Day: April 18, 2010

Google may face challenges open-sourcing VP8. http://bit.ly/auBaEl Oh shoot! Google may not have license to open source. Sadness.

Although Google has not yet officially announced that it will open-source the VP8 codec and push for its adoption in the HTML5 <video> tag, some sources think they may not have the right to do it. Modern codecs are all built on cross-licensed technologies: it’s hard to do something completely original that doesn’t build on others’ work.

Today, Betanews asked a video technology business source whether our theory held water — whether technology owners could legally challenge Google, or other users, if it attempts to offer a free license for technology without the owners’ consent or license. The source replied affirmatively. While Google may very well own rights to a proprietary version of VP8 for its own sale and licensing purposes, outside of On2’s own patents, if Google and other users are not licensed under applicable patents, the “patent-free” state of that codec could be challenged in court, Betanews was told.

VP8 is undoubtedly a better codec than Ogg Theora (built, as it turns out, on a very early On2 codec – VP3!) and would make a better choice for the open-source alternative in the <video> tag, but if Google doesn’t have the right to open-source it, then all bets are off.

Great NAB roundup from Oliver Peters. http://bit.ly/aADloT Saves me writing half my NAB roundup!

Oliver’s Digital Films blog is one of my must-read blogs and his NAB roundup is spot on. I share his thinking about Apple and potential marketshare damage (limited) from no NAB 2010 announcements, and his skepticism about 3D. Beyond that it’s a good roundup of what was announced.

Is piracy killing the music industy? http://bit.ly/d2VLtf Not by any measure that is based on fact. Music is growing, CDs are shrinking.

The music industry is growing quite nicely from every possible measure, except that the RIAA/Record Labels refuse to consider that there is any “music industry” that doesn’t include them. Recorded music on CD sales have been dropping because of digital downloads (growing dramatically) and independent musicians doing it without labels, and making more money than they did with a label. (And it works for big established acts, leaving a label, as well as artists just starting out.)

According to statistics taken from the RIAA shipment database, between 2004 and 2008 the number of single tracks sold in the U.S. increased by 669 percent while the number of album sales dropped 42 percent. Consequently, the income of the big labels suffered since single track sales are less profitable than full albums. As can be seen in the chart below, the number of music ‘units’ sold continues to grow rapidly nonetheless.

See the graph in the linked article.

Swedish Band – out of contract with label – releases “CD” as magazine: free music, added value around it. http://bit.ly/cSNMKy

Head of “Independent” studio takes home $821,540 cash + $215, 192. http://bit.ly/dxtfla A real independent could make 2 movies for that!

With a combined income of just over a million dollars, just what is the head of “The Film Departnent” thinking? The Film Department is a small independent studio, that so far has released one movie of the three they’ve produced. They’re looking to raise $69 million in an IPO, and immediately spending 1.5% on their CEO’s salary this year, and another two staff members account for that much again. So 3% of your raised capital or more accurately nearly 8% of the net from the IPO will go to salaries for three executives this year:

The Film Department has lost a total of $29.7 million since 2007 and generated no revenue until last year. Gill, who was president of Warner Independent Pictures before founding The Film Department, has earned more than $2.6 million in that time.

In addition, the company has paid Gill’s wife, Hanna Weg, $250,000 for screenwriting services on two projects in development and optioned a script by her for which she has not yet been paid.

Seriously, this is what’s wrong with independent production or so-called independent “studios”.

Steve Jobs says “YouTube does HD Video”, so no need for Blu-Ray? http://bit.ly/9PRRwD I’ve long said no Blu-ray on OS X ever, Jobs agrees

I have long held that Apple was never going to support Blu-ray Movie Playback on OS X. Partly because the internal memory encryption isn’t there in the OS, but also because Apple was moving toward Internet download as the primary distribution system – one that they have much more control over than Blu-ray.

Seems that Steve Jobs is owning up to the same thing. So don’t hold your breath for a Blu-ray enabled “DVD” Studio Pro. Not going to happen. I think we have all the Blu-ray authroing we’re going to get from Apple, via “Share” in Final Cut Studio (2009).