On Tue, Sep 1, 2015 at 12:52 PM, Mark Holmquist <mtraceur@member.fsf.org> wrote:

On Tue, Sep 01, 2015 at 11:58:35AM -0700, Brion Vibber wrote:
> This may be of interest:
>
> http://aomedia.org/press-release/alliance-to-deliver-next-generation-open-media-formats/
>
> Amazon, Cisco, Google, Intel, Microsoft, Mozilla, and Netflix are pooling
> resources to work on hammering out a standard, royalty-free, next-gen open
> video codec.

Y'know, they say "open", but seeing Amazon and Netflix on the list, smart
money says they'll include DRM in the specs somehow.

I won't hold my breath for this one...

DRM's done on a separate layer from the codec these days, and (for better or worse, probably worse) browser makers have already caved on that front... The 'encrypted media extensions' module interface is already there for H.264, VP8, and VP9, and can be expected to stay around and be used with future codecs -- whether they're patented hellholes like HEVC or royalty-free and open like VP9.

Personally, I'm willing to put up with the existence of DRM-encumbered media in the universe as long as non-DRM-encumbered media continues to work -- and moving away from the patent hell of MPEG-LA and the two competing HEVC patent pools is a Good Thing if it puts high-performance, native support for royalty-free, open codecs into over a billion peoples' hands.

(That said, DRM pisses me off too. :)

-- brion