WebM (VP8) is dead: “licensing fees” from Google to Patent Trolls/MAFIAA

WebM (VP8): now with “fees” for the patent trolls, MAFIAA companies

Google and MPEG LA Reach VP8 Patent Agreement (Slashdot, 07.03.13)

VP8 and MPEG LA (WebMproject, 07.03.13)

Google and MPEG LA Announce Agreement Covering VP8 Video Format (07.03.13)

The only real open-source alternative to the Content Mafia’s h.264 video codec died earlier this months when Google payed off the patent trolls and thieves from the MPEG-LA with “licensing fees” for the – until then – “open-source” VP8 codec. The MPEG-LA is the organisation that steals video footage from every child, woman and man who pushes a record button on an h.264 camera (like on every “smart phone”).

You do not own your own work with h.264. Never. It belongs to a patent pool behind which stand companies like Apple, Microsoft, Samsung, Sony and some others.

VP8 was a real alternative. It is interesting that the MPEG-LA never had a problem with the codec before it was open-sourced. It had been in use in Sykpe for years already – and still is…

This is why patents are so very wrong, this is how the late Thieve Jobs – excuse me Steve Jobs got rich (“All video codecs are covered by patents. A patent pool is being assembled to go after Theora and other “open source” codecs now.” – blogs.fsfe.org, 30.04.10)

This is where I stop entirely with publishing online video

I was so upset when the true story behind h.264 (osnews, 01.05.10) came out that I almost stopped publishing online video entirely. Then came an alternative. It did not work as well as the other codec, but it was there.

Now there is nothing. *)

I will now stop uploading any video to the web as long as there is no free and open-source video codec available. I do not support, work for – directly or indirectly – patent pools, their lawyers that steal my work, the companies hiding behind the patent pool that make money from stealing my work, the coders who develop anything related to h.264 and thereby steal my work. *)

I am deeply, deeply disgusted by all of you. Your business is based on stealing. Your business is based on stealing the moving image from society. History will judge you.

If you read this and care for the moving image, if you are film or videomaker: I urge you to consider boycotting 100% all companies on the list, as well as ending any collaboration with any of the “research institutes” on the list (like Frauenhofer).

Google you can keep VP8 (WebM) to yourself. I do not want it any more. It is MPEG-LA now. You are now paying off Content MAFIAA companies like Apple:

Apple › S. Jobs › Disney/Pixar › MPAA, MPEG-LA › ACTA › End of Democracy › Corporate Fascism

Oh, and Steve: FUCK YOU, FUCK YOU IN ALL ETERNITY FOR H.264!

*) Update 29.03.13: There is Theora of course, the only working choice left now as far as I know. Unfortunately (thanks to software patents) it can not compete with the others in terms of quality at this point. I may start a new video blog project one day with Theora downloads, but without embeds from YoutTube etc. my options for reaching an audience will be limited…!

FUCK ACTA: Anti ACTA demonstration in Vienna, February 25th 2012

Since I’m currently back home in Vienna I went to the Anti ACTA demonstration yesterday, starting from Europaplatz, down the Mariahilferstraße and over the Ring to the Parliament. It was an almost warm Saturday in late February and at the same time similar demonstrations took place all over Austria and Europe. My guess is we were about 5000 to max. 7000 people, police say 3000, organisers say 10 000. The crowd was mostly young, quite a few school students, the mood may be described as cheerful anger if this makes any sense to you.

As you would expect there were quite a few people with Guy Fawkes masks and other internet and reddit memes. So what I found most interesting were the banner people had brought and here is a best of selection of my favourite ones:

ACTA = Stasi 2.0

A movie is not a car

ACTA ad Acta

.

System failure: Capitalism not working

System (I) Reset

.

Stopp ACTA

Sharing is not stealing

bekACTA Scheiss (= Shity Shit)

“Niemand hat die Absicht eine Mauer zu errichten.” (= “No one has any intention of building a wall.”)

ACTA Assholes Creating Tyranny Again

ACTA La Vista

.

Capitalism not working

End?

Yes No

Join the revolution.

.

Meine Freundin ist schwanger. Mein Provider wußte es vor mir. (= My girlfriend is pregnant. My provider knew it before I did.)

You can’t control 500 Million PPL w/o making a few enemies.

Yet the best one and the one that most demonstrators seemed to agree on was pretty short, a good one to shout as well:

FUCK ACTA

Expect us.

Update (29.02.12):

There were two more banner at the demonstration that I keep thinking of and that I have not mentioned here yet (I did not write down those in my notebook – at least in terms of meaning they should be accurately quoted):

Wenn ihr uns das Internet nehmt, nehmen wir euch eure Faxgeräte (= If you take away our internet, we’ll take away your fax machines)

Ignorant me I did not quite understand that one at first and so one of my friends who was there with me on Saturday enlightened me: apparently unfriendly politician’s fax machines are being served by activists with a pitch black piece of paper – that has been looped… Now that’s mean.

And last but not least there was this one, surely way too important to be forgotten!

Don’t take away my porn

The End of Democracy: Say NO to ACTA (video)

Transcript (via LYBIO.net):

“Can you imagine your internet service provider policing everything you do online? Can you imagine generic drugs that could save lives being banned? Can you imagine seeds that could feed 1000′s being controlled and withheld in the name of patents? This will become reality with ACTA!!!

ACTA is the “Anti-Counterfeiting Trading Agreement”. Disguised as a Trade Agreement, ACTA goes much, much further than that.

For the past three years, ACTA has been negotiated in secret by 39 countries. But the negotiators are not democratically elected representatives. They don’t represent us, but they’re deciding laws behind our backs.

Bypassing democratic process, they impose new criminal sanctions to stop online file sharing. ACTA aims to make Internet Service & Access Providers legally responsible for what their users do online, turning them into private copyright police and judge, censoring their networks. The chilling effects on Free speech would be terrible.

In the name of patents, ACTA would give large corporations the power to stop generic drugs before they reach the people who need them and stop the use of certain seeds for crops.

The European Parliament will soon vote on ACTA. This VOTE will be the occasion to say NO, once and for all, to this dangerous treaty. As citizens, we must URGE our representatives to reject ACTA!!!

NO To ACTA

Learn more
laquadrature.net/ACTA“

Pirates, Wall Street and World Revolution

8,9% and I am one of them

8,9% of Berlin voted for the Pirate Party last month and I’m proud to say that I was able to contribute to that outcome: while being an Austrian living in Berlin I am allowed to vote in my district. For the first time there was the candidate “Piratenpartei” on the ballot and that’s where I made my cross. And So did many other. And news that close to 10% of Berlin is now in Pirate Party hands spread quickly around the globe (blog.p2pfoundation.net).

I was actually a bit surprised about just how wide that news travelled: it seems people have been waiting for this (blog.p2pfoundation.net). Those 8,9% for the Pirates in Berlin are a signal for others: if Berlin can do it your city, your country can do it too.

And guess what, now after the success in Berlin the German Pirate Party gets around 7% in polls – that is 7% Germany wide: should there be general elections next Sunday we’d had the Piratenpartei sitting in the German Bundestag.

And there is still much more potential for sure: I would not be surprised at all should Pirate Parties around Europe get two digit results in elections within the next five years.

People this is it, this is the time to get out and vote for the Pirates. And if you can’t vote let your family know, your father, mother, brother, sister, grandfather, grandmother, uncle, aunt etc.:

Let them know why you want the Pirate Party in your (local) government, explain to them why the Pirate Party is like “a patch for Democracy” as I read somewhere.

Let them know why (software) patents are truly evil and why Copyright is in fact Copywrong.

Let them know about the Patent Trolls and Copyright Thieves.

Let them know about h.264.

Let them know that Apple, Microsoft, Sony, Samsung, Frauenhofer Institute and all those others h.264 patent holders are S-T-A-E-L-I-N-G everyone’s video footage using software patents (you do not own your own h.264 video footage, not even after transcoding to e.g. an open format: licensing fees for any “commercial” use will need to be paid to all those thieves hiding behind the acronym MPEG-LA).

Let your people know the truth about why a Bill Gates or a Steve Jobs could “achieve” what they did in those last 30 years:

Gates, Jobs etc. are a simply a special kind of breed of thieves who (while now retired used to) organise, set up and run a wide range of (in the US legal, in Europe for sure quite illegal) extortion schemes based on software patents and related “legal” constructs. Latest examples: the Samsung tablet that Apple tries so hard to block via court orders or the fact that Microsoft will make money with basically every Android phone you buy ($5/phone Protection Money for the IP lawyers thanks to software patents).

Or maybe there is something else that makes you angry…? Maybe it’s the RIAA or the MPAA (better know as MAFIAA)…?

There surely are many good reasons to be very angry these days (WikiLeaks censorship, youngsters/hackers who defend Democracy put in jail, Greece looted by the Banks, …) and each reason is a good one to turn your anger into real political change by voting Pirate Party!

This is our chance to get rid of those governments that have been corrupted be the Content and Copyright Mafia.

This is our chance to get rid of ACTA and all future attempts by the Content Mafia who is trying to undermine Democracy in order to save their dying business model, a model that never was right in the first place, a business model that is based on stealing but never giving back to society. One of the best examples being The Walt Disney Company and the Micky Mouse Protection Act from 1998.

Occupy Wall Street and World Revolution

“I see Corporatism, Fascism, chronic Capitalism. I don’t see a free market. I see a police state, I see an American Empire, I see 700 military bases in 135 foreign countries. I see 5000 dead bodies in Iraq. A welfare warfare state which gives out billions of dollars in foreign aid for dictators (…).”

(From the Voice Over/interview at the beginning of the embedded video about the current Occupy Wall Street movement:)

Nobody Can Predict The Moment Of Revolution (2011), 8:01

by Martyna Starosta & Iva Radivojevic, CC BY-NC 3.0

Video’s page on Vimeo.

One more thing…

Now that we have Freedom from Steve:

Steve Jobs,

You personally may get away with this and keep making your dirty money for quite a while. Yet not forever.

Thing is you are old and I am so much younger than you. Chances are I’ll still be around when you are long gone. And I’ll make sure the world will hear the true story about h.264. I’ll make sure that people get a chance to remember Steve Jobs for who he really was. You are no innovator, your are no inventor. At the end of the day you are simply that: a thief.

And Fuck You for that.

FUCK YOU STEVE JOBS FOR H.264.

FUCK YOU.

FUCK YOU.

FUCK YOU.

And FUCK YOU.

Update (06.10.11) :

Steve Jobs died this morning. Here the discussion on Slashdot.

Yes, it’s always very sad when someone dies and I’m sure many including his family will miss him. Yet death does not mean you have to be dishonest. The man may have done a lot for the Apple shareholders and may have pushed the industry in the directions he wanted, but for me personally he is one the biggest disappointments when it comes to role models:

I used to watch his Apple sales shows back in the ’90 on a Performa 5200, connected to the internet via modem. He was a brilliant sales person. He really was. Unfortunately he was not honest about his products shortcomings and he betrayed a whole generation of artists, film makers and young ones who bought his h.264 pitch. Steve Jobs choose to betray and steal from everyone (h.264 video footage) so that he could build a monopoly around/by using the moving image:

* He tried to push h.264 as the only legal video codec for distribution: when you already own an online store for movies (iTunes) as well as parts of a Hollywood film studio (Disney, before that Pixar) this simply is extremely greedy and shows you do not like competition at all. For over ten years open-source audio/video codec developers were severly bullied by all those who stand behind h.264. In his own words (blogs.fsfe.org):

“All video codecs are covered by patents. A patent pool is being assembled to go after Theora and other “open source” codecs now.”

* At the same time, knowingly, just as all the other h.264 patent holders, he was happy with stealing your and mine h.264 video footage: I got an h.264 camera and went out shooting footage, for weeks, months. I was planing to use that footage commercially until I found out about the scheme that Jobs etc. had set up/were happy to make their dirty deals with: the MPEG-LA.

Jobs not only wanted a monopoly on distribution but he also wanted to control independent content, e.g. accepted – and never communicated – the MPEG-LA’s rules e.g. about how long (!!!) your h.264 online video can be before you have to start paying fees to them. Steve Jobs was prepared to and did sell his user, did betray those artists who trusted him and who supported his company in all those years when Apple almost went out of business.

Steve Jobs betrayed us with h.264. I won’t forget that. And I will make sure that this story reaches as many people as possible, now and in the future.

A monopoly on the moving image is simply a very, very dangerous thing. It would be highly irresponsible not to let future generations know about this. Basically what Jobs opened up/promoted is a road to Fascism. People need to hear the h.264 story so that something like this can never happen again!

“Faites vos jeux…!”

IWW poster printed 1911

(Source: Wikipedia)

While this old days info graphic style poster is now 100 years old it could hardly be more up to date today – and it also works for any kind of suppressive regime (with e.g. a centralised economy): “We shoot at you” is what is happening in Syria these days (www.bbc.co.uk).

Yesterday I started again reading Robert Peston’s business blog: How close is Credit Crunch 2? His latest post from today: The origins of today’s market mayhem (www.bbc.co.uk).

For a look at alternatives to our current money (based) system see the P2P Foundation blog and those posts with the P2P Money tag (blog.p2pfoundation.net).

And for those enjoying their rides on the world’s biggest Casino today: just don’t forget that when “zero” comes up it is always the Bank that wins! You won’t be able to change that… Yet we might be able to change the rules. So that it won’t happen again. Of course this means that there would need to be serious consequences. The pyramid scheme would need to go and those responsible would need to be held accountable.

I don’t think it’s a coincidence that currently Apple Inc. has more cash than the United States of America (!) (www.bbc.co.uk): (software) patents and traditional copyright have brought us here. Yet it is also no coincidence that right now software patents as well as copyright are finally being investigated and changed by those in charge: UK to legalize private copying of CDs (www.reuters.com) (“Britain will signal on Wednesday that it intends to legalize copying of CDs or DVDs onto digital music players or computers for personal use“). Basically this is the beginning of (a long…?) end of traditional copyright! Software patent reform is happening (politics.slashdot.org) as well as mentioned in a previous post.

And while companies like Apple now have started selling hot air over the internet (“cloud services”) they forget to mention that where there are clouds there will be rain. Sooner or later.

People like Steve Jobs are like those bankers who also generated their financial “products” out of thin air. Their greed brought our financial system close to collapse while the lobbyists were busy targeting Democracy via ACTA. *)

Today we are only a few steps away from real Corporate Fascism, a system where those who can’t pay shall have no voice. More than one politician made suggestions along that line in recent weeks and months. Shame on you.

So have a nice day, make your bets – faites vos jeux, before the croupier says: “Rien ne vas plus!”

And then…?

I guess the People will let you know when the Day of Glory has arrived, when le Jour de Gloire est arrivé…

Update:

*) One of many reasons why ACTA is a real, dangerous threat to Democracy: Leaked “ACTA” Lobby Letter Reveals Hollywood Pressure On EU (06.05.11, torrentfreak.com):

“A letter sent on behalf of 21 pro-copyright outfits including the Motion Picture Association and IFPI shows how the European Parliament is being urged to sign the controversial ACTA anti-piracy agreement. The backroom lobbying effort document which came into TorrentFreak’s possession, reveals how the organizations ask Parliament not to wait for a response from the European Court of Justice but simply sign “with no further delays.”“ (!!!)