[vorbis] Fruanhofer patents and royalties for Streaming

[Mike Coleman]

Segher Boessenkool <segher at wanadoo.nl> writes:
> If we don't break patents, we are ok; but if you don't want to be taken to
> court by stupid patent claims, the only way to do that is to just pay the
> bullies, I'm afraid.

>From this recent article

  http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200-4101023.html?tag=st.ne.1002.tgif.ni

comes this quote

   "We doubt very much that they are not using Fraunhofer and Thomson
   intellectual property," Linde said. "We think it is likely they are
   infringing."

(Linde is a Fraunhofer VP.)

This could just be FUD, but considering their scumbag behavior up to this
point, it seems to me virtually certain that they will eventually go after
vorbis.  The fact that there's not a primary large corporation to sue may make
this harder in some ways, but it will make things a lot easier in others.  If
there are only individuals, many can be crushed just by the threat of a
lawsuit, no matter how baseless.

I've not (yet) contributed to vorbis, but even a small judgement would
probably bankrupt me.  I could bear this personally, but having dependents
would make it much harder.

Vorbis has tremendous potential to benefit humanity, not to mention a large
number of existing corporations.  The best defense, if possible, would be to
get some of these future beneficiaries to stand up to Fraunhofer.

--Mike


-- 
[O]ne of the features of the Internet [...] is that small groups of people can
greatly disturb large organizations.  --Charles C. Mann

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