[hackermom]

Contrary to what certain parties like Mozilla may claim, by the MPEG licenses, there are none. We have had this topic up here a few hundred times, mostly related to the recent h.264/WebM debacle and all the fud and disinformation spread about usage of h.264. There is a reason why the x264 team, the XviD team, the L.A.M.E team, people offering h.264 video and AAC audio etc. for free have not been subjected to lawsuits from the MPEG, and this is why: MPEG has always, not just for h.264 but also for mp3, mpeg-4 asp etc., said that there are no costs of any kind involved for any party - distributors and end-users alike - dealing with MPEG data or MPEG technology in any way, as long as it is all done in a free-of-charge scenario.

[shaver]

No, but this is a common misconception. Though the summaries talk about "sold to users", the license itself defines "sale" in such a way as to include zero-cost distribution:

"Sale (Sell) (Sold) (Seller) – shall mean any sale, rental, lease, license, copying, transfer, reproduction, Transmission, or other form of distribution of an AVC Product or the Transmission by any means of AVC Video either directly or through a chain of distribution."

This is consistent with the discussions I've been party to with the MPEG-LA directly.

Edited to add: I would very much appreciate a reference to MPEG-LA saying the things you indicate in your comment. It would be very interesting to be able to point to those statements, in a number of ways.