There is a battle going on over the technicalities of digital video compression – and some are worried that it might have implications way beyond debates over technical formats – right into the heart of the creative process itself.

You see, there is something very important, that the vast majority of both consumers and video professionals don’t know: ALL modern video cameras and camcorders that shoot in h.264 or mpeg2, come with a license agreement that says that you can only use that camera to shoot video for “personal use and non-commercial” purposes (go on, read your manuals). I was first made aware of such a restriction when someone mentioned that in a forum, about the Canon 7D dSLR. I thought it didn’t apply to me, since I had bought the double-the-price, professional (or at least prosumer), Canon 5D Mark II. But looking at its license agreement last night (page 241), I found out that even my $3000 camera comes with such a basic license. … If MPEG-LA enforces all that they CAN enforce via their various EULAs, then fewer and fewer people will want to record anything of note to share with others. And that’s how an artistic culture can ROT. By creating the circumstances where making art, in a way that doesn’t get in your way, is illegal. Only big corporations would be able to even grab a camera and shoot. And if only big corporations can shoot video that they can share (for free or for money), then we end up with what Creative Commons’ founder, Larry Lessig, keeps saying: a READ-ONLY CULTURE.

This sounds major – the story was picked up by tech-blog Endgadget, who disputed the range of the threat of the copyright issues:

In any event, MPEG-LA has said to us that only the parties at the top and bottom of the H.264 tool chain are generally required to pay royalties; that is, the party who makes the encoder, and the party who distributes the encoded file to the end users. You can think of that as the first and last transaction, if you like — the person who sells the encoder and the person who sells the content are the ones who have to pay. … we’ve directly asked MPEG-LA whether or not using an H.264 camera simply to shoot video for a commercial purpose requires a license, and the answer is no. We’ve also asked whether an end user watching H.264 videos would ever have to pay or be licensed, and the answer to that question is also no. Yes, the license terms are worded poorly, but those are the answers straight from the patent horse’s mouth. Everyone can breathe again, ‘kay?

It seems to me that while the rules governing the codec, assuming Endgadget is correct (and I see no reason why not) are still poorly worded – hence the confusion. But even is they were, enforcement of such rights over so many people doing so many different things which the technology – makes it unenforceable. There are echoes of the infringement scares of the GIF graphics format. GIF is an image file format that was popular in the early days of the web. However it was a patented format and the threat was always there to force users to pay. The negative publicity generated by the threat to enforce was a major headache for the patent owner, Unisys, and nothing of note really happened about any enforcement.

That all said, the issues raised by the original article are still pertinent at the first and last points of transaction – German company Nero AG is suing MPEG-LA, claiming abuse of monopoly over its patent pools for licensing digital video codecs…
PS – There is more on codecs in the book I co-authored…