Software help desk

In what appears to be an effort to diminish the appeal of the WebM project backed by Google, Mozilla, and Opera, among others, MPEG LA, a group that manages pools of patents on behalf of participating companies, on Thursday declared that its AVC Patent Portfolio License will continue to be free to licensees who deliver Internet video for free to end users for the life of the License. Licensees who deliver paid Internet video will continue to have to pay a license fee. The AVC Patent Portfolio covers the H.264 video codec.

it is licensed on behalf of 27 companies including Apple and Microsoft, both of which support H.264 in their media software and browsers. Organizations that support open source software, such as Mozilla, however, refuse to support H.264 for fear of future licensing fees.

MPEG LA said in February that it would not charge royalties for the AVC Patent Portfolio from January 1, 2011 to December 31, 2015.

That deal began to look less generous in May, when Google released the VP8 video codec, obtained in its acquisition of On2, as royalty free, open-source software and launched the WebM project with various partners for the purpose of promoting an open media format for the Web.

But promising to license H.264 at no charge isn’t enough to convince Mike Shaver, VP of engineering at Mozilla, to embrace the technology. “The MPEG LA announcement doesn’t change anything for the next four years, since this promise was already made through 2014,” Shaver said in an e-mail.

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