[M4IF Discuss] RE: [M4IF News] MPEG-4 Visual and Systems Lice nsing Announced!!

[Marc Tayer]

While clarifications will be required on this and other issues, my
interpretation is that the answer to the question posed below is "no."
There was a key parenthetical omitted from the question:
"the party having the unique relationship of providing content service to
the subscriber (e.g., cable television system or direct satellite provider)
will pay a royalty of $1.25 for the paid-up right..."
My interpretation of this language is that the PACKAGER/AGGREGATOR of the
content (e.g., DirecTV for DBS or Cox for cable) would pay the $1.25 per
subscriber paid-up license. So, for a DBS operator with 10 million
subscribers, each having MPEG-4 decode capability, the DBS operator would
pay a $12.5 million one time fee, IRRESPECTIVE of how many individual
content providers are part of the package(s) offered to the subscriber(s).
Assuming this interpretation is correct, what about "churn?" In other words,
if a system operator has 10 million digital subscribers at a point in time,
a year later perhaps 2 million or even 5 million of these specific
subscribers will have disconnected. Does the system operator get to use this
paid up license fee for a new subscriber, i.e., is it based on "net"
(non-specific) subscribers? Or is it based on "gross" (and specific)
subscribers?
-----Original Message-----
From: Fevzi Karavelioglu [mailto:fevzi   tivo.com]
Sent: Wednesday, July 17, 2023 11:23 AM
To: William J. Fulco
Cc: Mikael Bourges-Sevenier; 'Rob Koenen'; 'M4IF news (E-mail)'; 'M4IF
Discussion List (E-mail)'
Subject: Re: [M4IF Discuss] RE: [M4IF News] MPEG-4 Visual and Systems
Licensing Announced!!
>OK - so let me get this straight...
>
>If say, SA, Mot or TiVo build an MPEG-4 set-top box they pay $0.25 - OK,
>fine. However if the user subscribes to a 200-channel package on DirecTV or
>Digital cable does this mean that every one of those channel
>content-providers must pay $1.25 for a paid-up license to distribute to
that
>box? So on a "basic package" - someone (who is likely?) must pay $250 to
>MPEG-LA per sub - if DirecTV has 20M subs by that time (and they'vet gone
>MPEG-4), does that mean they (or somebody) owes MPEG-LA $2.5Billion?

Good question.  The channel line ups change, and channels are added and
removed
all the time.  How would you monitor/manage this?
In the case of TiVo it is likely each TiVo box built will cost extra 50
cents
since it may employ both a decoder and an encoder.
If it is true that billions of dollars would have to paid due to $1.25 per
channel then the MSOs cannot afford to adapt MPEG4.
Fevzi.
"William J. Fulco" wrote:
> This license's terms are much better...
>
> Clearly people like Apple and Real and such can just drop the $1M (well,
> maybe "drop" is too flip a word - sorry Dave :-) and pay-off the license
for
> the year and then give away millions and millions of encoders/decoders...
> for the little garage-shop codec-implementation house, well - this term
> could be problematic... you're right about the "use for 3 days and then
> discard", I've got a dozen codecs like that on my system easily.... This
is
> going to be a tough one. I guess you could make your MPEG-4 codec expire -
I
> wonder how that is going to play to the licensing guys? Is it "downloads"
of
> MPEG-4 codecs or is it "being used" codecs - I suspect it is the former...
>
> Here's a question I had...
>
> A line in the press release:
>
> "Current cable television, direct satellite television and over-the-air
> broadcast that one day may allow a broadcaster to address its broadcast to
a
> specific viewer or subscriber will pay a royalty of $0.25 for the right to
> manufacture and sell each decoder and encoder and the party providing
> content service to the subscriber will pay a royalty of $1.25 for the
> paid-up right to use a decoder to decode and use encoded MPEG-4 Visual
> information."
>
> OK - so let me get this straight...
>
> If say, SA, Mot or TiVo build an MPEG-4 set-top box they pay $0.25 - OK,
> fine. However if the user subscribes to a 200-channel package on DirecTV
or
> Digital cable does this mean that every one of those channel
> content-providers must pay $1.25 for a paid-up license to distribute to
that
> box? So on a "basic package" - someone (who is likely?) must pay $250 to
> MPEG-LA per sub - if DirecTV has 20M subs by that time (and they'vet gone
> MPEG-4), does that mean they (or somebody) owes MPEG-LA $2.5Billion?
>
> There is that implication about "addressable decoder" - so does that mean
> that only the premium-channels like HBO will have to pay for each sub in a
> system? If I have a premium-super-pack with dozens and dozens of
> movie-channels do I/we/they have to pay (1.25 x (dozens and dozens))
dollars
> for this package?
>
> Maybe this better than $0.02/hour content fee - but I'm not so sure it
will
> make CE MPEG-4 work for sat and cable systems. These particular economics
> would seem to favor delivery of TV programming to such set-top devices via
> broadband/web-site (Jordan will be happy) and not previous
> delivery-infrastructure.
>
> But I digress...
>
> ++Bill
> wjf   NetworkXXIII.com
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: discuss-admin   lists.m4if.org
> > [mailto:discuss-admin   lists.m4if.org]On Behalf Of Mikael
> > Bourges-Sevenier
> > Sent: Monday, July 15, 2023 4:43 PM
> > To: 'Rob Koenen'; 'M4IF news (E-mail)'; 'M4IF Discussion List (E-mail)'
> > Subject: [M4IF Discuss] RE: [M4IF News] MPEG-4 Visual and Systems
> > Licensing Announced!!
> >
> >
> > > > However, what happens to companies that provide a freely
> > > downloadable
> > > > player? If I read correctly, they are subject to the $1M/y cap for
> > > > video and $100k/y for Systems, am I correct?
> > >
> > > Sounds like it. If you are not in the video surveillance
> > > business, you
> > > may want to add Audio to your system (and you may even like audio
> > > if you *are* in the surveillance business).
> > >
> > > These companies also seem entitled to distribute the first
> > > 50,000 systems for free. But given the fact that you only
> > > mention the caps and not the per en/de-coder royalties, you
> > > must be thinking Big.
> >
> > These days, an internet player with 'cool' contents can easily reach
> > 50000 installs/year even though many of them are often installed for few
> > days and removed. Then the million dollar question: is there a 30-day
> > money back guarantee? Just kidding ;-)
> >
> > Mike
> >
> > _______________________________________________
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> >
> >
>
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