JPEGs are not free: Patent holder pursues IP grab

[GadgetMaster]

A video conferencing company based in Austin, Texas says it's going to pursue royalties on the transmission of JPEG images.

And it's already found a licensee: Sony Corporation.

More in this Register Article

[SilvrDrgn]

Gee, I better switch all my website pictures to PNG then.  Good grief !!!  What a joke!  This is just like the licensing thing with the GIF format.   :-P

[Coder]

What would be the impact of this on us users?

Coder

[System]

I wouldn't take the word of a "top quality" site like the
Register. If you read the patent it doesn't involve static
JPEG images as used on web sites but refers to video
compression.

In fact, the original poster could have done with reading
the references the Register posted before simply copying
over to here.

[Herewegoagain]

Time to find a new format....PNG anyone?  JPG will be as irrelivent in a short while as GIF is now.  They should learn from Compuserve's mistakes... Companies will not pay royalties on a file format.  Someone will just come up with another one that is better.

[zacman]

Well the patent does not cover JPEG but RLE (Run
Length Encoding), used in a various number of
picture compression formats, JPEG and MPEG are
just examples

[GadgetMaster]

@ koan

In fact, the original poster could have done with reading......etc.

I linked to the news item, I didn't copy it wholesale.

I am sure Amiga.org readers are quite capable of following a link and reading the references for themselves.

PS I did read it all myself including the references. I also read about it on other sites before I found it on the reg.

[Coder]

I am sure Amiga.org readers are quite capable of following a link and reading the references for themselves.

Offcourse. Why copy the whole article in here. Just sum it up and put a link to the story. Just like GadgetMaster did.

Coder

[Tomas]

i agree. would be a waste of both diskspace and bw to copy it all.

[System]

@zacman

RLE is far too well known to be patented.

@gadgetmaster

Why did you post it if you had read the links and
knew it was nothing to do with JPEG ? Seems
a bit reckless to me. The proof is in the first comment.

"World to end"... etc etc

I just think that you could have posted a better summary.

[GadgetMaster]

@Koan

Why did you post it if you had read the links and knew it was nothing to do with JPEG ? Seems
a bit reckless to me. The proof is in the first comment

No pleasing some people is there?

I just posted a link to a news item that I thought would be of general interest. I didn't edit the title nor did I edit any of the content. It was a link thats all.

If you think you can do a better job then why don't you do a little news posting yourself. This a community based news service in that it relies on members to contribute.

Its all too easy to sit back, do nothing, and criticise the ones that are trying to keep this site up to date.
Thanks for your encouragement  :-?

Come on!  "chip in" as Wayne says,  we need more news posters (especialy those with your thoroughness) plus some people really need a break from posting anyway. :-(

[Coder]

@GadgetMaster

Don't stop posting. I remember once getting a bit of criticism for posting some news. It's the news that should be discussed here, not if it should been here in the first place. And for the record, I think it does belong here.

Coder

[Hammer]

More people may switch to PNG format or similar royalties free format.

I wonder what will be the effect on Mpeg 4 and DivX users.