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OS X El Capitan License: in Plain English

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Re: OS X El Capitan License: in Plain English

#3

Wow, that was really not as bad as I thought.

"I cannot, don’t even think about it, just plain can’t, make money from MPEG/H.264/AVC videos I create. For that, I need to buy another something from somebody."

This was pretty surprising to me. Why does Apple not allow making money from MPEG videos that you create? Does this include uploading them to YouTube?

Re: OS X El Capitan License: in Plain English

#4

Wow, that was really not as bad as I thought.

"I cannot, don’t even think about it, just plain can’t, make money from MPEG/H.264/AVC videos I create. For that, I need to buy another something from somebody." This was pretty surprising to me. Why does Apple not allow making money from MPEG videos that you create? Does this include uploading them to YouTube?

It is to do with MPEG-LA licensing.

Apple and Microsoft licensed the H.264 codecs for content creation which is a per user cost. They know this based on how many downloads. Users who sell their videos need to pay MPEG-LA a license per view which Apple/Microsoft can't determine. Hence you are on your own.

http://www.streamingmedia.com/Articles/Editorial/Featured-Ar...

Re: OS X El Capitan License: in Plain English

#5

Wow, that was really not as bad as I thought.

"I cannot, don’t even think about it, just plain can’t, make money from MPEG/H.264/AVC videos I create. For that, I need to buy another something from somebody." This was pretty surprising to me. Why does Apple not allow making money from MPEG videos that you create? Does this include uploading them to YouTube?

The tech industry sold its soul, mainly because of Apple, and standardized on the "free" H.264/MPEG standard for videos. The caveat is that it is only free to end users for consumption (hence "free") and the bits included to handle encoding/decoding within your operating system or browser, doesn't legally allow you to produce content for others to consume.

Re: OS X El Capitan License: in Plain English

#6

Wow, that was really not as bad as I thought.

"I cannot, don’t even think about it, just plain can’t, make money from MPEG/H.264/AVC videos I create. For that, I need to buy another something from somebody." This was pretty surprising to me. Why does Apple not allow making money from MPEG videos that you create? Does this include uploading them to YouTube?

[deleted]

Re: OS X El Capitan License: in Plain English

#7
This was both insightful and highlights, i would argue, an unmet need. I would love simple write ups like this for specific software licenses.

In theory, tldrlegal.com is positioned to take this on, but in my experience they tend to deal with more pervasive licenses like MIT, GNU, etc.

Re: OS X El Capitan License: in Plain English

#8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I cannot, don’t even think about it, just plain can’t, make money from MPEG/H.264/AVC videos I create. For that, I need to buy another something from somebody." This was pretty surprising to me. Why does Apple not allow making money from MPEG videos that you create? Does this include uploading them to YouTube?

It is to do with MPEG-LA licensing. Apple and Microsoft licensed the H.264 codecs for content creation which is a per user cost. They know this based on how many downloads. Users who sell their videos need to pay MPEG-LA a license per view which Apple/Microsoft can't determine. Hence you are on your own. http://www.streamingmedia.com/Articles/Editorial/Featured-Ar...

Thanks, this is a good explanation of the "why".

Re: OS X El Capitan License: in Plain English

#9

This was both insightful and highlights, i would argue, an unmet need. I would love simple write ups like this for specific software licenses. In theory, tldrlegal.com is positioned to take this on, but in my experience they tend to deal with more pervasive licenses like MIT, GNU, etc.

Thanks! Maybe I've found my niche. I checked out tldrlegal.com first, but saw what you're talking about. It's more of a comparison tool for the bigger licenses.

Re: OS X El Capitan License: in Plain English

#10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I cannot, don’t even think about it, just plain can’t, make money from MPEG/H.264/AVC videos I create. For that, I need to buy another something from somebody." This was pretty surprising to me. Why does Apple not allow making money from MPEG videos that you create? Does this include uploading them to YouTube?

The tech industry sold its soul, mainly because of Apple, and standardized on the "free" H.264/MPEG standard for videos. The caveat is that it is only free to end users for consumption (hence "free") and the bits included to handle encoding/decoding within your operating system or browser, doesn't legally allow you to produce content for others to consume.

H.264 comprises a ridiculous number of companies. It isn't just Apple.

As we saw with VP8 there is no such thing as a truly free and open codec. Back in the day MPEG-LA was going to setup a VP8 patent pool but didn't bother and instead just licensed Google the infringing patents. If they didn't do this VP8 could have been open but not free.

There are just too many large and powerful players with competing interests and a penchant for litigating against any possible upstarts. The only way to fix the situation is to exempt all file formats from patent claims as it is clearly anticompetitive.

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