Licensing and rights - video
A big fat Whiskey Tango Foxtrot on this one - from
OS News:
Why Our Civilization's Video Art and Culture is Threatened by the MPEG-LA
We've all heard how the h.264 is rolled over on patents and royalties. Even with these facts, I kept supporting the best-performing "delivery" codec in the market, which is h.264. "Let the best win", I kept thinking. But it wasn't until very recently when I was made aware that the problem is way deeper. No, my friends. It's not just a matter of just "picking Theora" to export a video to Youtube and be clear of any litigation. MPEG-LA's trick runs way deeper! The [street-smart] people at MPEG-LA have made sure that from the moment we use a camera or camcorder to shoot an mpeg2 (e.g. HDV cams) or h.264 video (e.g. digicams, HD dSLRs, AVCHD cams), we owe them royalties, even if the final video distributed was not encoded using their codecs! Let me show you how deep the rabbit hole goes.
You see, there is something very important, that the vast majority of both consumers and video professionals don't know: ALL modern video cameras and camcorders that shoot in h.264 or mpeg2, come with a license agreement that says that you can only use that camera to shoot video for "personal use and non-commercial" purposes (go on, read your manuals). I was first made aware of such a restriction when someone mentioned that in a forum, about the Canon 7D dSLR. I thought it didn't apply to me, since I had bought the double-the-price, professional (or at least prosumer), Canon 5D Mark II. But looking at its license agreement last night (page 241), I found out that even my $3000 camera comes with such a basic license. So, I downloaded the manual for the Canon 1D Mark IV, which costs $5000, and where Canon consistently used the word "professional" and "video" on the same sentence on their press release for that camera. Nope! Same restriction: you can only use your professional video dSLR camera (professional, according to Canon's press release), for non-professional reasons. And going even further, I found that even their truly professional video camcorder, the $8000 Canon XL-H1A that uses mpeg2, also comes with a similar restriction. You can only use your professional camera for non-commercial purposes. For any other purpose, you must get a license from MPEG-LA and pay them royalties for each copy sold. I personally find this utterly unacceptable.
And a bit more:
They have created such broad license agreements, with such a stronghold around the whole chain of production (from shooting to delivering), that they could make liable the whole EU/US population, and beyond. This is major. This is one of these things where the DoJ should get involved. This is one of the situations that can destroy art. I'm a video producer myself (I direct rock music videos for local bands without compensation, and I also shoot Creative Commons nature videos), and I much prefer to never hold a camera in my hands ever again than to pay these leeches a dime. If MPEG-LA enforces all that they CAN enforce via their various EULAs, then fewer and fewer people will want to record anything of note to share with others.
And that's how an artistic culture can ROT. By creating the circumstances where making art, in a way that doesn't get in your way, is illegal. Only big corporations would be able to even grab a camera and shoot. And if only big corporations can shoot video that they can share (for free or for money), then we end up with what Creative Commons' founder, Larry Lessig, keeps saying: a READ-ONLY CULTURE.
The fallout from this should be interesting. I have no problems with people being compensated for their work and I strongly support people's rights to preserve their intellectual property but, this is sneaking draconian licensing under the radar...
Posted by DaveH at May 3, 2010 9:19 AM
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