Linked by Thom Holwerda on Mon 1st Mar 2010 21:59 UTC
"A lot of commercial software comes with H.264 encoders and decoders, and some computers arrive with this software preinstalled. This leads a lot of people to believe that they can legally view and create H.264 videos for whatever purpose they like. Unfortunately for them, it ain't so."
Thread beginning with comment 411696
To read all comments associated with this story, please click here.
To read all comments associated with this story, please click here.
Member since:2006-02-06
Even when they do it from a product called "Final Cut Pro"?
I'm not on this field of work, so I'm really just blowing my opinion here but, it seems to me that if I buy a tool to make videos, I should be given the right to do as I see fit with my videos. I mean, I already paid for "the right to make them" once, having to pay for the right to distribute something I made is odd.
Edit: Just to make sure, I'm not saying the license for H.264 is wrong nor anything, but I'd be very annoyed at the publisher of Final Cut Pro (or the Adobe Premiere thing) if I bought their products only to figure out that I can't do as I please with the videos I make.
Edited 2010-03-02 03:19 UTC
Member since:2005-11-13
Edit: Just to make sure, I'm not saying the license for H.264 is wrong nor anything, but I'd be very annoyed at the publisher of Final Cut Pro (or the Adobe Premiere thing) if I bought their products only to figure out that I can't do as I please with the videos I make.
Yeah, that's like if I bought a copy of Microsoft Office, and then found out I had to pay a license fee to use some of the fonts that came with it if I were going to use it for commercial purposes. I would assume that any related license fees would be included with the purchase price of the product.
Member since:2009-08-26
I'm not on this field of work, so I'm really just blowing my opinion here but, it seems to me that if I buy a tool to make videos, I should be given the right to do as I see fit with my videos. I mean, I already paid for "the right to make them" once, having to pay for the right to distribute something I made is odd.
The revenue they make from software like Final Cut Pro is peanuts compared to what they make from large companies that sell millions of videos. They're just allowing you to use h.264 in Final Cut Pro for non-commercial use.
If you want to sell video that is encoded with h.264 then you need to pay a license fee. You're making commercial use of the patent.
But the other side of this is that you'll only be sued if you are making a decent amount of money. They'd also send you a warning letter first and request that you purchase a license.
Member since:2009-02-02
"This leads a lot of people to believe that they can legally view and create H.264 videos for whatever purpose they like."
I have never heard that argument before. Everyone that deals with it in a technical sense *knows* it ain't free.
I have never heard that argument before. Everyone that deals with it in a technical sense *knows* it ain't free.
So are you saying that those who use Final Cut Pro and Premiere for commercial purposes all have separate licenses with the MPEG-LA? for using MPEG2-4 and H264 commercially? Really?
Features
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/21/13 21:38 UTC
At an event earlier today, Microsoft unveiled the next Xbox - the third model, but confusingly named Xbox One. The big focus was TV, integrated Kinect, and all the other stuff we all expected to be forced down our throats. I think it took them 25 minutes to actually come to what should be the core of the story: gaming. Nothing groundbreaking in the gaming department, except for how Microsoft intends to handle the used games market and borrowing games from friends: pay up, buddy!
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/20/13 11:29 UTC
The day has finally come! Jolla has finally announced the launch device for its Sailfish operating system - and by god this is a looker. It's decidedly different from other phones out there, but it has good specifications and carries a relatively reasonably price tag - EUR 399, and it's up for pre-order today, shipping in the fourth quarter of this year.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/18/13 21:33 UTC
Why does Google get so much credit in the technology industry? Why, despite the company's many obvious failings, do many geeks and enthusiasts still hold a somewhat positive view on the all-knowing technology giant? A specific talk at Google I/O this week provides the answer.
Linked by David Adams on 05/16/13 4:23 UTC
OSNews is a sponsor of this year's O'Reilly OSCON in Portland, Oregon, USA. A lucky OSNews reader will win a free three-day pass, including two tutorials days. To win the pass, post a comment on this story saying something about Open Source Software or OSCON. We'll pick a winner at random next week. If you don't have an OSNews account, you may email us your entry. Part of the conference is the 9th annual Open Source Awards, and today the 16th is the deadline for nominations. If you'd like to nominate an outstanding open source contributor, do it here. Read on for more information about OSCON. Update: The 20% discount code for OSNews readers is "OSN."
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/11/13 21:41 UTC
"Windows is indeed slower than other operating systems in many scenarios, and the gap is worsening." That's one way to start an insider explanation of why Windows' performance isn't up to snuff. Written by someone who actually contributes code to the Windows NT kernel, the comment on Hacker News, later deleted but reposted with permission on Marc Bevand's blog, paints a very dreary picture of the state of Windows development. The root issue? Think of how Linux is developed, and you'll know the answer.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/08/13 14:22 UTC
This is one of those news items that's fun to write, fun to read, fun to comment on, and where no one will be able to say anything unkind. It's all just one big ball of awesome fluffiness. TuneTracker, the BeOS radio automation software, has just released something very special: TuneTracker System 5, the first version designed entirely and specifically for Haiku. In fact, it actually includes Haiku in the software package. Better yet, TuneTracker also unveiled several system-in-a-box products - which have Haiku and TuneTracker pre-installed.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/02/13 15:28 UTC
Exactly twenty years ago, a document was published that played a huge role in establishing the web as we know it today. Twenty years later, and this simple and straightforward document is proof of an irrefutable fact: while closed technologies can change markets, open technologies can change the world.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 04/29/13 21:06 UTC
Oh multitasking. That staple of computing that got thrown out the window with many modern smartphones. We got some rudimentary thing in its place - but even as multitasking on phone and tablets improves, its user-visible side remains cumbersome. Windows 8 has a neat implementation, and now it's time Android follows in it footsteps.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 04/24/13 22:24 UTC
They're here! Whether that excites you or not remains to be seen, but the Galaxy S4, which will most likely become the best selling Android smartphone of the year by a huge margin, has been reviewed by all the major sites, and there's lots of interesting conclusions in there - although I think most of you will get the gist.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 04/18/13 11:21 UTC
Nokia has posted its quarterly results for the first quarter of 2013, and just like the quarters that came before, there's not a whole lot of good news in there. The rise in Lumia sales still can't even dream of making up for the sales drop in Symbian phones, and when broken down in versions, the sales figures for Windows Phone 8 Lumias in particular are very disappointing. In North America, Nokia is getting slaughtered.More Features »
Sponsored Links
Member since:
2006-01-03
"This leads a lot of people to believe that they can legally view and create H.264 videos for whatever purpose they like."
I have never heard that argument before. Everyone that deals with it in a technical sense *knows* it ain't free.