using FFmpeg commercially via system commands

[cen]

Hello ,

I've already posted a related thread which received some helpful replies. I've now finished (I think) my C++ (VS 2008 Express Edition) commercial application and there's one more feature I'd like to add - if feasible - where I'm not sure if I'd be legally on the safe side. I'd like to add audio to an AVI file (created with OpenCV from a source/original AVI) by means of FFmpeg. For this I would use mere system commands, e.g.:

ffmpeg -i video.avi -vn audio.wav (for extracting audio from original avi)

FFmpeg would not be shipped with my software, the user would only be required to download it from the Internet so the application can make use of it.

I've checked the legal page of FFmpeg but I'm not sure if my question is answered there:

Q: Is it perfectly alright to incorporate the whole FFmpeg core into my own commercial product?
A: You might have a problem here. There have been cases where companies have used FFmpeg in their products. These companies found out that once you start trying to make money from patented technologies, the owners of the patents will come after their licensing fees. Notably, MPEG LA is vigilant and diligent about collecting for MPEG-related technologies.

source: http://ffmpeg.org/legal.html

Does anyone know if it would be safe to use FFmpeg commercially the way I suggested or has any experience with it?


Cheers
cen

[poisondeathray]

Legally in most regions the end user would have to compile a binary from the sources - the ffmpeg binary cannot be legally distributed in most countries. Also, it's a "questionable" business practice to rely on end user to do this

Although there are dozens of applications and shareware that bundle ffmpeg, - look on the ffmpeg "hall of shame"

You should also contact MPEG-LA for the licensing fees, but they probably won't take legal action unless you make decent money from this commercially (it's not worth it for their legal team - they usually only go after "big fish" )

[cen]

that's very unfortunate So I suppose DirectShow would be the alternative, or does that also pose legal obstacles? Anyway, I had hoped to circumvent that. Also I've tried to find code snippets but all I could find was actually snippets - incomplete that is. I just need a code sample that would allow me to extract the audio from an AVI and then insert it again into the processed avi.

[poisondeathray]

Actually if it's just extracting audio, -vn -acodec copy then I don't know if it falls under MPEG-LA jurisdiction . If you were encoding then chances are it would .

But distributing ffmpeg as a binary is definitely a legal problem (and asking a customer to download illegally obtain a binary...) . Technically , it's only "legal" if it's distributed as sources, not a compiled binary

I would get clarification try to contact someone at ffmpeg.org mailing list, or ask at doom9.org or doom10.org

[cen]

that's why I asked. I'm not really familiar with the ffmpeg command line app yet as I've not used it so far. Will try to find some useful code somewhere and try to make sense of it or I'll leave this option out.

Thx for taking the time
Cheers
cen