互联网与文化blog.mozilla.org
网络上无形的税：视频编解码器
An Invisible Tax on the Web: Video Codecs (2018)
2018 — 2021，它一次次回到首页
黑点是上首页（≥ 50 分）的那次投稿，空心点是没冲上去的投稿，点越大分数越高。
导读
Mozilla 这篇 2018 年博文把视频编解码器的专利授权费称为网络上的“隐形税”，讨论 H.264/HEVC 等标准背后的专利池如何增加成本并影响开放网络。文章主张推动免版税编解码器（如 AV1），让视频发布不必向少数专利持有者持续付费。
为什么经久不衰：它用具体的专利授权费和生态案例解释了网络视频为何被少数专利池抽税，而 AV1 等免版税方案让这场争论至今仍有现实意义。
HN 评论精选
H.264 专利费有具体阶梯和年度上限，Google 为 Chrome 付费保留支持。
有文章披露了 H.264 专利的定价细节：谷歌曾在 2011 年前后威胁撤掉 H.264 支持，但最终在 2013 年决定每年支付几百万美元保留它。按 2011–2015 年条款，前 10 万件产品免版税，之后每件 20 美分（到 500 万件），超过 500 万件每件 10 美分；企业年度上限为每年 650 万美元。2016 年后费率每五年续约时涨幅不超过 10%，但年度上限不受该限制。
gnicholas查看英文原文
Some interesting details on how the H.264 patents are priced, from an article [1] about how much Google pays. Google had threatened to pull H.264 support circa 2011, but ultimately they decided in 2013 to pay a few million bucks/yr to keep it. IIRC, H.264 is one of a few non-Google technologies that is included in Chrome, but is not included in Chromium. > So, how much does those rights cost? Under the terms in place for 2011-2015, the royalty rates are the same regardless of whether a product is part of an OS. There's no royalty for the first 100,000 units of a licensed product; sublicensees pay 20 cents per unit up to 5 million and 10 cents per unit above 5 million. The current agreement includes an annual limit: “The maximum annual royalty (‘cap’) for an Enterprise [is] $6.5 million per year in 2011-2015.” What happens in 2016? Under the MPEG LA license, the terms are "renewable for successive five-year periods … on reasonable terms and conditions.” The per-copy royalty rates "will not increase by more than 10% at each renewal.” If rates go up by the maximum 10% for that five-year period, the cost of 10 million licenses will increase by $150,000 from a current rate of $1.48 million to $1.63 million. There's a small gotcha in the new MPEG LA license agreement. Footnote 17, which appears in tiny print at the very end of the summary of license terms, notes that “Annual royalty caps are not subject to the 10% limitation.” Although that sounds like a loophole, it really only affects the largest players in the market. 1: https://www.zdnet.com/article/a-closer-look-at-the-costs-and-fine-print-of-h-264-licenses/#:~:text=Although%20the%20license%20agreement%20uses,until%20the%20end%20of%202015.
批评 MPEG-LA 用数学运算专利收费，呼吁尽快采用无专利负担的编解码器。
MPEG-LA 这帮人竟能靠一个数学运算系统的 23 项专利收钱，实在难以置信。数学明确不可专利；虽然这适用于所有软件专利，但连这么窄的案例都没被正面挑战，我很震惊。我们得尽快转向无负担的编解码器。
akersten查看英文原文
It's incredible that the MPEG-LA mafia has gotten away with 23 patents on a system of mathematical operations. Math is explicitly outlined as non-patentable. While this extends to all software patents, I'm astounded that even this very narrow case hasn't been challenged on its face. We can't move to unencumbered codecs quickly enough.
H.265 压缩效率好但 IP 混乱、硬件支持少，AV1 更被看好。
我大量使用 H.265（x265/HEVC），一些盗版影视资源就是这种格式。效果很好，体积约为 H.264 的 1/3 到 1/4，对下载和归档差别巨大。缺点是硬件编解码支持少；用 CPU 不算差但能效低。H.265 的知识产权状况一团糟，AV1 看起来各方面都更好，期待它被采用；目前盗版圈似乎还没怎么用 AV1。
NelsonMinar查看英文原文
I've been using a lot of H.265 (aka x265/HEVC); some pirate scene TV and movie releases come out in it. It's fantastic. About 1/3-1/4 the size of H.264, which makes a huge difference both with download and with archiving. The downside is that there's not a lot of hardware support for encoding or decoding. Doing it on the CPU isn't bad but definitely not as energy efficient. The problem with H.265 is the IP situation is a mess. AV1 looks to be better in every way. Looking forward to its adoption. So far the pirate scene doesn't seem to be using it at all.
质疑 AV1 的专利风险，并询问是否有新的法律评估。
讨论里几次提到专利。有人知道 AV1 距离侵犯专利有多近，或者什么时候能知道吗？我找到的最新文章说市场信息不足，无法判断是否存在侵权。不过 Mozilla 这篇文章似乎暗示 6 月 1.0 稳定规范发布后情况可能变化。既然侵权审查是编解码器创建流程的一部分，看起来有希望是安全的；但专利这种事很难说。自 6 月以来律师/博客等对专利状况有更新吗？
nstart查看英文原文
I've seen a few mentions of patents in this discussion. Does anyone know how close AV1 is to infringing on any patents or when we might find out? This is the most recent article I found - http://www.streamingmedia.com/Articles/News/Online-Video-News/AV1-Is-Finally-Here-but-Intellectual-Property-Questions-Remain-124134.aspx and it seems that the market doesn't/didn't know enough to know if there are patent infringements. Yet this article from Mozilla seems like that from June the situation might have changed now that a 1.0 stable spec is out. Given that inspection for infringement has been part of the codec creation process it seems promising that they will be safe. But patents have proven themselves to be funny things. That said, have there been any updates since June from lawyers/other blogs/etc about the patent situation yet?
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