Re: [rtcweb] VP8 vs H.264

"requires all IPR holders on a technology that is made part of an RFC to disclose"

Is not what the document actually says.

If you are going to attribute please attribute correctly. 

Regards

Keith

> -----Original Message-----
> From: rtcweb-bounces@ietf.org 
> [mailto:rtcweb-bounces@ietf.org] On Behalf Of Silvia Pfeiffer
> Sent: 23 October 2013 22:46
> To: Basil Mohamed Gohar
> Cc: rtcweb@ietf.org
> Subject: Re: [rtcweb] VP8 vs H.264 - the core issue
> 
> On Thu, Oct 24, 2013 at 8:05 AM, Basil Mohamed Gohar 
> <basilgohar@librevideo.org> wrote:
> > On 10/23/2013 04:55 PM, cowwoc wrote:
> >> Harald,
> >>
> >>     I think it is premature to imply that VP8 is royalty 
> free. I have 
> >> nothing against the codec (it's great) but it's my 
> understanding that 
> >> Google can't guarantee that someone else won't exercise IPR rights 
> >> against VP8 in the future. The best we can say is that 
> H264 requires 
> >> royalties today and VP8 *might* require royalties in the 
> future. H264 
> >> has a slight advantage in this space in that we have 
> well-understood 
> >> licensing terms.
> >>
> >>     I just wanted to put that out there so there are no 
> confusions in 
> >> the future.
> >>
> >> Gili
> >
> > Actually, this is exactly the kind of FUD that has stifled the 
> > adoption of VP8 and, before it, Theora and Vorbis, as 
> > universally-available multimedia format.  It serves only to confuse 
> > the issue further, as I will explain below.
> >
> > For starters, there is no evidence whatsoever that there is 
> a viable 
> > IPR concern with VP8, but there exist baseless allegations. 
>  In fact, 
> > what little doubt that there might have been one was settled by the 
> > agreement signed between Google and MPEG-LA [1] a short while ago, 
> > which resulted in MPEG-LA withdrawing their attempt a 
> forming a patent 
> > pool for VP8 altogether.  An attempt, I might add, that had little 
> > public activity save for its initial announcement once VP8 
> was being 
> > concerned for international standards.  In fact, the extremely 
> > generous terms of the agreement lend credence to the fact 
> that there 
> > was little that existing that would have been enforceable.
> >
> > Furthermore, the fact that there is an existing licensing structure 
> > for
> > H.264 give exactly zero assurances of protections from IPR claims, 
> > because not all licensors of H.264 technology are a member of the 
> > MPEG-LA patent pool agreement, and there have been numerous patent 
> > cases related to H.264 and other technologies thought to be 
> covered by 
> > RAND and FRAND terms.
> >
> > Finally, the current patent and IPR landscape, at least in 
> the US, and 
> > widely in other portions of the world, eliminates the 
> possibility of 
> > something *never* being under a patent threat, due to the 
> presence of 
> > patent trolls that actively wait for adoption as well the sheer 
> > magnitude of patents and the very ease with which patent 
> legislation 
> > can be brought up (including for those already "covered" by 
> existing 
> > patent pools, e.g., H.264).
> >
> > So, in actuality, H.264 holds no advantage over VP8 in this regard, 
> > and the claim that VP8 is a liability to use is not 
> evidenced by any 
> > actual unique tangible threat to date.
> >
> > [1] http://blog.webmproject.org/2013/03/vp8-and-mpeg-la.html
> 
> 
> On top of all this, it seems to me that
> http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc3979.txt requires all IPR holders 
> on a technology that is made part of an RFC to disclose their 
> IPR and sign a patent disclosure: 
> http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3905 . I think this process is 
> trivial for VP8, but will require lengthy delays for sorting 
> out for H.264. In the interest of the Internet Community, 
> given that both codecs provide comparable quality at 
> comparable bitrates, we need to choose what is best for the 
> Internet community.
> RFC3979 even states this explicitly:
> 
> " In all matters of Intellectual Property Rights, the intent is to
>    benefit the Internet community and the public at large, while
>    respecting the legitimate rights of others."
> 
> It seems clear that given that there is no substantial 
> technical difference between the two, given that the IRP 
> situation is so much cleaner for VP8, and that the only known 
> IPR holder for VP8 (ever after challenges) is Google who are 
> providing a perpetual royalty-free license 
> (http://www.webmproject.org/license/bitstream/), the 
> preference of the Internet community must clearly lie with VP8.
> 
> I would be surprised if the IESG - who has to consider IPR 
> rights when approving an RFC for publication - wouldn't have 
> to overrule any decision made by this WG to choose H.264 over VP8.
> 
> RFC3979 states:
> " In general, IETF working groups prefer technologies with no 
> known IPR
>    claims or, for technologies with claims against them, an offer of
>    royalty-free licensing."
> 
> 
> Best Regards,
> Silvia.
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