[vmception]

It is very routine to license patents

We have no insight into what a licensing agreement would have looked like to judge

We also have no idea if google just opted to not pay

I cant hop on the “hostage industry” train without that detail

[rektide]

Im uninterested in my devices & functionality i use being ever subject to legal brawls, these ones & in general.

Spotify is under no obligation to offer Fair Reasonable and Non-discrimatory license agreements. To say that license agreements are routine ignores the other half the time that agreements dont work out easily. A patent holder can hold the entire world back at their pleasure. In this case, over a couple line shell scripts we could teach middleschoolers in Hour of Code day.

I have little sympathy for what feels like ambiguous legal murk you've layered over my concern. These particulars seem uninteresting amid what seems like yet another nimwitted IP fuck up that idoot grade patents were handed out to bloodthirsty IP robber barons. Once again consumers are in the crosshair. And this time we cannot seek alternate remedy, our devices are all beholden & bound up, controlled by solitary companies, vulnerable to legal assault. This is an unhealthy technical ecosystem, & it's unhealth has made it subject to wide forms of cruel & vicious legal attack on endless fronts, from an incompetent legal system.

[vmception]

Also true.

I would be open to an attempt at uniform licensing agreements, or some kind of regulatory approval on the licensing arrangements with comparative licenses considered.