[M4IF Discuss] (no subject)

Wed May 8 20:59:43 EDT 2002

Good point - I think it should all be free!
I don't like the use-fee myself - it has lots of problems... however there
already is a use-fee of sorts for MPEG-2 so that horse is out of the
barn.... so I'm guessing that MPEG-LA won't just drop the concept...
I don't see how caps are a problem when put in with a sliding scale. If I
could write 1 check that covers me for up to x hours - and it's cheap, I
write the check and get on with it - like Apple saying - we'll pay the
million bucks for all the coders and a million for all the decoders and
we're done - go have fun.  In the sliding scale case, if you're a small
time-operator - you pay a little fixed amount and go to work -if you're a
big-time guy - you pay more and you're done with it...  if you wanted to
look like a big-time place you could pay for a tier well-above what you
really stream and hope the word gets out :-)
Again, I don't like usage-fees for new markets - but if I was the maker of
an MPEG-2 DVD and paying 4cents/DVD for a license - I can see wanting to
switch to new-fangled MPEG-4 DVD-players when they come out (because of
broadband-connected DVD players or putting HDTV on IR-Laser DVDs instead of
going to blue-light lasers)- and I can see MPEG-LA not wanting that kind of
switch to go on "for free" - but maybe they would need "legacy" MPEG-2
content anyway so there's no problem....
++Bill
> -----Original Message-----
> From: discuss-admin   lists.m4if.org
> [mailto:discuss-admin   lists.m4if.org]On Behalf Of Daniel B. Miller
> Sent: Wednesday, May 08, 2024 11:56 AM
> To: M4IF Discussion List (E-mail)
> Subject: RE: [M4IF Discuss] (no subject)
>
>
> however, caps are inherently discriminatory to small companies.  A sliding
> scale is more fair.
>
> FWIW I think any kind of usage fee is bound to fail.  We and other smaller
> Codec co's have flirted with this kind of pricing over the years, and it
> has almost always been a disaster.
>
> Customers tend to find any pricing scheme where they pay more for their
> use of a product inherently unfair.  They want to pay for what they buy,
> not what they do with it after they buy it.  Among other issues, in many
> cases there is little interest in having _any_ party know how much of your
> product you are selling.  If it's too little, you look like a failure.  If
> it's too much, everybody invoved in the project wants a raise.  It's a
> lose/lose.
>
>  ___  Dan Miller
> (++,) CTO and founder, On2 Technologies
>
> On Wed, 8 May 2002, William J. Fulco wrote:
>
> > Rob,
> >
> > > > I'm just offering other possibilities.
> > >
> > > Thanks for the contributions Bill, It is good to be able to
> flesh out all
> > > the licensing issues in public. These discussions help.
> >
> > I hope so... just trying to clarify the issues - I often see buyers that
> > think they've got some right to what's being sold at a price
> that they're
> > happy with - and sellers that think buyers have no choice. It's
> all just a
> > negotiation....
> >
> > Some thoughts from earlier...
> >
> > Basically what we (the buyers) are saying is we want a low-cost
> to build the
> > market and the sellers are saying they're afraid of missing-out on a
> > potential "boom" so they want a high-price - usually this kind
> of thing is
> > handled with a "percentage of the take" kind of deal (they
> don't make money
> > until we make money) - but the accounting and privacy issues in
> that kind of
> > deal are always problematic (as we've seen here). One way to handle the
> > account issues is not to try to take a percentage of the user's
> income - but
> > to charge a unit-cost for the producer's goods - this is where
> the 2cents/hr
> > comes in. This is better than auditing the user's books to see how much
> > money they made - but it's still an accounting/privacy problem
> and at 2c the
> > price is still potentially a killer.
> >
> > They could do it as a sliding scale - 0.1 cents for the first x
> hours, up to
> > 2cents for whatever... (this could handle the price issue for
> small users -
> > but potentially not the accounting) Another possible way to handle the
> > baggage-free issue - especially the accounting-problems - would
> be to not do
> > it as pure 2cents/hr - but perhaps as tiers - $150/year for up to 10,000
> > hours (1 stream * 2 cents/hr * 365 * 24) or maybe 50,000 -
> small-fry get it
> > cheap - of content streamed and maybe $500/year for up to
> 100,000 hours and
> > such... based on "last years' numbers" - that way no penalty
> for "guessing
> > wrong" and very little accounting (again, I'm taking out the
> > easy-to-account-for potential MPEG-4 DVD market)... with a grace-period.
> > Maybe there is a cap at 100,000 hours/content year? or
> 1,000,000 hours or
> > 5,000,000 or some such
> >
> > Again it's the uncertainty that causes the problem - the small
> producers -
> > internet radio-stations etc are afraid that they're business model can't
> > support a "success problem" and/or that the accounting is too
> intrusive -
> > fine - they buy a bulk-license - pay your $150 or $500 and
> you're good to go
> > for the year.  The big producers like cable-TV MSOs are afraid
> that if they
> > convert over that 2c/hr * all their channels on all their
> systems * all the
> > hours in the day mean HUGE expenses - then they need a cap - 5,000,000
> > hours/year means that they pay $100,000 and they're good to go
> no matter how
> > big their system - again - with little accounting nightmare...
> >
> > If the price is sufficiently low - like the $0.25/encoder and
> $0.25/decoder
> > with a cap - then big consumers (like Apple) can just write the
> check for
> > the max and call it a day. Same could be done with usage-fees -
> if there is
> > very inexpensive entry number - then small users can write a
> (small) check
> > and be done with it. If there is a cap on the total amount per "entity"
> > perhaps - the big companies can write a (rather large) check and be done
> > with it.
> >
> >
> > ++Bill
> >
> >
> >
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