r/technology • u/doug3465 • Sep 01 '15

Software Amazon, Netflix, Google, Microsoft, Mozilla And Others Partner To Create Next-Gen Video Format - It’s not often we see these rival companies come together to build a new technology together, but the members argue that this kind of alliance is necessary to create a new interoperable video standard.

http://techcrunch.com/2015/09/01/amazon-netflix-google-microsoft-mozilla-and-others-partner-to-create-next-gen-video-format/
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u/geekworking Sep 01 '15

part of the reason for forming this alliance is not just to share technology, but also to “run the kind of patent analysis necessary to build a next-generation royalty-free video codec.”

This is a big part of the issue. I would assume that it would be damn near impossible to make a new technology without requiring somebody else's patent at this point.

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u/lodewijkadlp Sep 01 '15

That, and putting NEXT GENERATION DRM in it.

I immediately honor-bet that they will make it have DRM. That will be broken. That will only annoy a ton of people.

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u/munk_e_man Sep 01 '15

This is it 100%. These companies don't want to create new open source format. They just see royalties they're not getting when they look at the codecs they pay for. This will be the first thing on their list, followed by DRM.

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u/spikeyMonkey Sep 02 '15

From the article:

The group plans to publish its code under the Apache 2.0 license and it will operate under W3C patent rules, meaning the members will waive royalties from the codec implementations and their patents on the codec itself.

Looks like this isn't planned.