Re: [rtcweb] Proposal for Theora baseline codec

[Stephan Wenger <[e-mail]>]

HI Basil,
Really interesting discussion.  Top-posting this time, as I have to run.
Yes, saber-rattling was present.  Is present.  It worked in the past,
plus/minus Mozilla, didn't it?  That's the whole idea behind
sabre-rattling.  It's better than sabre-swinging.  More diligently put,
warning of potential infringement is better than to punish an infringer.
Cheaper, and serves the purpose.
And thinking of a Mozilla as a juicy target (based on the numbers you
cited) seems to me a bit of a far fetch, considering a) the percentage of
multimedia codecs on a web browser's value proposition even today (let
alone 5-10 years ago), and b) the monetary damages asked in high-profile
patent lawsuits today.
Stephan

On 3.29.2012 16:47 , "Basil Mohamed Gohar" <[e-mail]>
wrote:

>On 03/29/2012 10:33 AM, Stephan Wenger wrote:
>> Hi Monty,
>> Couldn't it be that no one went after Vorbis and Theora because the
>> rightholders had no real incentive to do so?  For example, because the
>> products implementing Vorbis, in their vast majority, also included MP3
>> and/or AAC, and the rightholders would have to deal with patent
>>exhaustion
>> arguments and whatnot after having gotten their money; and because
>>theora
>> deployment never reached a critical mass because it was a) not good
>>enough
>> technically, and b) felt to be too risky?
>> I would turn your argument around: the (comparatively speaking) lack of
>> commercial success of vorbis and theora, and the success of royalty
>> bearing standard codecs, suggest to me only that no one was fooled,
>>except
>> perhaps the enthusiastic followers of those folks who keep pushing out
>>one
>> "free" codec after another...
>> Stephan
>>
>Stephan,
>
>Monty already pointed out that sabre-rattling already happened.  Had
>there been any meat to the threats, then it would have been ridiculous
>not to have pursued them.  Mozilla implements both Theora and Vorbis in
>browser, and do not implement MPEG-related codecs, and they're a
>lucrative target (they're getting around $1 billion from Google in the
>coming few years).  They *do* have a commercial entity that could be the
>target, as well.
>
>The real threat was that these formats posed a risk to the other formats
>monopolistic adoption, and the FUD that was spread every time these
>formats were presented in a standard or appeared poised to be adopted
>more widely, the sabre-rattling began again, and no real threats
>materialized.
>
>It's arguing by saying, "You never can be sure...".
>
>-- 
>Libre Video
>http://librevideo.org
>
>_______________________________________________
>rtcweb mailing list
>[e-mail]
>https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/rtcweb
>