Re: MPEG-4 patent license issues - libfaad* and libx264* and other codecs.

[Måns Rullgård <mru@inprovide.com>]

Steve Langasek <vorlon@debian.org> writes:

> On Sat, Apr 29, 2006 at 11:37:39PM +0100, Matthew William Solloway
> Bell wrote:
>> The packages libxine1, ffmpeg,  include libfaad*, libx264* or another
>> codec which implement the MPEG-4 Advanced Audio Coding and Advanced
>> Video Coding standards. Unfortunately, these are patent encumbered in at
>> least the USA, and many other countries. To distribute code implementing
>> any of these patents, a license is required[1], assuming that the
>> claimed patents are valid. This license requires signing an agreement
>> and the payment of royalties, which hasn't been done AFAIK, and is
>> contrary to policy. 
>> There is evidence of prior attempts of enforcement, specifically against
>> FAAD at AudioCoding.com[2].
>
> This appears to refer to enforcement of patents covering encoding using the
> codecs in question.  Do libxine1 and ffmpeg implement encoding of these, or
> just decoding?  Is there a history of enforcement of patents on decoding of
> the codecs in question?

FFmpeg has an AVC decoder.  It does not include an AVC encoder, and it
neither encodes nor decodes AAC.  FFmpeg can optionally use external
libraries for these tasks.

I'm not familiar with libxine enough to comment on it.

-- 
Måns Rullgård
mru@inprovide.com