02.13.11
Scaremongering Against Google — Not Technical Advantage — the Strategy of MPEG-LA and Microsoft
Summary: Google responds to MPEG-LA’s call for arms and Microsoft depends on Google which it daemonises in an attempt to distract from its own mischief
OVER the past year we wrote many posts about WebM and MPEG-LA, most recently in relation to Nokia's malicious past role, namely backing MPEG-LA, and this patent troll’s call for patents to extort/sue Google with. It is widely publicised by now [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7]. Miguel de Icaza tells Microsoft Florian: “They made a “call for patents” because they have not found anything that WebM infringes.”
“Harassing Google (and Android/Linux) has grown to be a Microsoft habit or a hobby.”Stephen Shankland from CNET quotes Google’s official response: “MPEG LA has alluded to a VP8 pool since WebM launched–this is nothing new. The Web succeeds with open, community-developed innovation, and the WebM Project brings the same principles to Web video. The vast majority of the industry supports free and open development, and we’re in the process of forming a broad coalition of hardware and software companies who commit to not assert any IP claims against WebM. We are firmly committed to the project and establishing an open codec for HTML5 video.” The same statement can be found in other articles too.
One of MPEG-LA’s biggest backers is Microsoft of course. The embarrassing situation involving Microsoft’s B0ng as a spy and scraper [1, 2] of Google, which led to much bogus debate, definitely shows who’s fighting for progress in some areas and who is harming society. Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols has published the new essay “Lies, damned lies and search engines” where he addresses the issue:
Bad Microsoft! Bad! No biscuit for you!
If Microsoft were a dog, I’d be scolding it for its latest foolishness. It turns out that rather than searching the Internet on its own, it’s been riding the coattails of Google. This isn’t just a theory. Google set up a clever trap, and Microsoft’s search engineers fell right into it.
Harassing Google (and Android/Linux) has grown to be a Microsoft habit or a hobby. It’s rather striking however. Even Microsoft cannot help use Google and Linux internally, so Microsoft in some sense depends on their existence. █
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Adrian Malacoda said,
February 19, 2011 at 5:31 pm
I don’t think I’ve seen Techrights cover this, but I think its relevant. FSF is calling for a boycott against MPEG LA in response to this. http://www.fsf.org/campaigns/mpeg-la/boycott
Dr. Roy Schestowitz Reply:
February 19th, 2011 at 5:40 pm
Yes, missed that but will cover it later. Thanks.