Posting on New America Foundation's site, copyfighting lawyer Wendy Seltzer gives an excellent primer on the patent thicket around online video, where multiple corporations assert overlapping claims to ownership of patents on practically every video format, and reserve the right to use these claims to shut down video-sharing sites. Luckily, a pair of free/open video formats are on the scene, and have the potential to make video on the Web as unrestricted as HTML, RSS, and the other standards that power it:
On June 20, 2009, nearly 150,000 people witnessed the death of 26-year-old Neda Agha-Soltan, but unlike the Iranians who passed her by in the street, they weren't bystanders to the post-election turmoil in Tehran that claimed her life. They were merely the first of over 600,000 who have since viewed a now-symbolic YouTube video that helped propel the opposition political movement forward in the following days of protest. The democratizing power of the Web lies in video like this one–not just because of its content, but because anyone with an Internet connection can contribute to a global dialogue.
But imagine if the person who shot this video had been unable to post it anonymously or if YouTube viewers had to pay to watch it. If online videos were subject to patent licensing fees, users could be charged per-view to capture those fees. Beyond the ethical dilemma profiteering from a tragic death, video licensing could reduce the democratic nature of free and open Internet content to monetizable media. The funny cat videos would be gone forever (perhaps not the greatest loss), but so too would the movement-inspiring Nedas of the future remain unknown.
Video Prison: Why Patents Might Threaten Free Online Video
(Thanks, James!)
