Big Tech declaring AV1 royalty-free “doesn't mean that it is," critic says.
      • wewbull@feddit.ukEnglish
        2·
        18 days ago

        5 year patents should exist IMHO. I think that’s a reasonable chance to monetise an invention. Short enough to remove the use of patents as munitions between companies.

        After that it’s open season and you’ve allowed society to use it in any way in return for that 5 year protection.

      • CosmoNova@lemmy.worldEnglish
        0·
        19 days ago

        I agree. It‘s the only way to actually overcome capitalism. Same rules for all is important of course.

        • boonhet@sopuli.xyzEnglish
          1·
          18 days ago

          No patents ensures that if an individual does invent something, only corporations can profit off it because they can just put the inventor out of business by undercutting, rather than having to pay the inventor.

          Unfortunately, they do protect corporations more than individual inventors purely because corporations have more R&D budget.

          • ZephyrXero@lemmy.worldEnglish
            1·
            18 days ago

            Seems like the solution is to only allow individuals to apply for patents, and organizations and their proxies may not

  • 4am@lemmy.zipEnglish
    2·
    19 days ago

    So just to be clear for all of you:

    Dolby is not a creator of AV1, Dolby is not in charge of licensing decisions for AV1. All companies involved in HVEC and AV1 have not performed bait and switch.

    What has happened is that Dolby alleges that they already have a patent on parts of what makes AV1 work. This may be an accident, or maybe someone stole Dolby’s tech. This may be something that can be fixed by changing how the software works, without breaking the file format.

    It will be interesting to see how this one plays out.

    Also, I’ve been saying it for 30 years at this point, and I will keep saying it: FUCK patents, software patents especially, and fuck the stupid system of capitalism for making them necessary

      • 4am@lemmy.zipEnglish
        1·
        18 days ago

        Oh, I’m not saying this to defend Dolby’s actions, IMHO and IANAL but this feels like a “see if this shit sticks” type of deal.

        Maybe this is something specific that Snapchat’s implementation does and isn’t directly related to AV1 and the headline is clickbait? Hard for me to know.

        I just wanted to point out that AV1’s consortium doesn’t seem to be rugpulling as some other commenters on here seem to feel.

      • wewbull@feddit.ukEnglish
        0·
        18 days ago

        Which is a damn good point. If you don’t protect a patent in a reasonable time frame I believe you lose the right to protect it. If Dolby has had this patent for a long time, and allowed it to become part of a standard, it may be a quick dismissal of the case.

        • WildPalmTree@lemmy.worldEnglish
          1·
          18 days ago

          Thinking of trademarks? I’m not sure, but I feel like that is true. To quote a true asshole: “I’m just asking questions”.

    • NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.worldEnglish
      1·
      19 days ago

      Dolby: we have a patent that ug let’s you do shit to a file so it comes out in another format. We own all formats now and forever!

  • network_switch@lemmy.mlEnglish
    1·
    19 days ago

    Screw Dolby. I’ll only ever encode in AV1 and in the future AV2. HEVC won’t ever be ubiquitous like h.264 and VVC has already had support dropped by Intel processors after only one generation of hardware support. 6 years after the standard was finalized and VVC is still practically non-existent in consumer hardware

  • db2@lemmy.worldEnglish
    1·
    19 days ago

    Rather, the AV1 specification was developed after many foundational video coding patents had already been filed, and AV1 incorporates technologies that are also present in HEVC.

    Like file()

    • Shirasho@lemmings.worldEnglish
      0·
      19 days ago

      This wording is wild. They did not say that AV1 uses patented material - they said that AV1 includes some technologies that are in HEVC. Dolby doesn’t have a case, and they know it. They are trying to use wording that twists the truth to make it sound like they are in the right.

        • MagicShel@lemmy.zipEnglish
          1·
          19 days ago

          Yes, but it’s also the natural conclusion to “so technically the rules say…”

      • Cort@lemmy.worldEnglish
        0·
        19 days ago

        I read it as Dolby saying av1 uses the same patented technology from hevc, and Dolby holds those patents.

        • five82@lemmy.worldEnglish
          1·
          19 days ago

          Even though the AV1 spec was finalized 8 years ago, the HEVC patent mess was well known back then. I know that AOM put a lot of effort into working around patent problems so it will be interesting to see how this plays out. Google, Amazon, Netflix, Meta, Apple and the rest of AOM all have a lot on the line if the patent trolls win.

          Open video and audio codecs are a direct threat to Dolby’s core business so this move isn’t surprising unfortunately.