Re: Re: Linux video editing patents

Hi Robin,

> What has your research into video (and audio) software patents revealed? 

So far, it seems that the principle problems arise from compression 
algorithms (aka codecs). It appears that projects can distribute 
software that deals with raw formats such as WAV or DV without 
attracting too much attention, but as soon as you want to import or 
export to distribution formats (such as MPEG) then the lawyers get 
interested.

There are two practical considerations - one is that if the codec 
attracts a per-unit royalty, then someone has to cover the cost if the 
software is available for free download. $5 per unit might not sound too 
bad, until you consider that a popular free software program like 
Audacity has had in excess of 10 million downloads.

The other consideration is that the GNU GPL requires patent licences for 
GPL software to be GPL compatible. So if even if you bite the bullet and 
pay the patent holder's bill to distribute a GPL'd library, you will 
probably be breaching the GPL. (The patent licence is likely to forbid 
free redistribution, for example). As a consequence, frameworks which 
try to solve this problem (such as Gstreamer) use the LGPL not the GPL, 
therefore allowing linking to non-free libraries.

> Which open source software projects are tainted and in what way? What 
> licenses are needed and from who?

The projects that we've looked at are LAME and MAD for MP3 audio 
encoding/decoding and FFMPEG for video. I'm not saying that these 
projects definitely infringe patents, just that they have been the 
target of patent lawyers and are therefore difficult to distribute in a 
free download product.

>> The best compromise that we've found so far is PiTiVi, because it is 
>> designed to be used with GStreamer plugins. Fluendo is planning to 
>> make legally distributable Gstreamer plugins available for the 
>> proprietary formats.
> 
> Did Fluendo license MP3 from Fraunhofer?

I expect that they are still in negotiation, as the plugin is not yet 
released. I've seen the draft of the contract for distributors.

By the way, there are other patent holders who want a cut on MP3 
deployments, it's just that Fraunhofer is the best known. Just like 
paying protection money to gangsters, buying off one patent holder 
doesn't guarantee that you won't get a visit from another party who 
wants a slice of your pie.

> How is the Fluendo MP3 
> implementation unencumbered? What makes it different from any other OSS 
> MP3 implementation?

It's not unencumbered, as I understand it. They've opted to produce a 
proprietary plug-in for a free software system, with the aim of making 
the combination legally redistributable. The cost of the patent licence 
will still have to be covered somehow.

Cheers!

Daniel


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