Heiko Recktenwald on Thu, 7 Feb 2002 03:06:18 +0100 (CET) |
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<nettime> MPEG-4 Goes Pay-Per-View (fwd) |
I doubt that this is valid anywhere, anybody ? H. ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Fri, 1 Feb 2002 12:32:48 -0500 From: Henry Huang <hwh6k@hotmail.com> To: Cyber Rights <cyber-rights@cpsr.org> Subject: MPEG-4 Goes Pay-Per-View It's been pointed out that many small Web sites have essentially been driven out of business by their own popularity -- as rising hits = more use of bandwidth = big bill$$$$ Well, now it gets worse. MPEG LA, the holding firm that manages patent rights for MPEG-2 and MPEG-4, has announced their new licensing terms for MPEG-4: http://www.mpegla.com/news_release31Jan2002.html Of particular interest are new pay-per-stream and pay-per-encoded- copy fees that the content distributor has to pay (quoted below): -- · US $0.00033/minute or portion (equivalent to US $0.02/hour) based on playback/normal running time for every stream, download or other use of MPEG-4 video data in connection with which a service provider or content owner receives remuneration as a result of offering/providing the video for viewing or having the video viewed (including without limitation pay-per-view, subscription and advertiser/underwriter-supported services). This royalty, to be paid by entities that disseminate the MPEG-4 video data, is not subject to a cap. (In the case of MPEG-4 video for which the number of uses cannot be directly determined (e.g., video supplied as part of a basic cable service or to a transmitter for broadcasting), a surrogate (e.g., standard industry audience measurement) is under consideration.) · US $0.00033/minute or part (equivalent to US $0.02/hour) based on playback/normal running time of MPEG-4 video data encoded (for other than personal use) on each copy of packaged medium. This royalty, to be paid by the packaged medium replicator, is not subject to a cap. -- It's known that Fraunhofer put some pretty onerous (albeit unenforcable) licensing fees in their license terms for MP3, but this goes way beyond that. Forcing the content provider to cough up a NON-CAPPED fee for every second of every stream is ridiculous. Forcing them to cough up a fee for every DVD or CD with MPEG-4 content that they sell is even worse. This is exactly the sort of nickel-and-dime scheme that favors large media providers at the expense of the smaller artists. Only large companies have the infrastructure and money to deal with the massive overhead that tracking and paying these costs will require -- just as only large companies have the money to finance the massive amounts of bandwidth generated by a really popular Web site. Worse, tracking time usage for each stream could very well lead to having more spyware-type code in individual players. Anyone with any basic knowledge of client-server architecture knows it's not *required* (you should be able to track all of this on the server side) -- but it's an awfully convenient excuse if the customer doesn't know any better. "You see, we NEED to uniquely identify your player, or we aren't legal [COUGH SNORTGIGGLE]." -H ~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~-~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~ CPSR Cyber Rights -- http://www.cpsr.org/cpsr/nii/cyber-rights/ To unsubscribe, e-mail: cyber-rights-unsubscribe@cpsr.org To reach moderator, e-mail: cyber-rights-owner@cpsr.org For additional commands, e-mail: cyber-rights-help@cpsr.org Materials may be reposted in their _entirety_ for non-commercial use. ~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~-~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=~ # distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission # <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: majordomo@bbs.thing.net and "info nettime-l" in the msg body # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@bbs.thing.net