From:	 sf@fermigier.com
To:	 lwn@lwn.net
Subject: MPEG LA to Charge for MPEG4 Streaming in Europe
Date:	 Wed, 20 Feb 2002 11:55:45 +0100 (CET)


               MPEG LA to Charge for MPEG4 Streaming in Europe
      Patent Tax Threatens the Freedom of Movie Picture Artists in Europe

   EuroLinux Alliance <petition.EuroLinux.org>

                           For immediate Release

   Paris, Munich, Amsterdam - 2002-02-20 - EuroLinux has been informed by
   Larry Horn, Vice President for Licensing at the MPEG association, that
   "the patents that will constitute the MPEG-4 Visual Patent Portfolio
   License support the charging of royalties on the use of MPEG-4 Visual
   streams in Europe" and that a license should be available within
   several months.

   MPEG LA is a group of large corporations which control the MPEG
   standards through a large patent portfolio. MPEG LA includes notceably
   Canon, Inc., Fujitsu, General Instrument Corp., GE Technology
   Development, Inc., Hitachi, Ltd., KDDI Corporation, Matsushita,
   Mitsubishi, Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation, Philips,
   Samsung, Sanyo Electric Co., Ltd., Scientific Atlanta, Sony, Toshiba,
   and Victor Company of Japan, Limited. [1]

   MPEG LA strategy consists in charging all possible uses of MPEG4
   technologies wordwide and to block the diffusion of independently
   developped innovations in the field of video software technology. In
   particular, MPEG LA is charging 0.02 USD per hour of compressed MPEG4,
   which is actually more than the copyright royalties most movie writers
   receive.

   The MPEG LA strategy leads to levying a tax on all cultural goods and
   is a typical example of the way patents on Internet standards are a
   tool for private taxing of all economic activities.

   MPEG LA is not the only group of companies trying to patent common
   Internet standards and create new forms of taxes managed by private
   interests. Organisations such as the W3C or the IETF, under the
   influence of large IT companies, are also starting to accept patents
   on Internet standards.

   "Patents on Internet standards have absolutely no economic
   justification since the economic value of a standard is related to the
   number of its users, not to the R&D spent to develop the standard or
   its technical quality." says Bernard Lang, Directeur de Recherche at
   INRIA. "Also, Internet standards are extremely cheap to develop.
   Corporate Members of the EuroLinux Alliance have for example
   developped innovative fractal based digital video software in less
   than 3 months."

   However, and although all economic studies show that software patents
   harm software innovation [3, 4, 6, 7, 8], software patents on Internet
   standards are likely to be legalised by the European Commission
   according to current informations on the proposed directive [9]. It
   would give control to a few large corporations on the whole digital
   culture and threaten European cultural diversity.

The MPEG LA Email to EuroLinux

Subject: RE: Submit Your Question to MPEGLA
Date: Mon, 18 Feb 2002 10:54:29 -0700
From: "Larry Horn"
To: XXXX

Hello, XXXX.

Thanks for your question.  The patents that will constitute the MPEG-4
Visual Patent Portfolio License support the charging of royalties on the
use of MPEG-4 Visual streams in Europe.  Details of the actual license
agreement are still being worked out, however, and a license may not be
available for several more months.

Regards,
Larry Horn
Vice President, Licensing

References

   [0] Apple Delays QuickTime 6 Over Proposed MPEG-4 Licenses -
   http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/02/13/041234&mode=thread

   [1] MPEG-LA - http://www.mpegla.com/l_patentlist.html

   [2] European Software Patent Horror Gallery -
   http://swpat.ffii.org/vreji/pikta/mupli/index.en.html

   [3] What is behind the recent surge in patenting? Samuel Kortum, Josh
   Lerner. Research Policy 28. 1999. Elesevier

   [4] Abstraction oriented property of software and its relation to
   patentability. Tetsuo Tamai. Information and Software Technology.
   1998. Elsevier.

   [5] Juridical Coup at the European Patent Office -
   http://petition.eurolinux.org/pr/pr14.html

   [6] Software Patentability with Compensatory Regulation: a Cost
   Evaluation. Jean Paul Smets and Hartmut Pilch. Upgrade February 2002
   http://swpat.ffii.org/stidi/pleji/
   http://www.upgrade-cepis.org/issues/2001/6/up2-6Smets.pdf

   [7] Fraunhofer Study about the Economic Effects of Software Patents.
   Micro and Macroeconomic Implications of the Patentability of Software
   Innovations. German Federal Ministry Economics and Technology.
   November 2001.
   http://www.bmwi.de/Homepage/Politikfelder/Technologiepolitik/Technologiepolitik.jsp#softwarepatentstudie
   http://www.bmwi.de/Homepage/download/technologie/Softwarepatentstudie_E.pdf

   [8] Stimulating competition and innovation in the information society.
   Conseil Général des Mines. September 2000. -
   http://www.pro-innovation.org

   [9] Collusion Discovered between BSA and European Commission -
   http://petition.eurolinux.org/pr/pr18.html

About EuroLinux - www.EuroLinux.org

   The EuroLinux Alliance for a Free Information Infrastructure is an
   open coalition of commercial companies and non-profit associations
   united to promote and protect a vigourous European Software Culture
   based on Open Standards, Open Competition, Linux and Open Source
   Software. Companies, members or supporters of EuroLinux develop or
   sell software under free, semi-free and non-free licenses for
   operating systems such as Linux, MacOS or Windows.

   The EuroLinux Alliance launched on 2000-06-15 an electronic petition
   to protect software innovation in Europe. The EuroLinux petition has
   received so far massive support from more than 100.000 European
   citizens, 2000 corporate managers and 300 companies.

   Press Contacts

   France & Europe: Jean-Paul Smets <jp@smets.com> +33-6 62 05 76 14
   Germany & Europe: Hartmut Pilch <phm@ffii.org> +49-89 127 89 608
   Denmark and Northern Europe: Anne Østergaard <aoe@sslug.dk>
   Belgium: Nicolas Pettiaux <nicolas.pettiaux@openbe.org>
   Netherlands: Luuk van Dijk <lvd@mndmttr.nl>

   Permanent URL for this PR

   http://petition.EuroLinux.org/pr/pr18.html

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