[MPEGIF Discuss] MPEG-4 AVC reference code licensing

[Rob Koenen (MPEGIF)]

Charles,
> Provided the actual H.264/ AVC standard licensing issues are solved 
> one day (through MPEG LA and/or Via Licensing), will the reference 
> codec require a separate license, and how to obtain it?

There are two kinds of licenses in principle:
 - copyright
 - patent rights
There is a speciic header in the reference software modules that explains
the copyrights you have when you obtian the SW.  While the header is the
authoritative reference, I can loosely paraphrase by saying you can use it
freely as long as you use it for compliant implementations.
The license situation --and yes, we hope everything will be sorted out one
day-- is no different for implementations that start from the reference SW
than for implementations that start from any other software/hardware basis. 
Kind Regards,
Rob