2014年2月21日
By 1月时特约编辑
专题文章

为MPEG LA辩护

Recent bad press received by MPEG LA seems to disprove the old adage that all PR is good PR. 几周前，为福克斯新闻, 史蒂夫·福布斯说:

One example is MPEG LA—a patent pooling entity and owner of the MPEG-2 standard commonly found in 电视, 游戏控制台, and 个人电脑—who does not adjust their licensing fees and locks in licensors to contract terms far longer than the life of the patents despite holding predominantly expired patents.
像巨魔, MPEG LA also uses patents offensively – currently pursuing Craig Electronics, Curtis International and ViewSonic for infringement of its patents and a pool controlled by MPEG LA called ATSC found in digital television. 因为 ATSC技术标准 is claimed to be reliant on the MPEG-2 standard, it allows MPEG LA to seek infringement rewards.

MPEG-LA主席拉里·霍恩回答说:

Forbes also repeats the false claim that MPEG LA “does not adjust their licensing fees and locks in licensors [we assume he meant licensees] to contract terms far longer than the life of the patents despite holding predominantly expired patents.”
The goal of our MPEG-2 Patent Portfolio License is to incorporate as much essential intellectual property as possible under one license for the benefit of the marketplace including licensees and patent holders. Doing that relies on achieving a balance between what patent holders are willing to offer their patents for and what licensees are willing to pay.
Although the license grew from eight patent holders and 100 patents to 27 patent holders with more than 1,000项专利, it has delivered a reliable market-based solution in which instead of increasing royalties commensurate with this dramatic growth in value, 版税减少了二分之一到三分之二.
进一步, 每项专利对标准都是必不可少的, licensees pay royalties only for products manufactured or sold in a country with one or more active (not expired) patents at that time. All patents in the license are published on our website and applicable expirations are known throughout.

最新加入的是霍华德·威廉姆斯, Professor Emeritus at the University of Strathclyde and former 研究 Fellow at the Oxford Internet Institute. 写在 TelecomTV, after making essentially the same argument as Forbes, Williams stated:

These high license fees erect barriers to innovation rather than promote it. They allow MPEG LA and its like to wield the power of the technology pools they manage to maximize profits.
为什么这一切都很重要? In the end it means consumers and small innovative companies are in all probability paying vastly more for products such as DVDs, 电视, 游戏控制台, 个人电脑, 及其他高科技产品. These high prices can stunt innovation and raises costs for consumers.

请注意，威廉姆斯用“极有可能”来修饰他的陈述,，基本上是学院派说“我可能错了”的方式, 如果我是, 至少我警告过你.在这种情况下，他既错了，又异常懒惰, as a quick look at the MPEG-LA MPEG-2 license structure makes all this laughable, 特别是声称要为dvd支付“多得多”的费用. According to the MPEG-2 License Summary available on the MPEG-LA site (图1)在美国，MPEG-2版税增加了惊人的0美元.016到DVD上的一部电影.

图1. MPEG LA对内容被许可方的许可条款

True, royalties on MPEG-2 encoder and decoder products are substantially higher (图2). 但在2美元时.00 /单位, and with DVD players costing $30 or less and Blu-ray players costing $80 or less, it’s hard to consider either of these prices "vastly more" than anything. 至于影响其他高价产品，如电视, 控制台和个人电脑, 那就更可笑了. 2美元肯定是很难争辩的.00美元的许可费”为创新设置了障碍," particularly when it's a critical enabling technology without which the TV or console couldn't perform its essential function.

图2. MPEG LA针对硬件制造商被许可方的MPEG-2许可条款

从我与编码器供应商的谈话中, most manufacturers consider these license costs the same as hardware components: No one likes spending the money, 但代价是不可避免的. 此外, since the market for DVD players (and hardware and software decoders) wouldn’t exist without one cohesive standard, 我相信大多数供应商都很高兴这个标准的存在.

很明显, 如果你正在开发一款待售产品, these licensing costs get factored into the bill of materials and affect end user pricing. Sure, we pay for it as end users, and lower cost is always better, but $2.即使总收入增加了3 -5倍，也不能算作“巨大”的东西.

在我看来, this whole licensing discussion only came to the fore when browser vendors like Mozilla and Opera didn’t want to pony up the $6.每年向H.264解码(Mozilla后来改变了它的位置和开始支持H.264 2012年初). Then the whole “internet should be free” crowd awoke and anyone who (gasp) wanted to make a return on their R&D投资变成了博士. 邪恶的化身. I’m wondering how many of those individuals would argue that the fruits of their daily labors should also be free.

别误会我, I’m against patent trolls that buy or otherwise acquire patents and then seek compensation for them. 但MPEG-LA代表了MPEG-2技术的原始开发者, and it strikes me that they’re entitled to make as much as they possibly can from their investment. MPEG-LA deserves whatever compensation they get for organizing the group and making the technology easy to license. 从1999年的许可数量来看，他们一定做对了什么.

In a time where the Wall Street bankers who tanked our economy with knowingly toxic assets still make eight figure salaries, 哪里的预算赤字是17万亿美元, 贾斯汀·比伯在那里赚了5800万美元, you would think Forbes and Williams could find a more suitable target for their financial-related outrage than $.016 /盘. 不管怎样，这是我的两分意见.