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MPEG-2 Patents Have Expired

mpegla.com

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Re: MPEG-2 Patents Have Expired

#81

Post by Houshalter »

digi_owl wrote: post #25
stickydink wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

DVDs are still created and purchased all over the world, I don't think it's quite obsolete yet?

And likely never will be. Newer codecs basically exist because video resolutions outpace storage space (for questionable benefits). MPEG2, much like MP3, are "good enough" for most common usage.

Bandwidth and storage have been slowing down and stagnating for some time now. My internet isn't much faster than 10 years ago. The difference between video codecs makes a huge difference in the quality of video I get to see.

Re: MPEG-2 Patents Have Expired

#82

Post by ythn »

eikenberry wrote: post #57
jacquesm wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Be careful, you just might get what you wish for. There definitely are major problems with the patent system and with copyright but without them there would be other problems taking the place of the ones that we have now. Reform is the way to go, and reform - good reform anyway - is hard to get right.

Reform would be best, but Abolishing them would be better than the status quo.

Wouldn't abolishing them create an out of control copycat shovelware economy worse than the app stores? I mean, if you can blatantly rip off other people's IP

Re: MPEG-2 Patents Have Expired

#83

Post by Teever »

amelius wrote: post #22

As an aside, MPEG-LA already moved on, forming other patent pools such as for CRISPR (the gene editing technology). See their website: http://www.mpegla.com/main/default.aspx

You know, when I first heard about this about a year ago my jaw dropped because I was finally vindicated.

I was a stoner teenager during the whole DMCA/Napster era and between copious bong hits amongst friends I would ramble about how I thought that the whole music/movies thing was just a front for establishing a regulatory framework to control the inevitable rise of digital fabrication.

It really sucks to be right about this. :(

Re: MPEG-2 Patents Have Expired

#84

Post by Solar19 »

topleveldomain wrote: post #72
notyourwork wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Without disagreeing I would encourage you to provide an alternative solution to the current (as you describe) broken system. The system was put in place to protect us, if it isn't serving its purpose we need to be more objective and declare how it could be better implemented.

Thanks for this response. How about requiring patent-holders to show progress on their invention every X years, so that inventors can't just sit on an old and important patent they own? Or, a more ground-up restructuring: what if owning a patent didn't give you full ownership of the technology, but just X% of profit made from it for X years after filing? With this setup, you could further incentivize progress by gran…

Why should patent holders have to show "progress"? Isn't the invention enough? Would they have to invent more or advance it further? Or do you mean commercial progress, making money, building it, etc.?

The latter is called "working the patent", which is the opposite of what patent predators, née trolls do. Apparently some countries require holders to work the patent, and I'm a big supporter of fundamental patent reform in the US that would require people/corporations to produce and sell the invention in order to maintain a patent. That would almost vaporize all the patent predators out there.

Right now we have a system where you can just think shit up and write it down. Boom, you've got a patent (with the help of a lawyer usually). That's a ridiculous legal system. The system should be designed around actual market activity – the introduction of innovative products. I think it's an important right that someone who invents something should have exclusive commercial rights to it for a while, but not a right to just sit back and stop other people from using their brains too.

Your percentage of profits idea is something I liked for a while when I was thinking a lot about reform, but I now think that it would be way too hard to enforce. It would be such a mess to carve out exactly what the profit or revenue was that could be attributed purely to some part of a product that hinged on some dude's patent, along with all the other encumbered parts and features. It would be worse than the mess that is the income tax and corporate income tax.

Re: MPEG-2 Patents Have Expired

#85

Post by ozmbie »

digi_owl wrote: post #25
stickydink wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

DVDs are still created and purchased all over the world, I don't think it's quite obsolete yet?

And likely never will be. Newer codecs basically exist because video resolutions outpace storage space (for questionable benefits). MPEG2, much like MP3, are "good enough" for most common usage.

Streaming 4K videos (or fitting them onto a 50GB physical disc) requires better video codecs. MPEG2 wouldn't be enough.

Personally, I see the benefit in 4K having a setup to take advantage of it.

Re: MPEG-2 Patents Have Expired

#86

Post by userbinator »

herogreen wrote: post #10

I wonder if this will affect the existence of the Raspberry Pi's binary blob ? I remember Liz Upton saying "[MPEG2 licensing] is a reason we have to keep the blob, unfortunately, or we’d be sued into a smoking hole in the ground by the MPEG LA" on this page: https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/a-birthday-present-from-bro... Also does it mean that the Raspberry Fundation could provide the MPEG2 hardware decoder license k…

I'm actually surprised that that hasn't been cracked yet --- or at least, a quick search didn't find anything (do let me know otherwise!); as we all know too well these days, Google isn't particularly neutral in terms of what search results it wants to show anymore.

That said, the RPi being the closed system it is, it's not surprising that no real hacker/cracker types would bother with it and the community remains mainly docile. But given the publicity and popularity, it is a little surprising.

Re: MPEG-2 Patents Have Expired

#87

Post by paulmd »

Godel_unicode wrote: post #53
thaumasiotes wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not think of your algorithms as software for a machine that doesn't yet exist?

The algorithm is the abstract class, or possibly the spec, and software is one possible implementation. They’re at different levels of abstraction.

Both software and algorithms are an emergent property of the rules of the systems we create. They are essentially akin to prime numbers, in a direct and provable sense.

(1) All computable programs can be expressed as a Universal Turing machine.

(2) There are countably many Universal Turing machines

(3) In an abstract sense, we can thus assign a unique identifier to each possible computer program. I can tell you "run program 383439343" and that will tell you everything you need to run that function.

Most of these programs are of course not correct in the sense that they produce a useful output, or even necessarily terminate. But then, most numbers aren't useful either, it's only because of the emergent properties of our mathematical rules that something like a "prime number" even has a conceptual meaning, and it's only because of our contextual needs that, say, sorting an array would be a useful output.

Distinguishing between algorithms and software is a distinction without a difference. If the two implementations produce a different output, then by definition they must be following a different algorithm. And if they are the same algorithm, then they can be reduced to the same Universal Turing machine.

Re: MPEG-2 Patents Have Expired

#88

Post by jacquesm »

Zigurd wrote: post #80
jacquesm wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Be careful, you just might get what you wish for. There definitely are major problems with the patent system and with copyright but without them there would be other problems taking the place of the ones that we have now. Reform is the way to go, and reform - good reform anyway - is hard to get right.

Is there any evidence that claims of innovation and creativity shutting down without patent and copyright protection are, in fact, correct? It seems like the purpose of these supposed protections is bent so far out of share that the threat of "getting what you wish for" carries no weight. Some media might shrink, but other media would grow to take it's place. Neither patent now copyright "ownership" are natural right…

Realize that for instance the GPL is based in ... tadaa ... copyright. And there are a lot more examples like that.

If you start throwing rocks that large you have to be very careful about unintended consequences and I'm not sure that I oversee the complexity of it all to the point that I think that a 'let's get rid of it all' solution won't create it's own particular kinds of problems and until we have feel for the kind and magnitude of those problems being careful sounds like a good idea to me.

For copyright I would propose slowly rolling back the length bit by bit until we hit some kind of lower limit of practicality, for patents I would start with abolishing software patents and replacing them with copyright, then reduce the time limit on the remainder.

And there would have to be something a bit more drastic with respect to patent trolls. It would be a reasonable start and it leaves the door open to eventual total abolishment if that turns out to be feasible and desirable.

Re: MPEG-2 Patents Have Expired

#90

Post by wtetzner »

ethbro wrote: post #65
wtetzner wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just to be clear, it wasn't put in place to protect us, it was put in place to encourage innovation.

Quibbles aside, that's essentially analogous to "protecting the public good" (aka us).

Ah, sure. I read "protecting us" as "protecting creators" (as opposed to consumers).
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