[M4IF Discuss] Re: [M4IF News] To those concerned about MPEG-4 Licensing ...

[William J. Fulco]

Richard,
Good points....
I don't want to put words into Larry's mouth about the "motives" of
MPEG-LA - however it seems to me that if one of the goals of the "usage-fee"
is to prevent extant MPEG-2 application-income from drying up by being
replaced by a new-and-better MPEG-4 system - then perhaps MPEG-LA should
only have the usage fee for those types of applications e.g. DVD ... They
can let the MPEG-4 market grow for a (quite a) while in the other (often
unknown) market spaces and see how it goes.  That way MPEG-LA won't LOSE any
money on MPEG-4 - and in fact, the conversion (gracefully) of the MPEG-2
infrastructure to an equally-royalty-bearing MPEG-4 infrastructure could
make MPEG-LA money. The possible increased functionality of MPEG-4 will
drive lots of new MPEG-2 type applications...(perhaps they'll have to
pro-rate-up the use-fee to account for better compression in MPEG-4 than
MPEG-2 :-)
As for NEW uses of MPEG-4 - the Internet and wireless and such - that should
be usage-fee-free for the time being and the market should be allowed to
develop. Basically what's going on is typical in 3rd-world countries as they
"convert" to a "market economy." Since there is no current market - YET -
there is no way to price things in a rational or even a sane way. This is
like in the old USSR as they converted their infrastructure to "the market."
How do you "value" a company when there's no stock market to trade-on? What
happens in this case is all the parties to the negotiation argue from the
point-of-view of "preventing the worst-case scenario" -- the buyers all say
"it's worth nothing, so I'll pay little" - and the sellers all say "it's
worth a bazillion dollars, so I'll charge a fortune" - however without an
actual market in place for (at least comparable) things - the "value" is all
sheer speculation on everyone's part.
In the case of existing MPEG-2 applications - there IS a market - we KNOW
how much profit is in a DVD or a satellite-uplink or a piece of post-house
editing gear - so we KNOW how to price the royalties for comparable
applications. MPEG-LA could start there. Price MPEG-4 (yes, with use-fees)
comparable to MPEG-2 for the identical application-spaces - there is already
an infrastructure to collect/pay the royalties - and everyone knows what to
expect and what they will be faced with if they want to transition EXISTING
MPEG-2 applications to MPEG-4...
In the case of "movies on demand" or "interactive TV" or - I don't know -
"trans-galactic wireless Internet peer-to-peer music sharing" we have NO
idea of what's comparable in "the market" because there IS NO market. So,
let a market grow and develop. Let the applications happen. Let the market
players decide on what applications are and are not worth it - in a
technical and business sense. Then after a moratorium period - a few years -
5 years - whatever - MPEG-LA can decide on what makes sense in licensing.
The "assurances" can come from a "sure knowledge" that there will be a
time-of-licensing at date certain in the future.
As for the Digital Cinema, well - that might fall into a gray-area - it's
conceivable that the infrastructure for DC is limited enough and the players
in the field already have enough visibility into the LIKELY economics that a
rational/sane license can be had for this category right now by basically
saying "well, lets start from the assumption that we were using MPEG-2 for
this - and see how the market economics work". Alternatively, the players in
DC tend to be rather large and perhaps able to do their own licensing deal
outside the pool... but I digress...
++Bill
William J. Fulco
wjf   NetworkXXIII.com
310-927-4263 Cell
---------------------------------
Logic: When you absolutely, positively
have to refute every fallacy in the room.
> -----Original Message-----
> From: discuss-admin   lists.m4if.org
> [mailto:discuss-admin   lists.m4if.org]On Behalf Of Richard mizer
> Sent: Monday, May 06, 2024 10:18 AM
> To: Rob Koenen
> Cc: discuss   lists.m4if.org
> Subject: Re: [M4IF Discuss] Re: [M4IF News] To those concerned about
> MPEG-4 Licensing ...