Re: [rtcweb] VP8 IPR agreement announced.

[Ron <[e-mail]>]

On Sat, Mar 09, 2013 at 11:08:29AM +0100, Harald Alvestrand wrote:
> On 03/08/2013 09:14 PM, Stephan Wenger wrote:
> >
> >I want to ask two more pieces of information that would allow me
> >to put this announcement into context.
> >
> >First, who are those 11 rightholders?  I'm sure you agree that, in
> >order to make a meaningful risk assessment, that information is
> >needed.
> 
> Stephan, at the moment, we have no agreement with the rightsholders
> that permits us to disclose their names. We're discussing that topic
> with them, but we will not name them without an agreement to do so.

I'm a bit mystified by why Stephan thinks this is somehow essential
for anything more than curiosity sake.  Didn't he previously reassure
us that we could trust MPEG-LA to negotiate needed licences for us,
without any of the sort of additional guarantees and indemnities that
were being insisted of Google?

Why can we not trust them to have done so now, when they clearly
released a formal statement saying they have?

If anything really does remain in order to make a meaningful assessment
I would think it would be a careful examination of why this apparent
double-standard still persists.

> Of course, the rightsholders are free to disclose themselves.

Since it seems like a pretty good bet that most if not all of them
are represented here and have participated passionately in this
discussion, I assume they are actually under an obligation to under
the IETF IPR rules, should their IPR actually be relevant ...

So if they don't, then we can only assume that is yet another data
point solidly indicating that they also don't believe that anything
they have actually does read on this technology.  And that the
'agreement' may be as simple as not pressing a case with the DOJ
to tear their whole crooked circus down, and not embarrassing them
in public for being the simple grifters that they are.

So long as we're all perfectly clear on the actual status of what
is now even more obviously the preferred MTI technology to choose,
I guess I can live with that compromise.

 Good outcome is good,
 Ron