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Patents The Almighty Buck The Internet

MPEG LA Announces Call For DASH Patents 66

Posted by Soulskill from the grab-grab-grab dept.
An anonymous reader writes: The MPEG LA has announced a call for patents essential to the Dynamic Adaptive Streaming over HTTP (or DASH) standard. According to the MPEG LA's press release, "Market adoption of DASH technology standards has increased to the point where the market would benefit from the availability of a convenient nondiscriminatory, nonexclusive worldwide one-stop patent pool license." The newly formed MPEG-DASH patent pool's licensing program will allegedly offer the market "efficient access to this important technology."
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MPEG LA Announces Call For DASH Patents More

MPEG LA Announces Call For DASH Patents

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  • Not Quite (Score:5, Insightful)

    by doas777 ( 1138627 ) on Wednesday July 29, 2015 @07:49AM (#50203227)
    No, what we need is an abolishment on Software Patents, so that armed thugs like the MPEGLA can't extort licensing fees from a developer because the code they wrote on their own happens to do something that is abstractly claimed in some random poor quality patent.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      When you're essentially a law firm, it must be nice to codify wealth with the backing and approval of the government by force. Isn't it? It's literally like printing money after you create it!

    • For many software patents, I'd agree with you.

      The problem with video compression is that many of the patents involved do represent real research, the expensive kind. They aren't one-click shopping patents. They're fundamentally pushing forward the state of the art. The people who do that work are expensive and need a lot of time, so, there has to be some way to pay for their efforts. Google's approach of subsidising all research via search ads is perhaps not as robust as one might hope for, even though it's

  • Funny... (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward

    I can't see the "world" seeing any benefit from this, MPEG LA on the other hand...

    Ah well. Everyone already knows how this is going to pan out, the community will come up with a solution not encumbered by patents and gravitate toward that instead, MPEG LA will continue to remain irrelevant.

  • License-free provides the most efficient access (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 29, 2015 @07:57AM (#50203251)

    The newly formed MPEG-DASH patent pool's licensing program will allegedly offer the market "efficient access to this important technology."

    This patenting places a burden on such access, the exact opposite of their declared purpose.

    Pure, unadulterated, greedy bastards.

  • How does the _market_ benefit (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    from having to pay for things that can't by any stretch of imagination be called a genuine invention? These things are the natural progression of the Internet. You might as well try to patent the whole process of inventing things.

    • You might as well try to patent the whole process of inventing things.

      Shhh...stop giving them ideas

      .

  • What is patentable? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 29, 2015 @08:09AM (#50203307)

    Dash is an XML format containing the URL's to media files and additional metadata (bitrates etc). Is there something novel or none-obvious about the way it works that a 12 year old couldn't figure out?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by sjames ( 1099 )

      In other words, it's just the evergreened version of playlists and RSS.

    • Let's see what Apple, Microsoft, Google, Samsung and Netflix have to say about this. They're the ones with the cash to fight this in court.

      • Just a thought... Do you realize how screwed your justice system is when you can only have justice if you have a lot of money to pay for it?

        • Well it's not my justice system...

          But yeah, that's screwed up. Laws aren't about justice anymore, it's about being legal to screw everybody else.

      • Let's see what Apple, Microsoft, Google, Samsung and Netflix have to say about this. They're the ones with the cash to fight this in court.

        Some of these companies are actually part of the MPEG-LA, somewhat like stockholders as they hold the patents that form the patent pool. Google is probably a notable exception as they are pushing their own VP codec.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by DrXym ( 126579 )
      I expect there is more to implementation of a client / server than just an XML format - e.g. knowing how to handover from one quality to another, load balancing, crypto, real time encoding etc. Probably enough to justify a patent pool.

    • Re:What is patentable? (Score:5, Informative)

      by Holi ( 250190 ) on Wednesday July 29, 2015 @10:13AM (#50204109)
      The patent office just issues patents, they think the courts are where those type of disputes should be handled. The courts think that since the patent office issued the patent it must be valid.

      You have two sides, neither of which are doing their job because they figure the other is.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Kkloe ( 2751395 )
      So can someone say implement this same stuff in JSON and then patent it for free use?

  • Translation ... (Score:5)

    by gstoddart ( 321705 ) on Wednesday July 29, 2015 @08:24AM (#50203357) Homepage

    "Market adoption of DASH technology standards has increased to the point where the market would benefit from the availability of a convenient nondiscriminatory, nonexclusive worldwide one-stop patent pool license."

    Which roughly translates into "Wouldn't it be awesome if all you bitches had to keep paying us money?".

    So many software patents are bloody terrible. They're stuff we all learned about in school, applied to a specific thing, and then made so generic as to claim ownership of pretty an entire class of computing.

    This entity needs to stop existing, as they're really nothing but parasites pretending they invented anything.

    Assholes.

    • I think that software patents could be a bit more palatable if they also had to provide source code that was proven to compile and work as describe in the patent. As it stands right now, source code is not necessary, and only a vague description of what the functionality is necessary for software patents. That means, even if somebody else finds a better algorithm for doing what is covered in the patent, then the patent might still apply.

      This very much stifles innovation. Let's say somebody invents a wood ch

      • I think that software patents could be a bit more palatable if they also had to provide source code that was proven to compile and work as describe in the patent.

        The problem you should not be able to patent an algorithm, and software patents have nothing to do with source code.

        Software patents often read as "a system and methodology for doing something we all learned about in school but applied to a specific problem and now you can't do it, suckers".

        They're patents on an idea or a solution to a class of pro

    • Which roughly translates into "Wouldn't it be awesome if all you bitches had to keep paying us money?".

      At least in this case it seems to be the other way around. MPEG-LA believes that there are already patents in play here, so they want to form a patent pool to get the matter settled before it derails further adoption of media streaming. The organization's entire reason to exist is to form patent pools to bring together disparate parties and avoid a fractured market where members' technologies don't get ado

      • The organization's entire reason to exist is to form patent pools to bring together disparate parties and avoid a fractured market where members' technologies don't get adopted due to overly-complex licensing terms or fears of patent suits.

        Otherwise known as collusion by predatory trade groups presenting a barrier of entry to new players.

        Just because a bunch of CEOs work out a deal to fuck us all over doesn't make it a good thing.

        One set of greedy bastards vs another set of greedy bastards isn't good for an

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Qzukk ( 229616 )

        because they didn't think MPEG-LA's pool charged enough

        Of course it didn't charge enough! Why join a patent pool and get some tiny fraction of some fraction of revenue, when you can just sue directly and demand 5% of the revenue from the source?

        The Sewing Machine Patent Combine worked because there were three patent holders. When there are 3000 patent holders, all of them want their 5% and the system breaks down completely.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by lorinc ( 2470890 )

      All software patents are bloody terrible.

      Fix that for you.

    • There's a word for this: CARTEL.

  • Interesting timing (Score:3)

    by NimbleSquirrel ( 587564 ) on Wednesday July 29, 2015 @09:41AM (#50203847)

    This call for patents comes just after HEVC Advance announce a HEVC patent pool to compete with MPEG LA [slashdot.org]. DASH is a complimentary technology to HEVC (h.265), and MPEG LA know it. By offering both DASH and HEVC patent licensing portfolios, they probably believe they are making themselves more attractive to deal with than HEVC Advance.

    Nevermind that this patent licensing competition is actually likely to impede the uptake of both technologies.

    • What do you mean more attractive? There is no real competition, both pools need to be licensed anyway.

  • Obnoxious terminology (Score:4, Insightful)

    by michaelmalak ( 91262 ) <michael@michaelmalak.com> on Wednesday July 29, 2015 @11:05AM (#50204579) Homepage

    Here is the original MPEG-LA press release [mpegla.com]. They really did entitle it "call for patents", which is obnoxious because it plays off of "call for papers", which is a call to share technology information, not restrict it. This type of turning a phrase to be the opposite and evil intention of its original reminds me of Braveheart's jus primae noctis.

  • HLS already dominates by streamed hours of content, is implemented in every connected device stack, is patent free due t using MPEG Transport Streams and M3U8 playlists, and is much simpler to implement than DASH. If the MPEG-LA and the DASH-IF wants DASH to fail, they should take a good look at why they're trying to grab for more money.

    • HLS ... is implemented in every connected device stack ...

      I can play HLS content in my Chrome browser you mean? Oh, no it doesn't have HLS support, only widevine. OK, howabout IE... no, not there either, that only supports playready. Ok, firefox! no, not FF without a NPAPI plugin - which will be gone eventually. Safari? Well yeah, sort of. What's left? Opera? and no, not Opera without NPAPI.

      So what do you mean by "every connected device stack"?

  • Give us something unencumbered to use.

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