELE STREET, SUITE 300, >DENVER, COLORADO 80206.
2. MPEG-4 Notice. This product is licensed under the MPEG-4 Systems >Patent Portfolio License for encoding in compliance with the MPEG-4 >Systems Standard, except that an additional license and payment of >royalties are necessary for encoding in connection with (i) data stored or >replicated in physical media which is paid for on a title by title basis and/or >(ii) data which is paid for on a title by title basis and is transmitted to an >end user for permanent storage and/or use. Such additional license may >be obtained from MPEG LA, LLC. See http://www.mpegla.com for additional >details. This product is licensed under the MPEG-4 Visual Patent Portfolio >License for the personal and non-commercial use of a consumer for (i) >encoding video in compliance with the MPEG-4 Visual Standard (“MPEG-4 >Video”) and/or (ii) decoding MPEG-4 video that was encoded by a >consumer engaged in a personal and non-commercial activity and/or was >obtained from a video provider licensed by MPEG LA to provide MPEG-4 >video. No license is granted or shall be implied for any other use. Additional >information including that relating to promotional, internal and commercial >uses and licensing may be obtained from MPEG LA, LLC.
Noticing a pattern? You have a license to use their software, provided you don’t make any money, your friends are also all correctly licensed, and you only produce content that complies with the MPEG standard. Using video for a commercial purpose? Producing video that isn’t within MPEG’s parameters? Have friends who use unlicensed encoders like x264, ffmpeg, or xvid? Too bad.
This last thing is actually a particularly interesting point. If you encode a video using one of these (open-source) unlicensed encoders, you’re practicing patents without a license, and you can be sued. But hey, maybe you’re just a scofflaw. After all, it’s not like you’re making trouble for anyone else, right? Wrong. If you send a video to a friend who uses a licensed decoder, and they watch it, you’ve caused them to violate their own software license, so they can be sued too.
Oh, and in case you thought this was specific to Apple, here’s the matching piece from the Windows 7 Ultimate License:
1. NOTICE ABOUT THE H.264/AVC VISUAL STANDARD, THE VC-1 VIDEO >STANDARD, THE MPEG-4 VISUAL STANDARD AND THE MPEG-2 VIDEO >STANDARD. This software includes H.264/AVC, VC-1, MPEG-4 Part 2, and >MPEG-2 visual compression technology. MPEG LA, L.L.C. requires this >notice: THIS PRODUCT IS LICENSED UNDER THE AVC, THE VC-1, THE MPEG-4 PART >2 VISUAL, AND THE MPEG-2 VIDEO PATENT PORTFOLIO LICENSES FOR THE >PERSONAL AND NON-COMMERCIAL USE OF A CONSUMER TO (i) ENCODE >VIDEO IN COMPLIANCE WITH THE ABOVE STANDARDS (“VIDEO >STANDARDS”) AND/OR (ii) DECODE AVC, VC-1, MPEG-4 PART 2 AND MPEG-2 >VIDEO THAT WAS ENCODED BY A CONSUMER ENGAGED IN A PERSONAL AND >NON-COMMERCIAL ACTIVITY OR WAS OBTAINED FROM A VIDEO PROVIDER >LICENSED TO PROVIDE SUCH VIDEO. NONE OF THE LICENSES EXTEND TO >ANY OTHER PRODUCT REGARDLESS OF WHETHER SUCH PRODUCT IS >INCLUDED WITH THIS PRODUCT IN A SINGLE ARTICLE. NO LICENSE IS >GRANTED OR SHALL BE IMPLIED FOR ANY OTHER USE. ADDITIONAL >INFORMATION MAY BE OBTAINED FROM MPEG LA, L.L.C. SEE >WWW.MPEGLA.COM.
Doesn’t seem so Ultimate to me.
My advice: use a codec that doesn’t need a license:
Q. What is the license for Theora? Theora (and all associated technologies released by the Xiph.org >Foundation) is released to the public via a BSD-style license. It is >completely free for commercial or noncommercial use. That means that >commercial developers may independently write Theora software which is >compatible with the specification for no charge and without restrictions of >any kind.
Why is this being downvoted? The site was down and the parent was just trying to be helpful. I admit the formatting is a bit bad but does that deserve punishment?
The problem with these write-ups about how bad H.264 is (or will be in 2011) is that it will not reach the right people in time; the masses. The people who clicked through to an article with H.264 in the title already know about the ins and outs.
The companies that implement and support H.264 also know all about the license, and they have most likely gotten some pretty sweet deals for getting this thing as widely deployed as possible.
What needs to be done is to get the message through so that the masses realize that MPEG LA will come after _you_ with their pitchforks and torches in less than a year from now. Worse yet, we do not even know how the license will look.
But maybe scaring people is not the key here. The question remains then: How do we get that message through to the big masses? Make alternatives look "cool"? Next generation video?
There are obvious problems with H.264, but I don't believe MPEG LA's plan is to sue regular people for not complying with the license agreement when they did that video that one time.
Not because I think they're not evil enough to do it, but because that kind of money-making scheme just doesn't scale.
Also, whenever they've sued one or two people, people's eyes will open and they'll just use an other codec. No big deal.
As a means to make money, that strategy simply sucks. A more likely turn of events is that licensing H.264 becomes quite a bit less good of a deal when H.264 has truly established itself. But even then they're not going to sue millions of people, because that doesn't scale, they're going to sue big vendors and service providers.
Certainly, that's not great either. But no, MPEG LA are not coming after "_you_".
So in summary: be careful some software and technologies you use have licences that you should read.
If you are using any technology for commercial use you should probably be reading all licensing agreements and have your lawyers deal with anything that arises.
Or, just drop these technologies and use their free competitors (e.g. Theora) that don't require you to engage your lawyers just to compress some videos.
Well, so how much does the licensing actually cost? On their website MPEG LA mentions there are certain thresholds to "minimize the impact on lower volume users" (http://www.mpegla.com/main/programs/AVC/Pages/Intro.aspx). If you're running an consulting business using this format is it so weird to pay a little (or maybe nothing?) to use it?
I'm pretty sure you can find outrageous (and oftentimes unlawful) things in most licenses (that's more or less the point), but come on, do you really think MPEG LA will ever sue your friend that watched your x264 encoded clip of your cat on his iPhone? (Which they found out about... how?)
In August 1999, Unisys changed the details of their licensing practice, announcing the option for owners of Billboard and Intra net Web sites to obtain licenses on payment of a one-time license fee of $5000 or $7500. Such licenses were not required for website owners or other GIF users who had used licensed software to generate GIFs.
Edit:
I am completely opposed to web standards including proprietary codecs. HTML5 should have Theora (or some other open gratis and libre codec) as the standard which all browsers wishing to be HTML5 compliant must be able to handle - this does not stop anyone from using h264 if they wish to. What it does is ensure that the web remains as free and open to use as possible.
If the working groups had plumped for Theora then optimisations and hardware would follow in pretty short shrift. It ain't going to happen and the reasons are commercial - this makes me sad for the future of the web, I see this is a big turning point. Kinda like if the developers of HTML4 had said "we know about the LZW patent but we're going to write in GIF as the standard requirement".
(Incidentally I gather that no image formats were written into the standards before?!).
So do you link to h264 videos from your intranet - want to buy a license for $10k? No? Switch to Theora as the best free alternative. OK, now none of the browsers support your video format natively. Congratulations you've been screwed again by MegaCorp.
We don't know how much it will cost to stream video on the web. That fact alone should ring alarm bells.
The last time they introduced these streaming fees, everyone (including Apple and Real) went mental and predicted that MPEG-4 would die because the licensing was so insane. They had to make some concessions, though it seems unlikely that they got bartered down very far since they started so extreme.
So this time, they let the web broadcasters get away with it for nothing for years while they solidified the markets where they've already got a monopoly.
You've got to admit it's a smooth move, almost Bond-villainesque.
"I do things with video on web, so irrelevant, that they won't notice me" is not the solution to these things. At least not if you want to be a web entrepreneur?
If the only widely adopted format on web becomes h264, which would already be the case if Mozilla wasn't resisting (which most of you attacked), then you have no other option than to use this format. And pay, unless your plan is to be unnoticeable.
And video is "everywhere". Just two examples from my real life:
- Screen-cast of usage on my subscription based projects
- My sister teaches elder people how to use computers. She is now preparing a set of video tutorials.
In the sort of world that we've occupied until now there is nobody who is going to sue you for making a cat video using a particular codec. But I notice that over time enforcement of licenses is becoming more strict, and perhaps eventually license enforcement will be automatic.
Using the H.264 standard for video on the internet seems like a dumb decision to me. It's not rocket science to choose some format which doesn't have potentially debilitating licensing issues associated with it.
Interesting. Is there precedent showing that these clauses are enforceable? After all, I can write whatever I want in a contract, but that doesn't mean it'll hold up in court.
Even if these clauses weren't enforceable, their sole existence causes a rather shady impression. What are the business practices behind such licences?
It's usually a good idea to restrain from cooperating with such companies. Unless, of course, the market forces you to do that - which is the only reason they get away with such excessive licence conditions for a nowadays state-of-the-art technology.
I'm making a service for indie filmmakers to self distribute films and this has been a big pickle.
I was making an encoder for them to download using ffmpeg but then realized I may have wasted my time because of the licensing of h264.
So the problem became: do I take the cost and encode their video or do I let them send the video prencoded for me. I had assumed that if they had encoding software that they have already paid for a license. Anyways, i've added support for ogg to the service (with warnings about it's usability).
Does anyone know if sorenson squeeze has this licensing issue?
You can license H.264, for the purpose of encoding video, for free or cheap, if your volume is modest. [1]
Whoever handles the video distribution (you or your customers) also needs to license the codec. This too is free or cheap. It could all change in the future, but who knows if that will happen.
Personally, I'd be more worried about other parts of the encoding chain. What format are you using? MP4 requires a license. What audio codec? Both AAC and MP3 require a license, and they're more expensive out of the gate. And what about decoding inputs? You need to license decoders for whatever input you accept.
H.264 is a far superior codec to Theora. For a large site, distributing video in Theora would significantly increase bandwidth costs, and would hurt user experience. I've seen the articles that claim that the two are basically the same, but it just isn't true - you can cherry-pick cases that look close, but those cases are a minority.
That said, the world needs an open-source video codec, and I'm glad that Mozilla is taking a stand here. MPEG-LA is much more likely to offer favorable licensing terms if it doesn't have a monopoly on web video.
H.264 is a far superior codec to Theora. For a large site, distributing video in Theora would significantly increase bandwidth costs, and would hurt user experience.
Would it hurt user experience as much as not having ads or never being able to charge for accounts? Because that's what using the free version of h.264 implies.
To hell with it; I'm just going to be a criminal. Scoff if you like, but I have a feeling that this is going to be the typical reaction if patent-holders start going for blood in a few years.
[+] [-] middayc|16 years ago|reply
==No, you can’t do that with H.264==
A lot of commercial software comes with H.264 encoders and decoders, and some computers arrive with this software preinstalled. This leads a lot of people to believe that they can legally view and create H.264 videos for whatever purpose they like. Unfortunately for them, it ain’t so.
Maybe the best example comes from the Final Cut Pro license:
The text could hardly be clearer: you do not have a license for commercial use of H.264. Call it “Final Cut Pro Hobbyist”. Do you post videos on your website that has Google Adwords? Do you edit video on a consulting basis? Do you want to include a video in a package sent to your customers? Do your clients send you video clips as part of your business? Then you’re using the encoder or decoder for commercial purposes, in violation of the license.Now, you might think “but I’m sticking with MPEG-4, or MPEG-2, so it’s not a problem for me”. No. It’s just as bad. Here’s the relevant section of the license:
Noticing a pattern? You have a license to use their software, provided you don’t make any money, your friends are also all correctly licensed, and you only produce content that complies with the MPEG standard. Using video for a commercial purpose? Producing video that isn’t within MPEG’s parameters? Have friends who use unlicensed encoders like x264, ffmpeg, or xvid? Too bad.This last thing is actually a particularly interesting point. If you encode a video using one of these (open-source) unlicensed encoders, you’re practicing patents without a license, and you can be sued. But hey, maybe you’re just a scofflaw. After all, it’s not like you’re making trouble for anyone else, right? Wrong. If you send a video to a friend who uses a licensed decoder, and they watch it, you’ve caused them to violate their own software license, so they can be sued too.
Oh, and in case you thought this was specific to Apple, here’s the matching piece from the Windows 7 Ultimate License:
Doesn’t seem so Ultimate to me.My advice: use a codec that doesn’t need a license:
[+] [-] skoob|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sailormoon|16 years ago|reply
edit: parent was at -1 when I posted that.
[+] [-] romland|16 years ago|reply
The companies that implement and support H.264 also know all about the license, and they have most likely gotten some pretty sweet deals for getting this thing as widely deployed as possible.
What needs to be done is to get the message through so that the masses realize that MPEG LA will come after _you_ with their pitchforks and torches in less than a year from now. Worse yet, we do not even know how the license will look.
But maybe scaring people is not the key here. The question remains then: How do we get that message through to the big masses? Make alternatives look "cool"? Next generation video?
I know, I know. I'm not saying anything new...
A (6 month old) interesting link: http://streaminglearningcenter.com/articles/h264-royalties-w...
[+] [-] romland|16 years ago|reply
When skimming the comments on that page, seems there is something new, (as of yesterday):
http://www.mpegla.com/Lists/MPEG%20LA%20News%20List/Attachme... [pdf]
[+] [-] tjogin|16 years ago|reply
Not because I think they're not evil enough to do it, but because that kind of money-making scheme just doesn't scale.
Also, whenever they've sued one or two people, people's eyes will open and they'll just use an other codec. No big deal.
As a means to make money, that strategy simply sucks. A more likely turn of events is that licensing H.264 becomes quite a bit less good of a deal when H.264 has truly established itself. But even then they're not going to sue millions of people, because that doesn't scale, they're going to sue big vendors and service providers.
Certainly, that's not great either. But no, MPEG LA are not coming after "_you_".
[+] [-] edd|16 years ago|reply
If you are using any technology for commercial use you should probably be reading all licensing agreements and have your lawyers deal with anything that arises.
[+] [-] vog|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] eelco|16 years ago|reply
I'm pretty sure you can find outrageous (and oftentimes unlawful) things in most licenses (that's more or less the point), but come on, do you really think MPEG LA will ever sue your friend that watched your x264 encoded clip of your cat on his iPhone? (Which they found out about... how?)
[+] [-] pbhjpbhj|16 years ago|reply
In August 1999, Unisys changed the details of their licensing practice, announcing the option for owners of Billboard and Intra net Web sites to obtain licenses on payment of a one-time license fee of $5000 or $7500. Such licenses were not required for website owners or other GIF users who had used licensed software to generate GIFs.
Edit:
I am completely opposed to web standards including proprietary codecs. HTML5 should have Theora (or some other open gratis and libre codec) as the standard which all browsers wishing to be HTML5 compliant must be able to handle - this does not stop anyone from using h264 if they wish to. What it does is ensure that the web remains as free and open to use as possible.
If the working groups had plumped for Theora then optimisations and hardware would follow in pretty short shrift. It ain't going to happen and the reasons are commercial - this makes me sad for the future of the web, I see this is a big turning point. Kinda like if the developers of HTML4 had said "we know about the LZW patent but we're going to write in GIF as the standard requirement".
(Incidentally I gather that no image formats were written into the standards before?!).
So do you link to h264 videos from your intranet - want to buy a license for $10k? No? Switch to Theora as the best free alternative. OK, now none of the browsers support your video format natively. Congratulations you've been screwed again by MegaCorp.
[+] [-] ZeroGravitas|16 years ago|reply
The last time they introduced these streaming fees, everyone (including Apple and Real) went mental and predicted that MPEG-4 would die because the licensing was so insane. They had to make some concessions, though it seems unlikely that they got bartered down very far since they started so extreme.
So this time, they let the web broadcasters get away with it for nothing for years while they solidified the markets where they've already got a monopoly.
You've got to admit it's a smooth move, almost Bond-villainesque.
[+] [-] middayc|16 years ago|reply
If the only widely adopted format on web becomes h264, which would already be the case if Mozilla wasn't resisting (which most of you attacked), then you have no other option than to use this format. And pay, unless your plan is to be unnoticeable.
And video is "everywhere". Just two examples from my real life:
- Screen-cast of usage on my subscription based projects
- My sister teaches elder people how to use computers. She is now preparing a set of video tutorials.
Do you like paying anything for thin air?
[+] [-] motters|16 years ago|reply
Using the H.264 standard for video on the internet seems like a dumb decision to me. It's not rocket science to choose some format which doesn't have potentially debilitating licensing issues associated with it.
[+] [-] jey|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] vog|16 years ago|reply
It's usually a good idea to restrain from cooperating with such companies. Unless, of course, the market forces you to do that - which is the only reason they get away with such excessive licence conditions for a nowadays state-of-the-art technology.
[+] [-] chrischen|16 years ago|reply
I was making an encoder for them to download using ffmpeg but then realized I may have wasted my time because of the licensing of h264.
So the problem became: do I take the cost and encode their video or do I let them send the video prencoded for me. I had assumed that if they had encoding software that they have already paid for a license. Anyways, i've added support for ogg to the service (with warnings about it's usability).
Does anyone know if sorenson squeeze has this licensing issue?
[+] [-] jon_dahl|16 years ago|reply
Whoever handles the video distribution (you or your customers) also needs to license the codec. This too is free or cheap. It could all change in the future, but who knows if that will happen.
Personally, I'd be more worried about other parts of the encoding chain. What format are you using? MP4 requires a license. What audio codec? Both AAC and MP3 require a license, and they're more expensive out of the gate. And what about decoding inputs? You need to license decoders for whatever input you accept.
[1] http://www.mpegla.com/main/programs/AVC/Documents/AVC_TermsS...
[+] [-] jon_dahl|16 years ago|reply
That said, the world needs an open-source video codec, and I'm glad that Mozilla is taking a stand here. MPEG-LA is much more likely to offer favorable licensing terms if it doesn't have a monopoly on web video.
[+] [-] jrockway|16 years ago|reply
Would it hurt user experience as much as not having ads or never being able to charge for accounts? Because that's what using the free version of h.264 implies.
[+] [-] fi0660|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sketerpot|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] malkia|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] robin_reala|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cracki|16 years ago|reply