H.264 to Remain Free for Free Internet Video Streaming

It seems that some good has already occurred from Google throwing its support to its WebM video encoding technology. The rights holder for H.264 has preemptively struck the first blow by ensuring that individual websites will not be charged royalties for using the popular H.264 codec. Of course, this means that companies that make browsers, like Opera and Mozilla will still have to pay if they want to include the decoder in their browsers as it covers only web streams, not applications.

The MPEG Licensing Association—the group responsible for handling the necessary patent licensing for use of MPEG video codec standards—has announced that it will not charge royalties for AVC/H.264 encoded video that is made available to view via the Internet for free. The group earlier this year had extended its limited moratorium on licensing fees for free Internet video until the end of 2015.

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