[haberman]

> I say "so far as anyone knows" because that's what Google is saying by not indemnifying WebM adopters. If you're worried about a theoretical MPEG-LA licensing gotcha, then you have to be equally worried that, if/when WebM adoption is significant, patent trolls won't show up with claims of infringement.

Does MPEG-LA indemnify its customers against patents by others (such as Google)?

Google and MPEG-LA both have a bunch of patents that apply to somewhat similar codecs. The only difference is that everyone knows Google's not going to be a jerk about it. Who knows, other patent trolls might turn up that attack MPEG-LA customers.

> By not indemnifying adopters, Google is essentially picking an open source fight in a crowded bar and then ducking out the side door.

Google's not "ducking out" of anywhere: it will be probably the biggest WebM publisher out there because of YouTube. Of any WebM publisher, they'll have the biggest target on their back. And by pushing WebM so hard, clearly Google thinks this is a battle they can win.

[toddheasley]

You're right that MPEG-LA does not indemnify licensees of H.264, no. Licensing doesn't eliminate the risk of adoption. It substantially reduces that risk. (Largely because patent licensing also function as a protection racket.) MPEG-LA will defend their patents, though.

See, it's not gonna be the content producers (like Google) that the patent trolls go after for WebM; it's gonna be the makers of the WebM-decoding graphics chips. I guess it remains to be seen where Google will be in that fight.