RfC: Should we support MP4 Video on our sites?

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Thanking...

Fabrice Florin

16 Jan 2014 16 Jan '14

3:18 a.m.

Greetings! The Wikimedia Foundation's multimedia team (1) seeks your guidance on a proposal to support the MP4 video format. As you know, this digital video standard is used widely around the world to record, edit and watch videos on mobile phones, desktop computers and home video devices. It is also known as H.264/MPEG-4 or AVC. (2) Supporting the MP4 format would make it much easier for our users to view and contribute video on Wikimedia projects -- and video files could be offered in dual formats on our sites, so we could continue to support current open formats (WebM and Ogg Theora). However, MP4 is a patent-encumbered format, and using a proprietary format would be a departure from our current practice of only supporting open formats on our sites -- even though the licenses appear to have acceptable legal terms, with only a small fee required. We would appreciate your guidance on whether or not we should support MP4 on our sites. The Request for Comments presents views both in favor and against MP4 support, based on opinions we’ve heard in our discussions with community and team members. What do you think? We would be grateful for your comments here: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Requests_for_comment/MP4_Video All users are welcome to participate, whether you are active on Commons, Wikipedia, other Wikimedia project -- or any site that uses content from our free media repository. We also invite you to join our Office Hours Chat on IRC this Thursday, January 16, at 19:00 UTC, if you would like to discuss this project with our team and other community members: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/IRC_office_hours#Upcoming_office_hours We look forward to a constructive discussion with you, so we can make a more informed decision together about this important question. All the best, Fabrice Florin Product Manager, Multimedia Wikimedia Foundation (1) Multimedia Team Hub: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Multimedia (2) About MP4: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MP4

Show replies by date

Fajro

16 Jan 16 Jan

3:25 a.m.

No. -- Fajro

Brandon Harris

3:28 a.m.

On Jan 15, 2014, at 7:25 PM, Fajro <faigos(a)gmail.com> wrote:

...

No.

Liam Wyatt

4:05 a.m.

Or better yet... elaborate on your reasons on the RfC page. https://commons. wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Requests_for_comment/MP4_Video I think it is commendable that the WMF legal team is proposing this discussion in such an open and honest way. It is a discussion that has been bubbling away for a long time and it is perfectly sensible that we should address it formally every now and then. Even if we come up with the same answer it is important to revisit major policy decisions periodically in case the situation has changed. I think we can all acknowledge that this particular issue is a good example of where two of our deeply held principles are somewhat conflicting. On the one hand we hold firm to the idea that our purpose is to share information as widely as possible, and on the other we also are very committed to the principles of open source. These are both real, valid, principles and it is important that we look at the ways that we can balance the competing choices that these principles force upon us without pre-judging the outcome. - Liam / Wittylama On 16 January 2014 14:28, Brandon Harris <bharris(a)wikimedia.org> wrote:

...

On Jan 15, 2014, at 7:25 PM, Fajro <faigos(a)gmail.com> wrote:

No.

I think you should probably include a reason why you feel this way. A one-word answer doesn’t leave room for conversation. --- Brandon Harris, Senior Designer, Wikimedia Foundation Support Free Knowledge: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>

Philippe Beaudette

7:07 a.m.

Clarification: while LCA would love to accept the compliment (and indeed, both the "l" and the "ca" sides are providing support for this process), it is Fabrice's initiative, not one of ours. pb Philippe Beaudette Director, Community Advocacy

...

On Jan 15, 2014, at 8:05 PM, Liam Wyatt <liamwyatt(a)gmail.com> wrote: Or better yet... elaborate on your reasons on the RfC page. https://commons. wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Requests_for_comment/MP4_Video I think it is commendable that the WMF legal team is proposing this discussion in such an open and honest way. It is a discussion that has been bubbling away for a long time and it is perfectly sensible that we should address it formally every now and then. Even if we come up with the same answer it is important to revisit major policy decisions periodically in case the situation has changed. I think we can all acknowledge that this particular issue is a good example of where two of our deeply held principles are somewhat conflicting. On the one hand we hold firm to the idea that our purpose is to share information as widely as possible, and on the other we also are very committed to the principles of open source. These are both real, valid, principles and it is important that we look at the ways that we can balance the competing choices that these principles force upon us without pre-judging the outcome. - Liam / Wittylama

On 16 January 2014 14:28, Brandon Harris <bharris(a)wikimedia.org> wrote:

On Jan 15, 2014, at 7:25 PM, Fajro <faigos(a)gmail.com> wrote: No.

_______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>

Todd Allen

2:14 p.m.

There aren't two principles in conflict here. Rather, there is a proposed very major shift in mission and method. Right now, when we say Wikimedia content is "free", we mean free to fork, reuse, use however the viewer sees fit. We support that objective with freely licensed content stored in free and unencumbered formats. We support educational content on our sites so long as it is free. Those principles are dual requirements. They are additive, not conflicting. To be acceptable for a Wikimedia project, content must be both within that project's educational scope and be free. If it is one but not the other, we cannot accept it. This proposal asks to move to a "free as in beer" model, where content will be free to view, but not necessarily to reuse (and with the opaque license, it may not even be possible to tell). We could choose to make that change, but it is a major change to the founding principles of what we do. As such it should be discussed directly and across all projects as such a major change, and not backdoored through a vote that is on its surface a question about format support. Liam said: Or better yet... elaborate on your reasons on the RfC page. https://commons. wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Requests_for_comment/MP4_Video I think it is commendable that the WMF legal team is proposing this discussion in such an open and honest way. It is a discussion that has been bubbling away for a long time and it is perfectly sensible that we should address it formally every now and then. Even if we come up with the same answer it is important to revisit major policy decisions periodically in case the situation has changed. I think we can all acknowledge that this particular issue is a good example of where two of our deeply held principles are somewhat conflicting. On the one hand we hold firm to the idea that our purpose is to share information as widely as possible, and on the other we also are very committed to the principles of open source. These are both real, valid, principles and it is important that we look at the ways that we can balance the competing choices that these principles force upon us without pre-judging the outcome. - Liam / Wittylama On 16 January 2014 14:28, Brandon Harris <bharris(a)wikimedia.org> wrote:

...

On Jan 15, 2014, at 7:25 PM, Fajro <faigos(a)gmail.com> wrote:

No.

Fæ

2:18 p.m.

On 16 January 2014 14:14, Todd Allen <toddmallen(a)gmail.com> wrote: ...

...

it should be discussed directly and across all projects as such a major change, and not backdoored through a vote that is on its surface a question about format support.

+1 You may want to add to the comment in the RFC: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Requests_for_comment/MP4_Video#C… Fae -- faewik(a)gmail.com http://j.mp/faewm

Todd Allen

2:20 p.m.

I will be commenting there, but editing is a bit of a pain from my phone. On Jan 16, 2014 7:19 AM, "Fæ" <faewik(a)gmail.com> wrote:

...

On 16 January 2014 14:14, Todd Allen <toddmallen(a)gmail.com> wrote: ...

it should be discussed directly and across all projects as such a major change, and not backdoored through a vote that is on its surface a

question

about format support.

+1 You may want to add to the comment in the RFC: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Requests_for_comment/MP4_Video#C… Fae -- faewik(a)gmail.com http://j.mp/faewm _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>

David Gerard

2:20 p.m.

On 16 January 2014 14:14, Todd Allen <toddmallen(a)gmail.com> wrote:

...

This proposal asks to move to a "free as in beer" model, where content will be free to view, but not necessarily to reuse (and with the opaque license, it may not even be possible to tell). We could choose to make that change, but it is a major change to the founding principles of what we do. As such it should be discussed directly and across all projects as such a major change, and not backdoored through a vote that is on its surface a question about format support.

And with a secret licence agreement. What on earth. - d.

Lionel Allorge

3:28 p.m.

Hi, Todd Allen said: ...

...

I agree with Todd that the support of MP4 would be loosing the freedom that is at the heart of the Wikimedia projects. There is also a problem with the idea that it will allow people to directly upload the videos made by their camcorder. Most of the time it is a bad idea to upload a video without any form of editing. Most of the time you need to remove at least the begining and the end of a video file. It will result in many very bad videos. On the contrary, we should encourage people to edit their videos with tutorials and to render the final edit in a free file format. Best regards. -- Lionel Allorge April : http://www.april.org Lune Rouge : http://www.lunerouge.org Wikimedia France : http://wikimedia.fr

Andrew Lih

3:38 p.m.

On Thu, Jan 16, 2014 at 10:28 AM, Lionel Allorge < lionel.allorge(a)lunerouge.org> wrote:

...

Hi, On the contrary, we should encourage people to edit their videos with tutorials and to render the final edit in a free file format.

Agree. As part of Wiki Makes Video, we've done some of this already, including videos about making videos: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Wiki_Makes_Video/Shoot I welcome other contributions and feedback to the project. -Andrew

Andrew Lih

3:36 p.m.

On Thu, Jan 16, 2014 at 9:14 AM, Todd Allen <toddmallen(a)gmail.com> wrote:

...

There aren't two principles in conflict here. This proposal asks to move to a "free as in beer" model, where content will be free to view, but not necessarily to reuse (and with the opaque license, it may not even be possible to tell). We could choose to make that change, but it is a major change to the founding principles of what we do. As such it should be discussed directly and across all projects as such a major change, and not backdoored through a vote that is on its surface a question about format support.

As much as I hate how MPEG-LA and MPEG-4 creates a non-free climate for our video, it's unfair to use "backdoor" to characterize intent of either community members or WMF employees in this area. Video has been a big shortcoming in Wikipedia and in the FLOSS community in general. Overcoming means we need to consider the unique nature of the problem with some possible new solutions. That's not backdooring -- that's directly addressing the needs of content creation given the current legal and IP situation. Let's debate the merits of the case and not assume bad faith of the folks putting it forward. -Andrew

David Gerard

3:41 p.m.

On 16 January 2014 15:36, Andrew Lih <andrew.lih(a)gmail.com> wrote:

...

On Thu, Jan 16, 2014 at 9:14 AM, Todd Allen <toddmallen(a)gmail.com> wrote:

...

> This proposal asks to move to a "free as in beer" model, where content will > be free to view, but not necessarily to reuse (and with the opaque license, > it may not even be possible to tell). We could choose to make that change, > but it is a major change to the founding principles of what we do. As such > it should be discussed directly and across all projects as such a major > change, and not backdoored through a vote that is on its surface a question > about format support.

...

As much as I hate how MPEG-LA and MPEG-4 creates a non-free climate for our video, it's unfair to use "backdoor" to characterize intent of either community members or WMF employees in this area.

Todd Allen

3:54 p.m.

On Jan 16, 2014 8:41 AM, "David Gerard" <dgerard(a)gmail.com> wrote:

...

On 16 January 2014 15:36, Andrew Lih <andrew.lih(a)gmail.com> wrote: > On Thu, Jan 16, 2014 at 9:14 AM, Todd Allen <toddmallen(a)gmail.com>

wrote:

...

>> This proposal asks to move to a "free as in beer" model, where content

will

...

>> be free to view, but not necessarily to reuse (and with the opaque

license,

...

>> it may not even be possible to tell). We could choose to make that

change,

...

>> but it is a major change to the founding principles of what we do. As

such

...

>> it should be discussed directly and across all projects as such a major >> change, and not backdoored through a vote that is on its surface a

question

...

> about format support.

> As much as I hate how MPEG-LA and MPEG-4 creates a non-free climate for

our

...

video, it's unfair to use "backdoor" to characterize intent of either community members or WMF employees in this area.

I think it's quite fair to note, loudly and often, that *functionally* it creates a backdoor for nonfree content. This is a major, major change, being posited as allowing a format. Furthermore, this has been discussed before, and the proponents *are fully aware* that it is a major, major change that they are positing as allowing a format. So claiming that it's "assuming bad faith" to notice this and say so comes across as disingenuous. - d. _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,

<mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe> That is exactly my intent. I don't mean to imply WMF is acting with malice here. However, in this instance, a technological change would cause a significant shift in the principles and ethics behind what we do. So rather than focusing on technology, the question should be whether free content should be removed as a fundamental principle of our movement. Functionally, that is what this proposal, if implemented, would do. Otherwise, exactly as David explained, corrosion to that principle slips in by the back door, whether by accident or design. If we want to ask that question, ask it directly.

Andrew Lih

4:08 p.m.

On Thu, Jan 16, 2014 at 10:54 AM, Todd Allen <toddmallen(a)gmail.com> wrote:

...

So claiming that it's "assuming bad faith" to notice this and say so comes across as disingenuous.

That is exactly my intent. I don't mean to imply WMF is acting with malice here. However, in this instance, a technological change would cause a significant shift in the principles and ethics behind what we do. So rather than focusing on technology, the question should be whether free content should be removed as a fundamental principle of our movement. Functionally, that is what this proposal, if implemented, would do. Otherwise, exactly as David explained, corrosion to that principle slips in by the back door, whether by accident or design. If we want to ask that question, ask it directly. Thanks for the clarification. I hereby withdraw my issue about motives.

It is indeed a good question. It just stinks it's happening in so many places :) There is a video RFC office hours today (Thursday) at 1900 UTC! Please do join. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/IRC_office_hours#Upcoming_office_hours Unfortunately I have another engagement or I'd absolutely be there. -Andrew

Andrew Lih

4:02 p.m.

You know I think you're awesome David, so I take your words to heart. You're right about the magnitude of the decision. I can see how "backdoored" was not meant to ascribe a motive or underhandedness, but to alert the community that we're allowing a practice we may not completely grasp in terms of a culture change. Instead, I'd neutralize backdoored to something like, "unwittingly shifting our cherished values for the worse." I voted to go with MP4 but my skepticism is high -- I'm still not satisfied we have deciphered all the legal aspects to our satisfaction: - Confusing consumer electronics MPEG-4 AT&T license for "personal and non-commercial activity" as brought up by User:Geni - Secret non-public licenses WMF would need to purchase, and the community wouldn't understand - What happens after 2016 when the secret license fees could arbitrarily rise? - What happens with CC-BY-SA MPEG-4 content downloaded from Commons if it's used in a commercial setting? Have we sprung a surprise gotcha on creators of derivative works? These are not easy, but I'd like to explore them, cautiously, even for a limited trial. -Andrew On Thu, Jan 16, 2014 at 10:41 AM, David Gerard <dgerard(a)gmail.com> wrote:

...

On 16 January 2014 15:36, Andrew Lih <andrew.lih(a)gmail.com> wrote:

On Thu, Jan 16, 2014 at 9:14 AM, Todd Allen <toddmallen(a)gmail.com>

wrote:

> This proposal asks to move to a "free as in beer" model, where content

will

> be free to view, but not necessarily to reuse (and with the opaque

license,

> it may not even be possible to tell). We could choose to make that

change,

> but it is a major change to the founding principles of what we do. As

such

> it should be discussed directly and across all projects as such a major > change, and not backdoored through a vote that is on its surface a

question

> about format support.

As much as I hate how MPEG-LA and MPEG-4 creates a non-free climate for

our

video, it's unfair to use "backdoor" to characterize intent of either community members or WMF employees in this area.

David Gerard

4:05 p.m.

On 16 January 2014 16:02, Andrew Lih <andrew.lih(a)gmail.com> wrote:

...

Instead, I'd neutralize backdoored to something like, "unwittingly shifting our cherished values for the worse."

This is about the fourth time this has come around; I hope you can understand that it's harder to credit "unwittingly" than if it were the first.

...

I voted to go with MP4 but my skepticism is high -- I'm still not satisfied we have deciphered all the legal aspects to our satisfaction: - Confusing consumer electronics MPEG-4 AT&T license for "personal and non-commercial activity" as brought up by User:Geni - Secret non-public licenses WMF would need to purchase, and the community wouldn't understand - What happens after 2016 when the secret license fees could arbitrarily rise? - What happens with CC-BY-SA MPEG-4 content downloaded from Commons if it's used in a commercial setting? Have we sprung a surprise gotcha on creators of derivative works? These are not easy, but I'd like to explore them, cautiously, even for a limited trial.

WMF has been very bad at making "limited trials" that are in fact limited. (We're been in the "limited trial" of anons not being able to create articles on en:wp since 2007, for instance.) - d.

Federico Leva (Nemo)

4:18 p.m.

David Gerard, 16/01/2014 17:05:

...

WMF has been very bad at making "limited trials" that are in fact limited. (We're been in the "limited trial" of anons not being able to create articles on en:wp since 2007, for instance.)

2005 "as an experiment", actually. <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Newly_registered_user> Nemo

Andrew Gray

6:05 p.m.

On 16 January 2014 16:05, David Gerard <dgerard(a)gmail.com> wrote:

...

On 16 January 2014 16:02, Andrew Lih <andrew.lih(a)gmail.com> wrote:

Instead, I'd neutralize backdoored to something like, "unwittingly shifting our cherished values for the worse."

This is about the fourth time this has come around; I hope you can understand that it's harder to credit "unwittingly" than if it were the first.

It's certainly come around a lot, but it's never really been put to the question. I've seen "we should support mp3/mp4/mpeg/flash" a lot - skimming my mailing list archives, it was brought up in 2005 (already as a perennial suggestion), 2007, 2008, 2009, and early 2013. None of these actually resulted in a formal proposal or anything other than a flurry of discussion (though in 2008 there was a draft board resolution which would have explicitly ruled out patent-encumbered formats...) To me, this seems to be one of those decisions that we made years and years ago and have never really thrashed out properly and widely, rather than just saying "well, we said no". As such, I think a clearly structured community-wide discussion is a definite advance - and if it's a firm no, and we remain in the status quo, we'll have a firm basis for that in future rather than a sort of decision-by-inertia. -- - Andrew Gray andrew.gray(a)dunelm.org.uk

Gerard Meijssen

6:21 p.m.

...

From my perspective the lack of clarity in the license of the MP* codes

makes them really suspicious. Once we start using content in MP* we cannot turn back. So if things go south we will be royally screwed. The other argument I see is that there is a lot out there in these codecs. When we do not accept the use of proprietary codecs, it does not mean that we have no options. The only thing is we will have to do more stuff that is considered to be basic. That may not seem sexy to some and that is not really relevant. I prefer for us to remain on the path where our whole stack of both content and software is unencumbered. Thanks, GerardM On 16 January 2014 19:05, Andrew Gray <andrew.gray(a)dunelm.org.uk> wrote:

...

On 16 January 2014 16:05, David Gerard <dgerard(a)gmail.com> wrote:

On 16 January 2014 16:02, Andrew Lih <andrew.lih(a)gmail.com> wrote: > Instead, I'd neutralize backdoored to something like, "unwittingly

shifting

our cherished values for the worse."

This is about the fourth time this has come around; I hope you can understand that it's harder to credit "unwittingly" than if it were the first.

Marc A. Pelletier

6:28 p.m.

On 01/16/2014 01:21 PM, Gerard Meijssen wrote:

...

I prefer for us to remain on the path where our whole stack of both content and software is unencumbered.

I'd really hope we're not setting up a false dichotomy in our discussion; nobody has been argued about supporting MP4 containers in replacement of open formats, but of allowing uploads and transcoding to open format alongside the ability to view videos in those encumbered formats. Ultimately, our primary mission remains to collect *make available* the knowledge; that we do so in a way that never *requires* proprietary tools of format is necessary -- but doesn't imply we can't make it /also/ available in some encumbered formats when it increases how many people can effectively get access to it. -- Marc

David Gerard

6:32 p.m.

Chad Horohoe

6:36 p.m.

On Thu, Jan 16, 2014 at 10:32 AM, David Gerard <dgerard(a)gmail.com> wrote:

...

Todd Allen

8:39 p.m.

Well, after reading that, I am a bit uneasy. Has WMF agreed not to move forward if that discussion does not reach a consensus to do so? At this point, it looks unlikely that it will. On Jan 16, 2014 11:37 AM, "Chad Horohoe" <chorohoe(a)wikimedia.org> wrote:

...

On Thu, Jan 16, 2014 at 10:32 AM, David Gerard <dgerard(a)gmail.com> wrote:

https://www.mediawiki.org/w/index.php?title=File:Multimedia_Quarterly_Revie…

It says "like MPEG4" And it also says "Support New Video and Audio formats based on results of community RfC" But I can see how not mentioning the RFC part helps make your point about this being a fait accompli. Which it's not. -Chad _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>

Erik Moeller

9:24 p.m.

On Thu, Jan 16, 2014 at 12:39 PM, Todd Allen <toddmallen(a)gmail.com> wrote:

...

Well, after reading that, I am a bit uneasy. Has WMF agreed not to move forward if that discussion does not reach a consensus to do so? At this point, it looks unlikely that it will.

The point of the RFC is to figure out what to do. A "no consensus" result seems to argue for the status quo, though possibly with increased effort on making the experience of using open codecs suck less for readers & contributors. See https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/User:Brion_VIBBER/Media_codec_alternatives for Brion's initial assessment on what's possible. -- Erik Möller VP of Engineering and Product Development, Wikimedia Foundation

Andrew Gray

6:38 p.m.

I read that as "we plan to have a discussion, and if that discussion is positive, go ahead". Putting something in the schedule in advance of the decision makes sense - there's no point in having the discussion without planning the resources to follow through on what you've offered to do! Andrew. On 16 January 2014 18:32, David Gerard <dgerard(a)gmail.com> wrote:

...

It is important to note that WMF itself is not in any way neutral on this issue: adding MPEG4 is explicitly listed as a 2014 goal for the Multimedia team. That is, it has already been determined that this is *going to happen*. https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Multimedia/2013-14_Goals#Activities https://www.mediawiki.org/w/index.php?title=File:Multimedia_Quarterly_Revie… - d. _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>

-- - Andrew Gray andrew.gray(a)dunelm.org.uk

Rob Lanphier

10:43 p.m.

On Thu, Jan 16, 2014 at 10:32 AM, David Gerard <dgerard(a)gmail.com> wrote:

...

The goals page says "Establish an audio/video codec strategy about licensing codecs like MPEG4" This RFC is part of establishing that strategy. If the answer from this RFC is "no MP4", then whatever strategy we have will work within that constraint. The slide deck was published from a meeting where I can assure you Fabrice said something to the effect of "of course, this all depends on the result of the RFC" :-) I can definitively state that this question of supporting MP4 has not been determined. We will not support MP4 without community consensus. Rob

Brion Vibber

6:41 p.m.

On Thu, Jan 16, 2014 at 10:21 AM, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen(a)gmail.com

...

wrote:

...

Hoi, This is a truly divisive issue. For many people the notion that you do not need anything proprietary is a powerful motivator to participate. Promoting a stack of software that cannot be taken away because of the whims of a company or country is an integral part to it. From my perspective the lack of clarity in the license of the MP* codes makes them really suspicious. Once we start using content in MP* we cannot turn back. So if things go south we will be royally screwed.

In theory we'll be free to turn back at any time by deleting all those nasty *.mp4 files and just using the .ogv and .webm files -- but we'd be giving up functionality unless the landscape changes in the mean time. For this reason I would continue to advocate supporting work on low-level WebM support alternatives (software codecs for iOS and other mobile OSs, JavaScript decoding for desktop web browsers) even if we do go MP4 to better support today's devices today, as this would give us a stronger fallback position if we need to drop it in future. See https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/User:Brion_VIBBER/Media_codec_alternativesfor some notes on things that are possible, but currently outside our budgeted work. -- brion

The Cunctator

17 Jan 17 Jan

4:25 p.m.

He wasn't assuming bad faith; he was accurately describing the situation without ascribing intent. On Jan 16, 2014 7:36 AM, "Andrew Lih" <andrew.lih(a)gmail.com> wrote:

...

On Thu, Jan 16, 2014 at 9:14 AM, Todd Allen <toddmallen(a)gmail.com> wrote:

There aren't two principles in conflict here. This proposal asks to move to a "free as in beer" model, where content

will

be free to view, but not necessarily to reuse (and with the opaque

license,

it may not even be possible to tell). We could choose to make that

change,

but it is a major change to the founding principles of what we do. As

such

it should be discussed directly and across all projects as such a major change, and not backdoored through a vote that is on its surface a

question

about format support.

Nathan

4:43 p.m.

There's an article about the debate up from yesterday on Ars: http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2014/01/wikimedia-considers-s…

David Gerard

4:45 p.m.

A pile of press is linked at the top of the talk page. - d. On 17 January 2014 16:43, Nathan <nawrich(a)gmail.com> wrote:

...

There's an article about the debate up from yesterday on Ars: http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2014/01/wikimedia-considers-s… _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>

Nathan

5:07 p.m.

One thing that hasn't come up in the debate is the relative importance of Wikimedia's approach to video, given the existing video ecosystem. YouTube enables cc-by uploading and has 4 million videos with a free license, and 6.5 million videos that are explicitly educational. Are we sure focusing on our own base of uploaded videos is the approach best calibrated to serving Wikimedia's mission?

Nathan

5:12 p.m.

On Fri, Jan 17, 2014 at 12:07 PM, Nathan <nawrich(a)gmail.com> wrote:

...

Actually it did come up, allow me to reproduce the comment in a vote posted by Brad Patrick (former WMF general counsel): I agree that the dominant file format means we need to be able to comprehend what is ingested. But it is not okay to ingest and spew using that file format if it means we are putting on someone else's intellectual property yoke. Commons' great benefit to the world is no-questions-asked reusability, and I don't want to see it compromised in this fashion, license freebie or otherwise. I'm with User:David Gerard<https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:David_Gerard> on this. On the whole it is of far less importance to me as there is no guiding principal or idea that WMF is intended to be an *exclusive* repository of anything. Others do nothing but video, and that's great. I want there to be video, *but it is not part of a grant vision to out-YouTube YouTube, or Vimeo, or any other huge site with billions of hours of video*. User:Fuzheado<https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fuzheado> is right - we lack the present toolset to be able to address such volumes of video, and I'm not sure that's a bad thing.--BradPatrick<https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:BradPatrick&… (talk <https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User_talk:BradPatrick>) 14:45, 16 January 2014 (UTC) Emphasis is mine. I'm sure smart people have debated this before, can anyone point me to it?

David Gerard

5:18 p.m.

On 17 January 2014 17:12, Nathan <nawrich(a)gmail.com> wrote:

...

property yoke. Commons' great benefit to the world is no-questions-asked reusability, and I don't want to see it compromised in this fashion, license freebie or otherwise. I'm with User:David Gerard<https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:David_Gerard> on this. On the whole it is of far less importance to me as there is no

Note that my favoured option is actually ingestion of MP4 (and of anything, really), but not serving it. Ideally you should be able to get a video on your phone of that UFO that just flew by and upload it in your "Wikimedia Commons uploader" app without having to faff around with dodgy shareware wrappers around FFmpeg on a computer first, or attempt to run a slow and battery-hungry conversion on your phone itself. - d.

Andrew Lih

7:15 p.m.

I'm not sure what debate you're referring to. If it's about whether video belongs in Wikipedia, I don't think it's even in question. Wikipedia started in 2001 as all text. It didn't have photos then, we now have photos. It didn't have audio then, we now have audio. It didn't have video then, we now have video (albeit not that much). Video shouldn't need special justification to be a full-fledged part of Wikiepdia's content. On Fri, Jan 17, 2014 at 12:12 PM, Nathan <nawrich(a)gmail.com> wrote:

...

On Fri, Jan 17, 2014 at 12:07 PM, Nathan <nawrich(a)gmail.com> wrote:

One thing that hasn't come up in the debate is the relative importance of Wikimedia's approach to video, given the existing video ecosystem.

YouTube

enables cc-by uploading and has 4 million videos with a free license, and 6.5 million videos that are explicitly educational. Are we sure focusing

our own base of uploaded videos is the approach best calibrated to

serving

Wikimedia's mission?

Actually it did come up, allow me to reproduce the comment in a vote posted by Brad Patrick (former WMF general counsel): I agree that the dominant file format means we need to be able to comprehend what is ingested. But it is not okay to ingest and spew using that file format if it means we are putting on someone else's intellectual property yoke. Commons' great benefit to the world is no-questions-asked reusability, and I don't want to see it compromised in this fashion, license freebie or otherwise. I'm with User:David Gerard<https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:David_Gerard> on this. On the whole it is of far less importance to me as there is no guiding principal or idea that WMF is intended to be an *exclusive* repository of anything. Others do nothing but video, and that's great. I want there to be video, *but it is not part of a grant vision to out-YouTube YouTube, or Vimeo, or any other huge site with billions of hours of video*. User:Fuzheado< https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fuzheado> is right - we lack the present toolset to be able to address such volumes of video, and I'm not sure that's a bad thing.--BradPatrick<https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:BradPatrick&… (talk <https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User_talk:BradPatrick>) 14:45, 16 January 2014 (UTC) Emphasis is mine. I'm sure smart people have debated this before, can anyone point me to it?

Nathan

7:26 p.m.

On Fri, Jan 17, 2014 at 2:15 PM, Andrew Lih <andrew.lih(a)gmail.com> wrote:

...

Andrew Lih

7:37 p.m.

Ah. Well if you're not even buying into the legitimacy of photos on Commons, I'm not sure there's a way to have a productive discussion about video. -Andrew On Fri, Jan 17, 2014 at 2:26 PM, Nathan <nawrich(a)gmail.com> wrote:

...

On Fri, Jan 17, 2014 at 2:15 PM, Andrew Lih <andrew.lih(a)gmail.com> wrote:

More specifically, if growing Commons as a repository for video in the same way it is for images is the best use of Wikimedia resources. I'd think lobbying Google to be more expansive in its license permissions for cc-by YouTube videos, curating existing educational video content, etc. might bear more fruit. Not to say that using video from Commons to illustrate other projects isn't valuable, but hosting millions of videos not used on any projects (as it is with images on Commons) seems like a misuse of time and effort given the far more popular alternatives. _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>

Nathan

8 p.m.

On Fri, Jan 17, 2014 at 2:37 PM, Andrew Lih <andrew.lih(a)gmail.com> wrote:

...

Ah. Well if you're not even buying into the legitimacy of photos on Commons, I'm not sure there's a way to have a productive discussion about video. -Andrew

No, I think the vast repository of images, properly curated, is valuable and useful. But Commons is still pretty close to square one with video, so it seems natural to discuss whether it can fulfill the same role for video content that it does for images, and whether there exists out there enough interested reusers to make large investments worthwhile. Reading the multimedia vision and watching the video answers some of my questions, in that it seems the goal for videos is more limited than it is for images. I don't think it would be of much value to have 100 million videos where only 50,000 are used in another Wikimedia project, but judging by the video presentation that clearly is not the WMF's goal or direction. Some of the comments in the RFC seemed to suggest that as an object and I'm glad that isn't the case.

Andrew Lih

7:11 p.m.

On Fri, Jan 17, 2014 at 12:07 PM, Nathan <nawrich(a)gmail.com> wrote:

...

"In general, downloading videos that other people have posted on YouTube is not allowed." https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/56100?hl=en Most folks have concluded it's a violation of YouTube's Terms of Service. So much for the "remix" part if you want to do it outside of YouTube's own editor. More here in the comments: https://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/27533

Michael Peel

9:24 p.m.

On 17 Jan 2014, at 19:11, Andrew Lih <andrew.lih(a)gmail.com> wrote:

...

On Fri, Jan 17, 2014 at 12:07 PM, Nathan <nawrich(a)gmail.com> wrote:

Doesn’t that break the terms of the CC-BY license, if not legally then at least ethically? The right to distribute copies is built into the license, no? Thanks, Mike

???

18 Jan 18 Jan

12:11 p.m.

On 17/01/2014 21:24, Michael Peel wrote:

...

Doesn’t that break the terms of the CC-BY license, if not legally then at least ethically? The right to distribute copies is built into the license, no?

How? If I upload a video to some hosting site and license it CC-BY what does that have to do with the hosting site?

Tim Starling

17 Jan 17 Jan

6:04 a.m.

On 17/01/14 01:14, Todd Allen wrote:

...

This proposal asks to move to a "free as in beer" model, where content will be free to view, but not necessarily to reuse (and with the opaque license, it may not even be possible to tell).

I don't really understand this argument. It's not like there are video cameras that record directly to Theora. So presumably, most videos uploaded to Commons start life as H.264 or some other proprietary format, and are transcoded to Theora before they are uploaded to Commons. The proposal is to make it possible to upload the source file and have the server do the transcode, whereas currently, the source file is private and thus not distributed under a free license. Currently, if you want to reuse an H.264 source file, you have to somehow contact the author, beg for a copy of the file, and hope that they haven't deleted it. With this proposal, if you want to reuse an H.264 file without a patent license, you can just download the Theora transcode from the server. I am having trouble thinking of a scenario where the current situation would be better for reuse than the proposed situation. If you can think of one, please tell me. -- Tim Starling

Bjoern Hoehrmann

1:18 p.m.

* Tim Starling wrote:

...

On 17/01/14 01:14, Todd Allen wrote:

This proposal asks to move to a "free as in beer" model, where content will be free to view, but not necessarily to reuse (and with the opaque license, it may not even be possible to tell).

It seems to me that we all agree it would be nice if people could upload H.264 video to Wikimedia Foundation servers and if people could download H.264 video from Wikimedia servers and possibly even reuse such video. There are efforts underway to try and make some H.264 profile available on a royality-free basis that the Foundation probably should study and possibly support. This RFC however is not going to give people a license to upload or reuse H.264 video by the looks of it. The "download Theora" approach is already supported, so there is no difference there either. If there is some legal theory by which "most people" either already have or do not need to be given a license to upload or reuse H.264 video (in- cluding considerations with respect to how such video came to be) then by all means make that part of the RfC and then we could say whether the proposal would actually improve anything. -- Björn Höhrmann · mailto:bjoern@hoehrmann.de · http://bjoern.hoehrmann.de Am Badedeich 7 · Telefon: +49(0)160/4415681 · http://www.bjoernsworld.de 25899 Dagebüll · PGP Pub. KeyID: 0xA4357E78 · http://www.websitedev.de/

Gerard Meijssen

2:05 p.m.

Hoi, I am happy for people to upload files when we can convert it to another format. Given that the issue is around the ability to re-use media files in the H.264 format, providing these files to our users is exactly the issue that is being discussed. Consequently it is controversial. Thanks, GerardM On 17 January 2014 14:18, Bjoern Hoehrmann <derhoermi(a)gmx.net> wrote:

...

* Tim Starling wrote:

On 17/01/14 01:14, Todd Allen wrote: > This proposal asks to move to a "free as in beer" model, where content

will

> be free to view, but not necessarily to reuse (and with the opaque

license,

it may not even be possible to tell).

Fajro

2:19 p.m.

FYI it's against the bylaws of at least 4 chapters (Argentina, Chile, Uruguay and Venezuela) to promote content in non-free formats. -- Fajro

David Gerard

2:24 p.m.

On 17 January 2014 14:19, Fajro <faigos(a)gmail.com> wrote:

...

FYI it's against the bylaws of at least 4 chapters (Argentina, Chile, Uruguay and Venezuela) to promote content in non-free formats.

Do you have the precise wording handy? e.g. What constitutes promotion? - d.

Fajro

3:01 p.m.

On Fri, Jan 17, 2014 at 11:24 AM, David Gerard <dgerard(a)gmail.com> wrote:

...

On 17 January 2014 14:19, Fajro <faigos(a)gmail.com> wrote: Do you have the precise wording handy? e.g. What constitutes promotion?

...

From Wikimedia Argentina bylaws:

...

*The Association's goals are:* To actively contribute to the diffusion, improvement and progress of the knowledge and culture through the development and distribution of encyclopedias, collections of quotes, educational books and other document compilations; the diffusion of information and diverse data bases, especially in the languages spoken in the Argentine territory, which: 1. are available through technologies as Internet or similar, provided that: (a) the source of the data is available (for works resulting from the compilation or processing of other works), (b) are given in a freely available format (defined as those that can be implemented by anyone, are based in publicly available and documented specifications, and whose implementation or use does not require the payment of any royalties), and the availability of the work is not restricted by technical measures.

https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Argentina/Bylaws https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Chile/Bylaws https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Uruguay/Bylaws/en http://wikimedia.org.ve/wiki/Estatutos_sociales_de_Wikimedia_Venezuela (in spanish) -- Fajro

Todd Allen

2:16 p.m.

On Jan 16, 2014 11:05 PM, "Tim Starling" <tstarling(a)wikimedia.org> wrote:

...

On 17/01/14 01:14, Todd Allen wrote: > This proposal asks to move to a "free as in beer" model, where content

will

...

> be free to view, but not necessarily to reuse (and with the opaque

license,

...

it may not even be possible to tell).

Ted Chien

3:03 p.m.

...

From my knowledge when I was working as an engineer in the multimedia

software company back in 2006, if there's no transcoding to MP* formats, no patent fee is required. So if you upload MP4 files then download them without any transcoding it should be fine (correct me if I'm wrong). We'd only been charged by MPEG LA for encoding the MPEG-4 video at that time. Personally I would support to include MP4 in Wikimedia projects if no patent fee is required, since it's already widely used in user's daily life. Regards, Ted Chien -- Sent from my HTC New One 2014/1/17 下午10:16 於 "Todd Allen" <toddmallen(a)gmail.com> 寫道：

...

On Jan 16, 2014 11:05 PM, "Tim Starling" <tstarling(a)wikimedia.org> wrote:

On 17/01/14 01:14, Todd Allen wrote: > This proposal asks to move to a "free as in beer" model, where content

will

> be free to view, but not necessarily to reuse (and with the opaque

license,

it may not even be possible to tell).

<mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe> If the server does the transcode and ultimately makes available only a video file in a free format, and WMF doesn't have to pay the patent holders to make that happen, then I would have no objection. If, however, the nonfree format is made available for download, or WMF funds would be supporting a software patent, those are clear negatives. _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>

David Gerard

3:28 p.m.

On 17 January 2014 15:03, Ted Chien <hsiangtai.chien(a)gmail.com> wrote:

...

From my knowledge when I was working as an engineer in the multimedia software company back in 2006, if there's no transcoding to MP* formats, no patent fee is required. So if you upload MP4 files then download them without any transcoding it should be fine (correct me if I'm wrong). We'd only been charged by MPEG LA for encoding the MPEG-4 video at that time.

So we'd be fine transcoding *from* MPEG4? - d.

Ted Chien

6:13 p.m.

Hi David, We were selling video editing softwares at that time, and that's what I remebered for the MPEG-4 royalties. But MPEG LA would do the license thing case by case, maybe my information is not correct now. I just found that MPEG LA has announced in 2010 that it will not charge royalties from Internet video that is free to users from the lifetime of the license, maybe WMF projects can fit the requirement? I think it needs the legal team to do the investigation. The MPEG LA press release for free Internet Video: http://www.mpegla.com/Lists/MPEG%20LA%20News%20List/Attachments/74/n-10-08-… Regards, Ted Chien -- Sent from my HTC New One 2014/1/17 下午11:29 於 "David Gerard" <dgerard(a)gmail.com> 寫道：

...

On 17 January 2014 15:03, Ted Chien <hsiangtai.chien(a)gmail.com> wrote:

From my knowledge when I was working as an engineer in the multimedia software company back in 2006, if there's no transcoding to MP* formats,

patent fee is required. So if you upload MP4 files then download them without any transcoding it should be fine (correct me if I'm wrong). We'd only been charged by MPEG LA for encoding the MPEG-4 video at that time.

So we'd be fine transcoding *from* MPEG4? - d. _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>

Samuel Klein

9:33 p.m.

On Thu, Jan 16, 2014 at 9:14 AM, Todd Allen <toddmallen(a)gmail.com> wrote:

...

This proposal asks to move to a "free as in beer" model, where content will be free to view, but not necessarily to reuse

I'm not sure this is correct. There are two different implementations possible. * Accept MP4 and support a transcoding toolchain, but only show readers and editors patent-unencumbered* formats. I think this is an excellent idea, and something we should implement. * Accept MP4 and support transcoding as above, show readers and editors patent-unencumbered formats by default, and allow them to download the original file if they wish. This would allow people using toolchains that only support MP4 to continue to edit one another's work without themselves having to implement a transcoding toolchain on the client side. Again, the default presentation for anyone who doesn't know what they are doing would be unencumbered, but we would be more extensively providing a server-side transcoding toolchain for users who do not or cannot [depending on whether they have full control over the hardware they use]. Lionel writes:

...

Most of the time it is a bad idea to upload a video without any form of

editing. Most of the time you need to

...

remove at least the begining and the end of a video file.

Victor Grigas

9:38 p.m.

On Fri, Jan 17, 2014 at 3:33 PM, Samuel Klein <meta.sj(a)gmail.com> wrote:

...

On Thu, Jan 16, 2014 at 9:14 AM, Todd Allen <toddmallen(a)gmail.com> wrote:

This proposal asks to move to a "free as in beer" model, where content

will

be free to view, but not necessarily to reuse

...

* Accept MP4 and support transcoding as above, show readers and editors patent-unencumbered formats by default, and allow them to download the original file if they wish. This would allow people using toolchains that only support MP4 to continue to edit one another's work without themselves having to implement a transcoding toolchain on the client side. Again, the default presentation for anyone who doesn't know what they are doing would be unencumbered, but we would be more extensively providing a server-side transcoding toolchain for users who do not or cannot [depending on whether they have full control over the hardware they use]. Lionel writes:

Most of the time it is a bad idea to upload a video without any form of

editing. Most of the time you need to

remove at least the begining and the end of a video file.

Just because that video is incomplete doesn't mean it is a bad idea to share. As with text, we should be able to upload drafts and work on them online. This sort of basic editing is something we should support online post-upload. Forcing uploaders to have an offline editing toolchain in order to be able to share material is unnecessary; the uploader doesn't have to be the one to refine the result. Sam. _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>

-- *Victor Grigas* Storyteller <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0nTVAmstteM> Wikimedia Foundation vgrigas(a)wikimedia.org https://donate.wikimedia.org/

Bjoern Hoehrmann

16 Jan 16 Jan

10:28 a.m.

* Fabrice Florin wrote:

...

The Wikimedia Foundation's multimedia team (1) seeks your guidance on a proposal to support the MP4 video format. As you know, this digital video standard is used widely around the world to record, edit and watch videos on mobile phones, desktop computers and home video devices. It is also known as H.264/MPEG-4 or AVC. (2)

Actually, "MP4" is a container format and H.264 a video codec, and it is quite normal to use variants of H.264 with other container formats like AVI. Likewise, "MP4" does not imply using AAC as audio codec, MP3 could be used instead, for instance. An analysis why AAC is being proposed may be useful here.

...

However, MP4 is a patent-encumbered format, and using a proprietary format would be a departure from our current practice of only supporting open formats on our sites -- even though the licenses appear to have acceptable legal terms, with only a small fee required.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=114053933 notes "Though the full license agreements cannot be disclosed in public". That is not very helpful in analysing claims later on like "Merely distributing MP4 files never requires a patent license." What is the exact language to be used to inform anyone handling H.264 video downloaded from Wikimedia Foundation servers of their rights and restrictions, specifically with regards to the relevant patent porfolio? Making it abundantly clear what users can and cannot do with such files should be considered a pre-condition for considering such a proposal. -- Björn Höhrmann · mailto:bjoern@hoehrmann.de · http://bjoern.hoehrmann.de Am Badedeich 7 · Telefon: +49(0)160/4415681 · http://www.bjoernsworld.de 25899 Dagebüll · PGP Pub. KeyID: 0xA4357E78 · http://www.websitedev.de/

Andrew Lih

1:37 p.m.

As much as I am pushing for MP4 adoption in Wikimedia to help our lagging video efforts, MPEG-4 patent holders/licensors are not helping their case: 1. The consumer licensing agreement from AT&T is scary and weird, and Geni's first NO vote has set the tone for many to follow. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Requests_for_comment/MP4_Video#N… 2. The secrecy around the "the full license agreements cannot be disclosed in public" sounds bad and we'd have to trust WMF's legal team to find it acceptable. Wikimedians hate non transparency. Some folks are voting NO because of this. 3. The CNET interview with MPEG-LA's legal folks seems to indicate a bizarre stance: Yes, they intentionally have scary, inconsistent and confusing licensing terms. This is to make sure people with deep pockets wind up paying the patent pool lots of money. For smaller users? Those onerous terms sound like they apply to you but you can disregard them. This is NOT a good state of affairs for a conscientious, detail-oriented free culture contributors. http://news.cnet.com/8301-30685_3-20000101-264.html 4. One of the better resources to explains things is in this post from LibreVideo.org, but even then there are many unanswered questions: http://www.librevideo.org/blog/2010/06/14/mpeg-la-answers-some-questions-ab… -Andrew On Thu, Jan 16, 2014 at 5:28 AM, Bjoern Hoehrmann <derhoermi(a)gmx.net> wrote:

...

* Fabrice Florin wrote:

David Gerard

1:45 p.m.

On 16 January 2014 13:37, Andrew Lih <andrew.lih(a)gmail.com> wrote:

...

3. The CNET interview with MPEG-LA's legal folks seems to indicate a bizarre stance: Yes, they intentionally have scary, inconsistent and confusing licensing terms. This is to make sure people with deep pockets wind up paying the patent pool lots of money. For smaller users? Those onerous terms sound like they apply to you but you can disregard them. This is NOT a good state of affairs for a conscientious, detail-oriented free culture contributors. http://news.cnet.com/8301-30685_3-20000101-264.html

Given Commons' attitude on even incredibly unlikely copyright risks ... it's just ridiculous to assume such a provision on a format would be allowed to pass. I see at least one person has deemed it a snowball-pass after just a few hours. I find this ... unlikely. - d.

MZMcBride

18 Jan 18 Jan

4:18 a.m.

David Gerard wrote:

...

Samuel Klein

4:41 a.m.

Yes. The current discussion has confused people about the things that are not very contentious: * Ingesting and converting out of more formats is good: we should start ingesting MP4 and converting on the fly. There are no major legal risks to our doing so. * We have a tiny video community; even so we are one of the largest collection of WebM videos on the web. We should try to increase the global population of WebM videos so that there is more incentive for remixers and videographers to start playing with and using compatible tools. * We should increase our support for toolchains for WebM and similar unencumbered formats: by helping the major clients implement support. If we clarify those things, a new RFC that focuses on implementing MP4 autoconversion would have more support. It would be easier & faster if the RFC creators chose to close discussion for now while reframing & revising the focus of discussion. SJ On Fri, Jan 17, 2014 at 11:18 PM, MZMcBride <z(a)mzmcbride.com> wrote:

...

David Gerard wrote:

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Requests_for_comment/MP4_Video Looking at the discussion, there are currently approximately 105 users under general support, 167 users under general oppose, and 34 users under partial support (contributions only). The few other sections have a negligible amount of activity. There's already discussion on the talk page about how to close what will inevitably be a very long and contentious discussion. If we avoid treating this RFC as a vote, there's possibly hope for a reasonable compromise. MZMcBride _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>

-- Samuel Klein @metasj w:user:sj +1 617 529 4266

Fæ

10:37 a.m.

On 18 January 2014 04:41, Samuel Klein <meta.sj(a)gmail.com> wrote:

...

If we clarify those things, a new RFC that focuses on implementing MP4 autoconversion would have more support. It would be easier & faster if the RFC creators chose to close discussion for now while reframing & revising the focus of discussion.

No disagreement with wider ingestion options, many other formats remain tricky for our contributors including audio. The RFC is non-neutral and unnecessarily complex. With so much experience of trying these things, along with full time expertise, I would hope for a more sophisticated approach from in-house WMF teams. Fae -- faewik(a)gmail.com http://j.mp/faewm

Andrew Lih

1:41 p.m.

On Sat, Jan 18, 2014 at 5:37 AM, Fæ <faewik(a)gmail.com> wrote:

...

The RFC is non-neutral and unnecessarily complex. With so much experience of trying these things, along with full time expertise, I would hope for a more sophisticated approach from in-house WMF teams.

It is actually very complex -- legally and technically. And the MPEG-LA licensors did not gear their licenses or documentation towards user-generated content, or free culture projects, which makes our job harder. -Andrew

Fæ

1:56 p.m.

On 18 January 2014 13:41, Andrew Lih <andrew.lih(a)gmail.com> wrote:

...

On Sat, Jan 18, 2014 at 5:37 AM, Fæ <faewik(a)gmail.com> wrote:

Yes, of course. However the end RFC put to the community need not be complex. Most of the community will not care about legal or technical detail, they just want the conclusion. You may wish to consider whether the technical and legal aspects might be better explored as essays and included as background in future proposals, not the meat of the proposal itself. Personally, were I leading this team, I would make it a requirement that the proposal is limited to 50 words. Punchy, factual, neutral. For example, a simple yes/no RFC on adding an ingestion process for MP4 video upload might now be successful. The legal aspect can be as simple as "WMF legal has determine this poses no risk to the WMF, uploaders or reusers, refer to <essay>" and the technical aspect could be "See <essay> for an explanation of optimized transcoding, workflow processes and test examples". There's nothing new in keeping it simple. Fae -- faewik(a)gmail.com http://j.mp/faewm

Mark

3:53 p.m.

On 1/18/14, 2:56 PM, Fæ wrote:

...

For example, a simple yes/no RFC on adding an ingestion process for MP4 video upload might now be successful. The legal aspect can be as simple as "WMF legal has determine this poses no risk to the WMF, uploaders or reusers, refer to <essay>" and the technical aspect could be "See <essay> for an explanation of optimized transcoding, workflow processes and test examples". There's nothing new in keeping it simple.

That comes a *little* close to presupposing some consensus though, which the RFC is in theory supposed to be actually looking for, not declaring to have already happened. The RFC you're contemplating sounds like a somewhat different way of saying: "A consensus has emerged that MP4 video uploading can be enabled on Wikimedia Commons without major legal or technical problems (see [here] for details). Do you therefore agree that it should be enabled?" If true, that makes sense, but is there such a consensus already? I worry that these kinds of short-and-snappy RFCs lose the request-for-comments aspect, which is supposed to be about people developing an understanding of a situation (including its details!) and a consensus emerging... not just a vote, especially not a vote set up in a way to make it easy for people to glance at a page and cast a vote without participating in discussion or familiarizing themselves with the details of the issues under consideration. I guess this is more of a meta-complaint, because I don't have any particular objection to MP4 uploading. But I worry about RFCs as "ratification votes", especially those that seem to draw "get-out-the-vote" efforts from third-party sites, where you get an influx of yes/no votes from people who came in via a post on Slashdot or elsewhere, rather than a discussion/consensus process. -Mark

Marc A. Pelletier

6:15 p.m.

On 01/18/2014 10:53 AM, Mark wrote:

...

A consensus has emerged that MP4 video uploading can be enabled on Wikimedia Commons without major legal or technical problems (see [here] for details)

While there are a great deal of "interesting" philosophical and ethical questions surrounding this issue, what makes you think that the existence of legal or technical problems is subject to consensus? -- Marc

Strainu

17 Jan 17 Jan

3:55 p.m.

2014/1/16 Andrew Lih <andrew.lih(a)gmail.com>om>:

...

As much as I am pushing for MP4 adoption in Wikimedia to help our lagging video efforts, MPEG-4 patent holders/licensors are not helping their case: [snip]

I worry more about the "no, because that would mean more video content uploaded to commons" votes (see Rilke, Turelio). I find it disturbing that we got to a point were we basically *refuse* new contributions. Strainu

Chad Horohoe

4:02 p.m.

On Fri, Jan 17, 2014 at 7:55 AM, Strainu <strainu10(a)gmail.com> wrote:

...

2014/1/16 Andrew Lih <andrew.lih(a)gmail.com>om>:

As much as I am pushing for MP4 adoption in Wikimedia to help our lagging video efforts, MPEG-4 patent holders/licensors are not helping their

case:

[snip]

Me too. Anytime I see a "but it will enable bad contributions" argument for reasons not to do things I get a little sad. Every well-meaning contribution should be valued, IMHO. -Chad

Andrew Lih

4:12 p.m.

BTW, Luis from WMF has put a very lengthy and detailed analysis of the legal issues that does help quite a bit, at the end of the RFC: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Requests_for_comment/MP4_Video#C… TLDR: "…there may be good moral, ethical, and strategic reasons to oppose or support this plan. However, in my opinion, non-commercial restrictions on the use of particular h264-based devices, or their interactions with Creative Commons, are not good reasons to oppose it" -LVilla (WMF)<https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:LVilla_(WMF)> (talk <https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User_talk:LVilla_(WMF)>) 05:06, 17 January 2014 (UTC) On Fri, Jan 17, 2014 at 11:02 AM, Chad Horohoe <chorohoe(a)wikimedia.org>wrote;wrote:

...

On Fri, Jan 17, 2014 at 7:55 AM, Strainu <strainu10(a)gmail.com> wrote:

2014/1/16 Andrew Lih <andrew.lih(a)gmail.com>om>: > As much as I am pushing for MP4 adoption in Wikimedia to help our

lagging

video efforts, MPEG-4 patent holders/licensors are not helping their

case:

[snip]

Me too. Anytime I see a "but it will enable bad contributions" argument for reasons not to do things I get a little sad. Every well-meaning contribution should be valued, IMHO. -Chad _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>

Bjoern Hoehrmann

5:05 p.m.

* Andrew Lih wrote:

...

I note that the Wikimedia Foundation does not really have to obtain a license to use H.264 encoders and decoders, users could do the format conversions elsewhere and the Wikimedia Foundation could then "merely distribute" the files. As the RfC notes, "Merely distributing MP4 files never requires a patent license." That would spare us problems like the "secret contract" issue. Why does the proposal, instead, suggest the Foundation should engage in the practise of, not just mere distribution, but Internet Broadcasting? That apparently requires a patent license. For that matter, would users who download video automatically obtain Internet Re-Broadcasting rights? I do note that according to MPEG LA there are only about 1300 entities with relevant license agreements, if putting a H.264 video on my web site whether people can download it is Internet Broadcasting and I do not obtain an Internet Broadcasting license by pressing the "record" button on my camera, or some other automatic process, then that figure is several orders of magnitude too small, or patent holders tolerate a lot of infringement (for the moment). Would it really make sense to label video files as freely shareable if forms of sharing like "Internet Broadcasting" need additional licenses? -- Björn Höhrmann · mailto:bjoern@hoehrmann.de · http://bjoern.hoehrmann.de Am Badedeich 7 · Telefon: +49(0)160/4415681 · http://www.bjoernsworld.de 25899 Dagebüll · PGP Pub. KeyID: 0xA4357E78 · http://www.websitedev.de/

Andrew Lih

7:04 p.m.

On Fri, Jan 17, 2014 at 12:05 PM, Bjoern Hoehrmann <derhoermi(a)gmx.net>wrote;wrote:

...

* Andrew Lih wrote:

BTW, Luis from WMF has put a very lengthy and detailed analysis of the legal issues that does help quite a bit, at the end of the RFC:

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Requests_for_comment/MP4_Video#C… I note that the Wikimedia Foundation does not really have to obtain a license to use H.264 encoders and decoders, users could do the format conversions elsewhere and the Wikimedia Foundation could then "merely distribute" the files. As the RfC notes, "Merely distributing MP4 files never requires a patent license." That would spare us problems like the "secret contract" issue.

That would be the status quo. But that's also the problem -- the conversion tools are lacking and serve as a choke point for contributions. Right now the most ubiquitous MP4 creation devices (your mobile phone) cannot directly upload to Commons because of this issue. (Disappointingly, this is a reason for some Commons users to cheer/vote who simply don't like ease of video contribution.) Requiring users to do format conversion on their side also it makes it extremely hard for remixing, since popular video editors don't ingest Ogg or WebM as downloaded from Commons. You would have a situation of MP4->Ogg/WebM conversion; upload to Commons; next user downloads Commons Ogg/WebM; Ogg/WebM->MP4 conversion; ingest to video editor. That means there's undesirable generation loss.

...

Why does the proposal, instead, suggest the Foundation should engage in the practise of, not just mere distribution, but Internet Broadcasting? That apparently requires a patent license. For that matter, would users who download video automatically obtain Internet Re-Broadcasting rights?

Read the details and you'll see that free (as in beer) Internet Broadcast video doesn't need a license. SUMMARY OF AVC/H.264 LICENSE TERMS: http://www.mpegla.com/main/programs/avc/Documents/AVC_TermsSummary.pdf "In the case of Internet Broadcast AVC Video (AVC Video that is delivered via the Worldwide Internet to an End User for which the End User does not pay remuneration for the right to receive or view, i.e., neither Title-by-Title nor Subscription), there will be no royalty for the life of the License."

...

I do note that according to MPEG LA there are only about 1300 entities with relevant license agreements, if putting a H.264 video on my web site whether people can download it is Internet Broadcasting and I do not obtain an Internet Broadcasting license by pressing the "record" button on my camera, or some other automatic process, then that figure is several orders of magnitude too small, or patent holders tolerate a lot of infringement (for the moment).

Yes, this is what's confusing about MPEG-LA's stance -- basically it wants to rich entities with deep pockets near the end of the distribution chain to pay. This article might help, but it's still confusing: http://news.cnet.com/8301-30685_3-20000101-264.html -Andrew

Bjoern Hoehrmann

7:33 p.m.

* Andrew Lih wrote:

...

You need a license to enjoy this term of the contract. -- Björn Höhrmann · mailto:bjoern@hoehrmann.de · http://bjoern.hoehrmann.de Am Badedeich 7 · Telefon: +49(0)160/4415681 · http://www.bjoernsworld.de 25899 Dagebüll · PGP Pub. KeyID: 0xA4357E78 · http://www.websitedev.de/

Manuel Schneider

16 Jan 16 Jan

11:54 a.m.

Hi Fabrice, interesting question! I'd like to remind of a discussion we had at last year's Wikimania in Hong Kong concerning tools for the video community. Yet we do not really have a video community but scattered small groups or individuals doing some work. I try to coordinate this in the german-speaking world and we do this via Wikipedia, then there are people in the Czech Republic doing videos on national parks, Andrew did some great stuff in the US, there is a british initiative as well. We all face similar challenges. One things - which is off-topic here - is that I have in mind to connect these groups to an internationl video community, maybe by having a WikiVideo (or whatever the name might be) project. But back to the RfC: One of the challenges is that we need a solution for * storing the raw video material allowing people to re-use, re-edit etc., also most volunteers don't have the storage capacity to store all their raw material * collaborative editing - hard to do technically and it mostly implies that raw material is being shared - hard for people that can meet each other as these files are big, fast storage is needed etc. and it is even harder for people working online * upload of high-quality, finished video projects is a pain. They mostly have more than 1 GB, you need to have another server to upload and share it, make a bug report, find a server admin who downloads and imports it etc. My idea which we talked about briefly at Wikimania was a server where people could upload there raw material, it gets transcoded into smaller "proxy clips" everyone can easily download, edit and then upload the EDL (edit decision list = video editing project file, which just holds the operations). The server would then use the EDL on the raw material stored there and render the final video. The upload process can then be automated between this server and Commons. The reason this idea was dismissed is the core of this RfC: patent trolling etc. on H.264 codecs etc. which we would need to allow as raw material. So my take on this topic is a compromise: * allow MP4 / H.264 as a source codec * deliver everything in WebM / Ogg Theora (or other free codecs) Especially with WebM I see no reason why people really need H.264. Ogg Theora is somewhat exotic but WebM isn't. And once we have solved the legal problem around this RfC nothing is stoping us to implement the video editing server, right? /Manuel -- Wikimedia CH - Verein zur Förderung Freien Wissens Lausanne, +41 (21) 34066-22 - www.wikimedia.ch

Emmanuel Engelhart

1:02 p.m.

Le 16/01/2014 12:54, Manuel Schneider a écrit :

...

The reason this idea was dismissed is the core of this RfC: patent trolling etc. on H.264 codecs etc. which we would need to allow as raw material.

We have now a pretty good support of TIFF for pictures and FLAC for audio streams; but there is still no solution to store lossless (raw) video material. This problem is a real one like have underlined Manuel. The following Wikipedia article proposes a list of lossless video codecs: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_codecs#Lossless_compression_2 Dirac, a free codec developed by the BBC, seems to be a good solution. Do people have some experiences with Dirac? Regards Emmanuel -- Kiwix - Wikipedia Offline & more * Web: http://www.kiwix.org * Twitter: https://twitter.com/KiwixOffline * more: http://www.kiwix.org/wiki/Communication

Andrew Lih

1:40 p.m.

On Thu, Jan 16, 2014 at 8:02 AM, Emmanuel Engelhart <kelson(a)kiwix.org>wrote;wrote:

...

Le 16/01/2014 12:54, Manuel Schneider a écrit :

The reason this idea was dismissed is the core of this RfC: patent trolling etc. on H.264 codecs etc. which we would need to allow as raw material.

I actually looked into this last year, but it seems there has been little to no development of this since two years ago. -Andrew

geni

7:13 p.m.

On 16 January 2014 13:02, Emmanuel Engelhart <kelson(a)kiwix.org> wrote:

...

Dirac, a free codec developed by the BBC, seems to be a good solution. Do people have some experiences with Dirac?

No. BBC managed to get it working dedicated machines a few years back and I think there is an alpha trans-coder out there but people have lost interest. Theora is good enough for the no compromise on freedom mob and development interest is moving towards webM. -- geni

Emmanuel Engelhart

17 Jan 17 Jan

6:10 p.m.

Le 16/01/2014 20:13, geni a écrit :

...

On 16 January 2014 13:02, Emmanuel Engelhart <kelson(a)kiwix.org> wrote:

Dirac, a free codec developed by the BBC, seems to be a good solution. Do people have some experiences with Dirac?

No. BBC managed to get it working dedicated machines a few years back and I think there is an alpha trans-coder out there but people have lost interest.

Indeed, it seems the development of Dirac is pretty slow/frozen :( But, I have tested it with ffmpeg: the lossless compression seems to work.

...

Theora is good enough for the no compromise on freedom mob and development interest is moving towards webM.

Please refer to the original question, we speak here about lossless codecs and AFAIK neither VP8 nor Theora are lossless (or have lossless options). But it seems that VP9 has one and that last month ffmpeg has started to merge patches to support lossless VP9 transcoding... This might be the best approach to deal with raw video material on Commons: https://lists.ffmpeg.org/pipermail/ffmpeg-devel/2013-November/150547.html Emmanuel -- Kiwix - Wikipedia Offline & more * Web: http://www.kiwix.org * Twitter: https://twitter.com/KiwixOffline * more: http://www.kiwix.org/wiki/Communication

Andrew Lih

16 Jan 16 Jan

1:14 p.m.

Great post Manuel, and I wholeheartedly agree, including the final recommendation. I, instead, voted for full MP4 support on the RfC to draw the center of gravity towards accepting MP4, but I would be happy even with a partial solution. Some points: 1. The video project in English Wikipedia is: [[Wikipedia:WikiProject_Wiki_Makes_Video]] We certainly welcome more than just English Wikipedians there! We've had several university classes use this, and I think a pretty good set of example videos and guidelines including many videos shot by journalism and media studies students: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Wiki_Makes_Video 2. I talked recently with the Mozilla Popcorn folks, and they seem to have the best OSS, online video editing system today with Popcorn Maker. You can actually paste in URLs of Commons video and start splicing them together. Just make sure to use an Ogg/WebM friendly browser. I encourage you to try it out. https://popcorn.webmaker.org/ They said they would be thrilled if Popcorn became part of the editing solution for Wikimedia. One problem is that they right now only manage an EDL of edits, so embedding an edited video together requires an online Javascript environment -- there is no provision for re-compressing and outputting the video to a standalone Ogg or WebM file. But this is OSS so adding this functionality should be possible with the right resources. 3. Perhaps we should do several sessions at Wikimedia in succession, including a workshop on how to shoot and make video? I teach video shooting and editing to students each year, so this would be quite an easy thing for me to pitch in on. -Andrew On Thu, Jan 16, 2014 at 6:54 AM, Manuel Schneider < manuel.schneider(a)wikimedia.ch> wrote:

...

The Cunctator

17 Jan 17 Jan

4:23 p.m.

Given that allowing mp4 would be an act of commercial expedience at the expense of core Wikipedia principles, let me make the modest suggestion of introducing mp4 in concert with a name change to Encarta. On Jan 16, 2014 5:15 AM, "Andrew Lih" <andrew.lih(a)gmail.com> wrote:

...

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Andrew Gray
Andrew Lih
Bjoern Hoehrmann
Brandon Harris
Brion Vibber
Chad Horohoe
David Gerard
Emmanuel Engelhart
Erik Moeller
Fabrice Florin
Fajro
Federico Leva (Nemo)
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geni
Gerard Meijssen
Liam Wyatt
Lionel Allorge
Manuel Schneider
Marc A. Pelletier
Mark
Michael Peel
MZMcBride
Nathan
Philippe Beaudette
Rob Lanphier
Samuel Klein
Strainu
Ted Chien
The Cunctator
Tim Starling
Todd Allen
Victor Grigas