Google Chrome slopar stöd för H.264

Under the MPEG LA license, the terms are “renewable for successive five-year periods … on reasonable terms and conditions.” The per-copy royalty rates “will not increase by more than 10% at each renewal.” If rates go up by the maximum 10% for that five-year period, the cost of 10 million licenses will increase by $150,000 from a current rate of $1.48 million to $1.63 million.

There’s a small gotcha in the new MPEG LA license agreement. Footnote 17, which appears in tiny print at the very end of the summary of license terms, notes that “Annual royalty caps are not subject to the 10% limitation.” Although that sounds like a loophole, it really only affects the largest players in the market.

It’s likely that MPEG LA will increase the cap, probably by more than 10%. But even if the cap were to completely disappear, the effects would be modest. A company that sold or gave away 200 million licensed products in a single year would see its bill triple, paying roughly $22 million at the 11-cents-per-copy rate. For companies the size of Microsoft, Apple, Adobe, and Google, that’s still pocket change.