[mveg-9] Re: Binary Ready-to-Run MPEG-1/2 Encoder
- From: Gaspard Petit <gaspardpetit@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: mveg-9@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 09 Oct 2002 22:10:44 -0400
I actually have the MPEGLA documents right in front of me and I can
read:
--------------------------------
1.20 MPEG-2 Intermediate Product - shall mean any instrumentality or
combination of instrumentalities, including by way of example and
without limitation an integrated circuit chip or chip set, a subsystem
circuit board(s), firmware, and software, which is primarily designed
to be used, alone or with other instrumentalities, to encode or decode
video information in a format in compliance with the MPEG-2 Standard,
but which is not a product that is Sold.
1.30 Sale (Sold) - shall mean any sale, rental, lease, license or other
form of distribution of an MPEG02 Royalty Product to an end user,
either directly or through a chain of distribution. For purposes of
this Agreement, a Sale under this Section 1.30 shall be deemed to take
place in the country where an end user takes delivery of the MPEG-2
Royalty Product which is the subject of the "Sale." irrespective of the
manner in which the "Sale" takes place.
2.1 MPEG-2 Intermediate Products. Subject to Paragraph 7.16.1 hereof
and to the other terms and conditions of this Agreement, the Licensing
Administrator hereby grants to Licensee a royalty-free, worldwide,
nonexclusive, nontransferable sublicense under all MPEG-2 Essential
Patent(s) in the MPEG-2 Patent Portfolio, to make, have made, use only
by Licensee solely for internal development and testing purposes, and
sell, offer for sale or otherwise distribute, MPEG-2 Intermediate
Products. NO LICENSE IS GRANTED HEREIN, BY IMPLICATION OTHERWISE, TO
CUSTOMERS OF LICENSEE TO USE MPEG-2 INTERMEDIATE PRODUCTS MANUFACTURED
OR SOLD BY LICENSEE.
7.16.1 MPEG-2 Intermediate Products Notice: Licensee agrees to provie
to its customers or any other party that receives from it an MPEG-2
Intermediate Product licensed under Section 2.1 of this Agreement a
notice which specifies that: "USE OF THIS PRODUCT IN ANY MANNER THAT
COMPLIES WITH THE MPEG-2 STANDARD IS EXPRESSLY PROHIBITED WITHOUT A
LICENSE UNDER APPLICABLE PATENTS IN THE MPEG-2 PATENT PORTFOLIO, WHICH
LICENSE IS AVAILABLE FROM MPEG LA, L.L.C., 250 STELLE STREET, SUITE
300, DENVER, COLORADO 80206."
---------------------------
So there you have it. In MediaPipe 0.8.9, we did not put the notice,
so it is in fact illegal, but I think it can be tolerated until we
release something more official (MediaPipe actually neglects a few
GPL/BSD licenses, but we plan to fix all that before 1.0 is released).
The difficulty is to have your product be recognized as an
"intermediate product". MediaPipe is convenient when it comes to
licenses since everything is implemented as plugins...
On Wednesday, October 9, 2002, at 07:23 PM, Makira wrote:
>
>>
>> Hi again,
>>
>> The first thing I'd like to discuss with everyone is the current
>> hesitation
>> to release binary ready-to-run MPEG-1/2 encoders. I believe Major
>> mentioned
>> it in his release notes relative to MJPEG tools.
>>
>> Does anyone have an example of a free binary encoder being attacked?
>> I'm
>> not sure that MPEG-2 encoding will be freely and widely available on
>> the
>> Mac platform until someone releases ready-to-run software.
>>
>> Since Mac OS X has freely available development tools, one option is
>> to create preconfigured package which compiles with as little effort
>> as
>> clicking an icon.
>>
>> -James
>>
>
> The mpeg2enc in the mpegEncoder pipe in MediaPipe 0.8.9 comes
> precompiled.
>
> AFAIK, distributing an mpeg2 encoder is license free if :
>
> -distribution is free
> -it isn't a product in itself
>
> The mpegEncoder pipe isn't a product in itself, that's clear, but as
> to know
> if distributing mpeg2enc inside it makes it one, I don't know. I guess
> not,
> since mpeg2enc needs y4m input, so it inself, it isn't usable.
>
>
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