[thinkingQueen]

AV1 is being actively claim-charted by a lot of companies right now, and lawsuits are almost certainly coming. The same process is already starting for AV2, but most players are waiting for the AV1 cases to mature first.

People keep calling the AV-family codecs “royalty free,” but in practice they increasingly look like a legal and financial gamble.

[ZeroGravitas]

People have been saying this for decades now.

I've never understood why some people seem to cheer this on like a corporation owning some maths was their local sports team.

For a while I assumed some people had put in a lot of effort on H.264 encoders and so the digital sharecroppers were angry and jealous that someone might be advocating for messy freedom.

But some people seem to just enjoy the thought of corporations putting a tax on video distribution.

Luckily those greedy corporations have repeatedly shot themselves on the foot and so their influence is waning.

[Klaus23]

How long has it been since AV1 was released? About eight years, and there's still no credible patent holder. The vultures are always circling around compression standards. You shouldn't take that too seriously. Even if a lawsuit is filed, there's a legal defence fund to protect against baseless claims.

[Klaus23]

Most importantly, there is no alternative. As kasabali said, the patent situation for the other codecs is a mess. Additionally, they could be hit by the same "No FRAND" problem. If someone comes forward with a patent that was used unintentionally, the situation is the same for all codecs.

[throw0101a]

> People keep calling the AV-family codecs “royalty free,” but in practice they increasingly look like a legal and financial gamble.

And the alternative is… ?

For H.265 there are two HEVC licensing pools you have to sign with plus at least two non-pool companies:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Efficiency_Video_Coding#P...

Going with a non-AVx codec is no less complicated and fraught with lawsuit risk AFAICT.

[kasabali]

> in practice they increasingly look like a legal and financial gamble

As opposed to what, like HEVC? Where you need to pay 3 different patent pools to be sure (which all has different terms), then there's still other patent holders that aren't in any pools and come and hit you with loyalty requests any time under terms however they like to?

[shmerl]

There should be a stronger push to fight these trolls. AOM has enough resources to bust their garbage patents and make them pay damages for patent racketeering. At least until software patents are banned for good.

[amelius]

It should be not possible to patent communication standards. The opportunity for abuse through lock-in effects is just too big.