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EU now dislikes video codec standardization
In a highly ass-backwards move, the EU has chosen to launch an investigation into the AV1 standardization body. The motivation is unclear, but such standardization has only had good effects for consumers, and I just can't see how a royalty-free codec can be interpreted as having any negative effect.
If the EU has its way and finds a violation, at the very least, you can expect royalty fees on the use of a browser which the consumer may have to pay (just research the situation with MPEG-LA, though this is typically done at the device level.) At worst, all standardization bodies such as W3C, WHATWG and IETF might also face an antitrust investigation, and we might just see a splinternet with the EU having its own walled off internet with its own video codecs, web stack and internet protocols. I assume Eurobros are naturally overjoyed at this possibility.
- Has the EU gone a bit insane for your tastes?52 votes
- Yes82.69%
- No17.31%
Comments
"The motivation is unclear"? Did you read the article?
The very reason AV1 was developed is to have a royalty-free license specification so that companies could adopt it, which in turn helps adoption of a common standard instead of each company having using a different standard. This has a clear benefit for consumers; I'm sure you don't want to encode your content in a bazillion different video formats for every browser/device combination.
With such a demonstrated benefit to consumers, I don't consider this "apparent" reason as very telling of their real motivations. The actual questionnaire document is not public, which is even more suspect.
(Just to be very clear, I read all articles that I post here and over on OGF.)
@DP do you mind creating a news category for posting news of this kind? I'm sure your "CPN" would also be a good fit.
The way I understand it, the AV1 standard came with some patents that are quite important in this industry but competitors can't try to come up with new standards without playing by the AOM rules. The problem was never the "royalty free" aspect.
A lot of the things the EU are doing are things that would work well in an idealistic world. I think you're overreacting because they just started their investigations and nothing has happened yet.
Whenever EU proposes/imposes something new I say "Fuck EU".
People would say that about the GDPR as well, and yet here we are.
The GDPR is indeed silly because you know most companies are going to blatantly ignore it but major corporations can just absorb the extra admin fees and deal with GDPR properly. That's why it's something that would have worked in an idealistic world.
The anticompetitive investigation is something entirely different. Are you going to pretend US doesn't have anticompetitive investigations?
Note that there isn't a small company exemption clause in GDPR; so all companies are required to deal with it.
I also disagree with your assessment that large companies can afford to comply with GDPR, as the current rulings by various EU countries are essentially making it illegal for US based companies to simply offer a product or service there by requiring that they refuse to comply with requests from US LEOs as that can endanger EU citizen data.
Well, the US does consider the benefit to the consumer as a parameter in deciding whether to pursue antitrust investigation.
At the end of the day people do good things to be liked, appreciated, and remembered. When all they receive for it is hate, threats, and the lack of ability to live a quiet and normal life there is suddenly only one person left willing to take the power available for grabs: the one who wants to exploit it, and to hell with everyone else.
All that to say, government is more attractive to the greedy and power hungry than the good natured individual, and thus it's actions should always be considered suspect.
And you imply the EU does not do the same. Have you made this conclusion based on the extremely vague article you linked or your preconceived notions of the EU? Contrary to your beliefs, the EU is very consumer friendly.
I understood the article as finding violations so anyone can use the AV1 patents for free without following AOM licensing requirements. Somehow you managed to understand it as finding violations to get rid of royalty-free licensing. (And how would this benefit anyone?)
The US is particularly different in this matter, see for example the cases referred by this article:
https://www.theamericanconsumer.org/2021/03/airlines-show-why-the-consumer-welfare-standard-must-remain-the-bedrock-of-u-s-antitrust-law/
The precedents set have thorn on the side of antitrust lawsuits ever since, because of the failure to demonstrate consumer harm by way of increased prices and the likes.
Given that AV1 was developed by companies voluntarily sending patents to a patent pool to ensure a licensing-free codec could be developed, I find it surprising that a government body can suddenly find an antitrust issue despite having no basis for that claim, neither in terms of demonstrating harm to an individual competitor, nor to consumers.
(Though, as mentioned in the article by the American Consumer, antitrust should try to achieve better outcomes for consumers, than trying to protect a corporation just for the sake of keeping a competitor around. Doing the latter only keeps laggards around for no reason.)
The EU is one gigantic bureaucracy morphing into a megalith with tentacles reaching into its citizens brains.
Well given the EU is trying to put in backdoors into encrypted messengers, and neural interfaces are becoming a thing, we might literally see them trying to come for people's brains by asking them to add a backdoor whenever you commit a "thoughtcrime."
I agree allowing the airline mergers ended up being a "consumer-friendly" move in US. However, I don't see how that relates to my claim that EU is very consumer-friendly. In any case, most of the time, operating things at a larger scale just brings about more efficiency which should technically be consumer-friendly. However, in many places around the world (including US), internet/mobile bills can be exorbitantly expensive in cases of oligopoly/monopoly. In such cases mergers would definitely be consumer unfriendly because the pricing policies of consumer ISPs have been clear. Price gouging happens in rural areas with less operators. On another note, imagine if AMD and intel or AMD and nvidia merged? Would that really be consumer-friendly? Mergers have to be treated on a case-by-case basis.
Mergers aren't always consumer-friendly and I don't see how this relates to some rumor of EU investigating into the AV1 standardization body.
There's no basis because firstly the news you linked to is probably only a rumor at this point in time and secondly, the investigation (if real) isn't done yet. Why start assuming things when the investigation barely even started?
I was directly responding to your question/claim about differences of handling antitrust cases in the US as compared to the EU. As far as I'm aware, this nuance is not given much importance in many other countries.
Reuters is generally well respected for its reporting, and this isn't a geopolitical issue so I find it a bit disingenuous to call it "probably a rumor."
As for "assuming things," I'm simply saying the current actions do not inspire confidence in the technical abilities of the commission, especially when the AOM also has players from all around the world, including Huawei and Oppo, and also VideoLAN, the makers of VLC, a free media player.
Should the EU find standardization by way of pooling patents an anti-competitive behavior, then consumers would suffer since there wouldn't be one web standard any more.
Looks like this was first reported on in March:
https://mlexmarketinsight.com/news-hub/editors-picks/area-of-expertise/antitrust/tech-giants-alliance-for-open-media-triggers-eu-antitrust-questions-into-sep-licensing
The EU have somewhat of a penchant for sticking its oar in, but for all anyone knows this could be standard competition regulator stuff being blown out of proportion at this stage. Granted the EU doesn’t just consider consumer welfare, but also whether actions exclude competition in general and whether they harm the single market, so decisions aren’t always in the consumer interest.
Well, as an economist, let me say this:
Personally, I trust companies like Google, which, however imperfect, seem to have a bit of the ol' open-source spirit, over the EU at least six days a week.
My push-ups are encoded in VP9.
Is the end nigh?
https://lowendtalk.com/discussion/180198/the-news-category \o/
Yes all this seems annoying now
I'd take that to mean that one or more fundamental patents were added during testing phase after the initial specs and licensing. So then these new ones become critical to the success and forced into FRAND licensing instead of negotiating from "you fucking need us or you wasted years of time and money, pay up big $$$”.
Tl;dr it's probably from one of the smaller patent owners thinking their patent is the secret sauce that makes the whole thing work the best.
The way you use this forum for political nonsense is just hilarious.
OP has a very narrow view of the world, for him only the US matters, as if it was the superior ultimate country.
Eurobros, like you, call them, surely laugh a lot at some of the most ridiculous US laws, school shootings, 4th-world health system (yes, not a mistake, use your brain to figure it out), and GREAT PRIVACY.
It's fine to post news and discuss them, it's not fine to try to impose your view on others.
But it's normal, you can't expect much from people who had put Trump as president.