MPEG Licensing

[jesse.fallon]

I'd like to build a tool to edit video. I'd like to input as many formats as I can, including MPEG-2, MPEG-4 (part 2) and MPEG-4 (part-10) or AVC/H.264. From reading the MPEG-LA documentation, I need to pay $2.50 for MPEG-2, $.25 for MPEG-4 (part2) and $.20 for H.264, and I have to try to track every copy of the tool that is produced, whether it is paid for or not. This could add up to quite a bit of money if the tool is popular.

On2 and Sorenson make tools that decompress all these formats and manage to charge as little as $1/copy. Assuming that they are not producing their products at a loss, I am obviously missing something here.

Does anyone have any recent experience with MPEG-LA and their current requirements for licensing fees?

Thanks,
Jesse

[bigstusexy]

I mostly answer PC technical questions the short time that I've been here and I haven't read their license.

Does this cover the spec its self or just their libs? I'd contact the authors of freewere compressors and decompressors for the formats specified they may be able to help you with this question.

[jesse.fallon]

It covers anything that is capable of decoding an MPEG format, whether it does or not. The specs are publicly available. And there are plenty of libs around. ffmpeg says if anyone uses it, MPEG-LA will probably pursue them. Nothing specific or particularly helpful unfortunately.