Re: [rtcweb] VP8 IPR agreement announced.

Matthew Kaufman <matthew@matthew.at> Thu, 07 March 2013 19:33 UTC

Return-Path: <matthew@matthew.at>
X-Original-To: rtcweb@ietfa.amsl.com
Delivered-To: rtcweb@ietfa.amsl.com
Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by ietfa.amsl.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 0E5C921F89FD for <rtcweb@ietfa.amsl.com>; Thu, 7 Mar 2013 11:33:21 -0800 (PST)
X-Virus-Scanned: amavisd-new at amsl.com
X-Spam-Flag: NO
X-Spam-Score: -1.114
X-Spam-Level:
X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.114 tagged_above=-999 required=5 tests=[BAYES_00=-2.599, HELO_EQ_AT=0.424, HOST_EQ_AT=0.745, HTML_MESSAGE=0.001, SARE_MILLIONSOF=0.315]
Received: from mail.ietf.org ([12.22.58.30]) by localhost (ietfa.amsl.com [127.0.0.1]) (amavisd-new, port 10024) with ESMTP id 6WJ3aKuc1HRX for <rtcweb@ietfa.amsl.com>; Thu, 7 Mar 2013 11:33:18 -0800 (PST)
Received: from where.matthew.at (where.matthew.at [198.202.199.1]) by ietfa.amsl.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 0F94721F88A2 for <rtcweb@ietf.org>; Thu, 7 Mar 2013 11:33:17 -0800 (PST)
Received: from [10.10.155.229] (unknown [10.10.155.229]) (using TLSv1 with cipher DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by where.matthew.at (Postfix) with ESMTP id AEC3A230005 for <rtcweb@ietf.org>; Thu, 7 Mar 2013 11:33:17 -0800 (PST)
Message-ID: <5138EB62.9000700@matthew.at>
Date: Thu, 07 Mar 2013 11:32:50 -0800
From: Matthew Kaufman <matthew@matthew.at>
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.2; WOW64; rv:17.0) Gecko/20130107 Thunderbird/17.0.2
MIME-Version: 1.0
To: rtcweb@ietf.org
References: <CAMKM2Lx4MD4sHnCRCoOMowLXkGpt6mO+6vaX39kuxPXDPY1uFA@mail.gmail.com>
In-Reply-To: <CAMKM2Lx4MD4sHnCRCoOMowLXkGpt6mO+6vaX39kuxPXDPY1uFA@mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="------------050306070908040307020008"
Subject: Re: [rtcweb] VP8 IPR agreement announced.
X-BeenThere: rtcweb@ietf.org
X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.12
Precedence: list
List-Id: Real-Time Communication in WEB-browsers working group list <rtcweb.ietf.org>
List-Unsubscribe: <https://www.ietf.org/mailman/options/rtcweb>, <mailto:rtcweb-request@ietf.org?subject=unsubscribe>
List-Archive: <http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/rtcweb>
List-Post: <mailto:rtcweb@ietf.org>
List-Help: <mailto:rtcweb-request@ietf.org?subject=help>
List-Subscribe: <https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/rtcweb>, <mailto:rtcweb-request@ietf.org?subject=subscribe>
X-List-Received-Date: Thu, 07 Mar 2013 19:33:21 -0000

The below announcement, while an interesting development, comes weeks 
after the traditional deadlines for providing new information to the 
working group prior to an upcoming meeting and certainly does not give 
me enough time to adequately review the development. In fact, the 
sublicense terms referenced below will not be available to review until 
*after* the upcoming meeting and might very well contain language that 
is incompatible with my requirements or those of other implementers of 
RTCWEB specifications.

Therefore I believe the most sensible action is to once again delay the 
MTI video codec discussion, remove it from the agenda from the upcoming 
meeting, and have the call for an MTI codec at a later time... no sooner 
than several weeks after the relevant license terms are even available 
to review. I hope the chairs concur.

Alternatively, we can have the discussion at the upcoming meeting, but 
it will not be able to incorporate this development at all, and without 
any change in the IPR situation it was clear that H.264 was the only 
suitable alternative (and may still be the best choice, given the strong 
arguments for the technical merits and implementation advantages of 
H.264, irrespective of the IPR issues).

Matthew Kaufman

On 3/7/2013 11:18 AM, Serge Lachapelle wrote:
> Hello,
>
> Today, Google Inc. and MPEG LA, LLC have announced that they have 
> entered into an agreement granting Google a license to techniques, if 
> any, that may be essential to VP8. Furthermore, MPEG LA has agreed to 
> discontinue efforts to form a patent pool around VP8.
>
> The official press release can be found here: http://goo.gl/F7xUu
>
> The licensors are part of the group that responded to MPEG LA's call 
> for patents. They are a group of well-known video IP holders and 
> participants in standards-based video patent pools.
>
> This agreement allows for Google to sublicense the techniques to any 
> user of VP8, whether the VP8 implementation is by Google or another 
> entity; this means that users can develop independent implementations 
> of VP8 and still enjoy coverage under the sublicenses.
>
> Google intends to license the techniques under terms that are in line 
> with the W3C's definition of a Royalty Free License. This definition 
> can be found here: http://www.w3.org/2001/07/SVG10-IPR-statements We 
> anticipate having the sublicense ready in the next few weeks. The 
> terms will appear on the WebM Project website at http://webmproject.org
>
> This agreement is not an acknowledgment that the licensed techniques 
> read on VP8. The purpose of this agreement is meant to provide further 
> and stronger reassurance to implementors of VP8.
>
> On a personal note, I think you will all agree that the RTCWeb MTI 
> video codec discussion included many whispered doubts but little 
> evidence. In contrast, we have taken clear steps to demonstrate the 
> viability of VP8:
>
> 1. Made VP8 available with a strong, simple software license and 
> patent grant.
> 2. Continued to innovate and improve VP8 in the open.
> 3. Licensed a royalty free VP8 enabled RTL (aka hardware source code) 
> to more than 50 SOCs.
> 4. Built, iterated and launched VP8 powered WebRTC in the Chrome 
> browser to hundreds of millions of users.
> 5. Worked to ensure WebRTC interop using the VP8 and Opus formats by 
> working closely with Firefox.
> 6. Introduced a preview of VP8 and Opus based WebRTC in Chrome for 
> Android beta.
>
> And now, we have taken taken two significant steps that we hope will 
> make the situation clear to all:
>
> 7. Submitted VP8 to ISO SC29/WG11 (MPEG) in January of this year for 
> standardization.
> 8. Invested a significant amount of time and resources into reaching 
> an agreement with the MPEG LA, to provide further reassurances.
>
> VP8 is a royalty free, open sourced codec that offers several 
> advantages and innovations for real time and other uses.  It has a 
> publicly-available specification that is getting broadly adopted in 
> hardware; it has been submitted for standardization to a leading 
> standards body, and is the subject of a royalty-free RAND license 
> which will now include a license covering any essential VP8 techniques 
> that may be relevant to major IP holders who responded to the MPEG 
> LA's call for VP8 patents.
>
> It is the most suitable codec for MTI.
>
> I understand the timing is very close to the Orlando IETF meeting. 
>  While we tried to do this as quickly as possible, I am sure you will 
> appreciate the sensitivities and enormous effort involved in reaching 
> such an agreement.
>
> I will be in Orlando, arriving monday evening and will be available to 
> answer questions.
>
> /Serge
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> rtcweb mailing list
> rtcweb@ietf.org
> https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/rtcweb