Patents and their effect on Standards: Open video codecs for HTML5

Authors

  • Silvia Pfeiffer

Keywords:

Standards, Patents, World Wide Web, HTML5, Video codecs

Abstract

HTML5 is an updated version of the hypertext markup language that has been empowering the World Wide Web for the last 20 years. One of the things that HTML5 introduces is a element, which make video content as simple to include into Web pages as images. Similar to the issues that had to be overcome with the introduction of the tag in 1993, we are now facing the issue of a common baseline codec for the element – a format that all browser vendors can implement from a rights point of view and will agree to implement. Ogg Theora/Vorbis has been proposed as a solution, but only Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome have agreed to that implement it. Right now, we are at an impasse as the patent situation around video codecs is unclear and different parties take a different stance. This article discusses the issues in more detail.

Author Biography

  • Silvia Pfeiffer

    Silvia Pfeiffer has worked on novel media technology for more than 15 years and is an internationally renowned expert in new Web video standards.

    After finishing her double degree in Computer Science and Business Management at Mannheim University, Germany, Silvia worked as a consultant at Accenture (then: Andersen Consulting) for 6 months. She then returned to Mannheim University to completed her PhD on audio-visual content analysis. Subsequently, she spent 7 years at the CSIRO, amongst other activities developing new video technology for the Web in the "Annodex" project.

    Silvia continues to promote and pursue open media technology, being the main organiser for the annual Foundations of Open Media Software workshop, being the president of the Annodex Association, and a member of the Xiph.org community.

    She is now an invited expert on four W3C video-related working groups. She is making contributions to the new audio and video elements in HTML5, to media annotation standards, to media fragment addressing via URIs, and to video accessibility technology for hearing and seeing-impaired people (captions, audio annotations etc).

    In 2007, Silvia co-founded Australian video company Vquence. Vquence offers consulting and technology services for Web 2.0 video. This includes strategy planning, social video channel setup, audience measurement, reporting, and recommendation for strategy improvement. It also includes services to create a strategic integration of video into a working online marketing and communication strategy.

IFOSS L. Rev. Volume 1, Issue 2 cover

Downloads

Published

2010-01-25

Issue

Vol. 1 No. 2 (2009)

Section

Tech Watch

License

The most restrictive licence we will accept for submission is Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 international (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) SPDX identifier CC-BY-4.0

How to Cite

Patents and their effect on Standards: Open video codecs for HTML5. (2010). Journal of Open Law, Technology & Society, 1(2), 131-138. https://jolts.world/index.php/jolts/article/view/21