Have the patents for H.264 MPEG-4 AVC expired yet? - Meta
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  • kralk@lemm.eeEnglish
    9·
    1 年前

    I have literally no understanding of video codecs, standards etc. Is there a “set and forget” option which is free and good?

        • PieMePlenty@lemmy.worldEnglish
          7·
          1 年前

          Commercial use requires payment to patent holders, free use does not (whenever end user does not pay to watch). I dont know how ad supported streams are categorized, probably commercial. For personal use, I wouldnt worry about the license. Worry when you start a streaming server and start making revenue.

        • d_k_bo@feddit.orgEnglish
          7·
          1 年前

          That depends on where you live. In many parts of the world, software patents don’t exist and aren’t applied.

          • Possibly linux@lemmy.zipEnglish
            21·
            1 年前

            It is also illegal in most places beside France

            Not enforced so you should use it but it is technically illegal. Same thing with Linux distros shipping anything under patent.

            • Successful_Try543@feddit.orgEnglish
              12·
              1 年前

              I think you’re mixing the libdvdcss library for playing protected DVDs or referring to some other non-free, patented codec with the x264 package implementation of the H.264 codec, which the patent holders allowed to be used freely for non-commercial use.

    • hendrik@palaver.p3x.deEnglish
      29·
      1 年前

      And free and open source software can be written, shared and used without potentially getting sued. And these projects power lots of things.

      • exu@feditown.comEnglish
        5·
        1 年前

        To be fair, this is mainly a US issue. VLC (French) has provided h264 encoders and decoders for years.

        • hendrik@palaver.p3x.deEnglish
          3·
          1 年前

          I mean ffmpeg, GStreamer etc also provide the encoders and decoders. That doesn’t make it legal. I think they’re all (including VLC) threatened by software patents. But you’re right. There are differences between the EU and other jurisdictions.

    • patatahooligan@lemmy.worldEnglish
      15·
      1 年前

      Because patents cause issues for free software. Some examples:

      • As far as I can tell, vlc is legal only because French law does not recognize software patents, see here.
      • HDMI 2.1 support in AMDGPU is impossible, see here.
      • I think Media Foundation is unsupported in Proton because of patents as well, though I’m having trouble finding a reliable source on that.