[homepage.git] / blog / tags / multimedia / multimedia.rss

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        <channel>
                <title>Petter Reinholdtsen - Entries tagged multimedia</title>
                <description>Entries tagged multimedia</description>
                <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/</link>

        
        <item>
                <title>MPEG LA on &quot;Internet Broadcast AVC Video&quot; licensing and non-private use</title>
                <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/MPEG_LA_on__Internet_Broadcast_AVC_Video__licensing_and_non_private_use.html</link>
                <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/MPEG_LA_on__Internet_Broadcast_AVC_Video__licensing_and_non_private_use.html</guid>
                <pubDate>Tue, 7 Jul 2015 09:50:00 +0200</pubDate>
                <description>&lt;p&gt;After asking the Norwegian Broadcasting Company (NRK)
&lt;a href=&quot;http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Hva_gj_r_at_NRK_kan_distribuere_H_264_video_uten_patentavtale_med_MPEG_LA_.html&quot;&gt;why
they can broadcast and stream H.264 video without an agreement with
the MPEG LA&lt;/a&gt;, I was wiser, but still confused.  So I asked MPEG LA
if their understanding matched that of NRK.  As far as I can tell, it
does not.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;I started by asking for more information about the various
licensing classes and what exactly is covered by the &quot;Internet
Broadcast AVC Video&quot; class that NRK pointed me at to explain why NRK
did not need a license for streaming H.264 video:

&lt;p&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;

&lt;p&gt;According to
&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.mpegla.com/Lists/MPEG%20LA%20News%20List/Attachments/226/n-10-02-02.pdf&quot;&gt;a
MPEG LA press release dated 2010-02-02&lt;/a&gt;, there is no charge when
using MPEG AVC/H.264 according to the terms of &quot;Internet Broadcast AVC
Video&quot;.  I am trying to understand exactly what the terms of &quot;Internet
Broadcast AVC Video&quot; is, and wondered if you could help me.  What
exactly is covered by these terms, and what is not?&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;The only source of more information I have been able to find is a
PDF named
&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.mpegla.com/main/programs/avc/Documents/avcweb.pdf&quot;&gt;AVC
Patent Portfolio License Briefing&lt;/a&gt;, which states this about the
fees:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;ul&gt;
 &lt;li&gt;Where End User pays for AVC Video
  &lt;ul&gt;
   &lt;li&gt;Subscription (not limited by title) – 100,000 or fewer
     subscribers/yr = no royalty; &amp;gt; 100,000 to 250,000 subscribers/yr =
     $25,000; &amp;gt;250,000 to 500,000 subscribers/yr = $50,000; &amp;gt;500,000 to
     1M subscribers/yr = $75,000; &amp;gt;1M subscribers/yr = $100,000&lt;/li&gt;

   &lt;li&gt;Title-by-Title - 12 minutes or less = no royalty; &amp;gt;12 minutes in
     length = lower of (a) 2% or (b) $0.02 per title&lt;/li&gt;
  &lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;

 &lt;li&gt;Where remuneration is from other sources
  &lt;ul&gt;
   &lt;li&gt;Free Television - (a) one-time $2,500 per transmission encoder or
     (b) annual fee starting at $2,500 for &amp;gt; 100,000 HH rising to
     maximum $10,000 for &amp;gt;1,000,000 HH&lt;/li&gt;

   &lt;li&gt;Internet Broadcast AVC Video (not title-by-title, not subscription)
     – no royalty for life of the AVC Patent Portfolio License&lt;/li&gt;
  &lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Am I correct in assuming that the four categories listed is the
categories used when selecting licensing terms, and that &quot;Internet
Broadcast AVC Video&quot; is the category for things that do not fall into
one of the other three categories?  Can you point me to a good source
explaining what is ment by &quot;title-by-title&quot; and &quot;Free Television&quot; in
the license terms for AVC/H.264?&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Will a web service providing H.264 encoded video content in a
&quot;video on demand&quot; fashing similar to Youtube and Vimeo, where no
subscription is required and no payment is required from end users to
get access to the videos, fall under the terms of the &quot;Internet
Broadcast AVC Video&quot;, ie no royalty for life of the AVC Patent
Portfolio license?  Does it matter if some users are subscribed to get
access to personalized services?&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Note, this request and all answers will be published on the
Internet.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;The answer came quickly from Benjamin J. Myers, Licensing Associate
with the MPEG LA:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Thank you for your message and for your interest in MPEG LA.  We
appreciate hearing from you and I will be happy to assist you.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;As you are aware, MPEG LA offers our AVC Patent Portfolio License
which provides coverage under patents that are essential for use of
the AVC/H.264 Standard (MPEG-4 Part 10).  Specifically, coverage is
provided for end products and video content that make use of AVC/H.264
technology.  Accordingly, the party offering such end products and
video to End Users concludes the AVC License and is responsible for
paying the applicable royalties.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Regarding Internet Broadcast AVC Video, the AVC License generally
defines such content to be video that is distributed to End Users over
the Internet free-of-charge.  Therefore, if a party offers a service
which allows users to upload AVC/H.264 video to its website, and such
AVC Video is delivered to End Users for free, then such video would
receive coverage under the sublicense for Internet Broadcast AVC
Video, which is not subject to any royalties for the life of the AVC
License.  This would also apply in the scenario where a user creates a
free online account in order to receive a customized offering of free
AVC Video content.  In other words, as long as the End User is given
access to or views AVC Video content at no cost to the End User, then
no royalties would be payable under our AVC License.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, if End Users pay for access to AVC Video for a
specific period of time (e.g., one month, one year, etc.), then such
video would constitute Subscription AVC Video.  In cases where AVC
Video is delivered to End Users on a pay-per-view basis, then such
content would constitute Title-by-Title AVC Video.  If a party offers
Subscription or Title-by-Title AVC Video to End Users, then they would
be responsible for paying the applicable royalties you noted below.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Finally, in the case where AVC Video is distributed for free
through an &quot;over-the-air, satellite and/or cable transmission&quot;, then
such content would constitute Free Television AVC Video and would be
subject to the applicable royalties.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;For your reference, I have attached
&lt;a href=&quot;http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2015-07-07-mpeg-la.pdf&quot;&gt;a
.pdf copy of the AVC License&lt;/a&gt;. You will find the relevant
sublicense information regarding AVC Video in Sections 2.2 through
2.5, and the corresponding royalties in Section 3.1.2 through 3.1.4.
You will also find the definitions of Title-by-Title AVC Video,
Subscription AVC Video, Free Television AVC Video, and Internet
Broadcast AVC Video in Section 1 of the License.  Please note that the
electronic copy is provided for informational purposes only and cannot
be used for execution.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;I hope the above information is helpful.  If you have additional
questions or need further assistance with the AVC License, please feel
free to contact me directly.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Having a fresh copy of the license text was useful, and knowing
that the definition of Title-by-Title required payment per title made
me aware that my earlier understanding of that phrase had been wrong.
But I still had a few questions:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;
&lt;p&gt;I have a small followup question.  Would it be possible for me to get
a license with MPEG LA even if there are no royalties to be paid?  The
reason I ask, is that some video related products have a copyright
clause limiting their use without a license with MPEG LA.  The clauses
typically look similar to this:

&lt;p&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;
  This product is licensed under the AVC patent portfolio license for
  the personal and non-commercial use of a consumer to (a) encode
  video in compliance with the AVC standard (&quot;AVC video&quot;) and/or (b)
  decode AVC video that was encoded by a consumer engaged in a
  personal and non-commercial activity and/or AVC video that was
  obtained from a video provider licensed to provide AVC video. No
  license is granted or shall be implied for any other use. additional
  information may be obtained from MPEG LA L.L.C.
&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;It is unclear to me if this clause mean that I need to enter into
an agreement with MPEG LA to use the product in question, even if
there are no royalties to be paid to MPEG LA.  I suspect it will
differ depending on the jurisdiction, and mine is Norway.  What is
MPEG LAs view on this?&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;According to the answer, MPEG LA believe those using such tools for
non-personal or commercial use need a license with them:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;

&lt;p&gt;With regard to the Notice to Customers, I would like to begin by
clarifying that the Notice from Section 7.1 of the AVC License
reads:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;THIS PRODUCT IS LICENSED UNDER THE AVC PATENT PORTFOLIO LICENSE FOR
THE PERSONAL USE OF A CONSUMER OR OTHER USES IN WHICH IT DOES NOT
RECEIVE REMUNERATION TO (i) ENCODE VIDEO IN COMPLIANCE WITH THE AVC
STANDARD (&quot;AVC VIDEO&quot;) AND/OR (ii) DECODE AVC VIDEO THAT WAS ENCODED
BY A CONSUMER ENGAGED IN A PERSONAL ACTIVITY AND/OR WAS OBTAINED FROM
A VIDEO PROVIDER LICENSED TO PROVIDE AVC VIDEO. NO LICENSE IS GRANTED
OR SHALL BE IMPLIED FOR ANY OTHER USE. ADDITIONAL INFORMATION MAY BE
OBTAINED FROM MPEG LA, L.L.C. SEE HTTP://WWW.MPEGLA.COM&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;The Notice to Customers is intended to inform End Users of the
personal usage rights (for example, to watch video content) included
with the product they purchased, and to encourage any party using the
product for commercial purposes to contact MPEG LA in order to become
licensed for such use (for example, when they use an AVC Product to
deliver Title-by-Title, Subscription, Free Television or Internet
Broadcast AVC Video to End Users, or to re-Sell a third party&#39;s AVC
Product as their own branded AVC Product).&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Therefore, if a party is to be licensed for its use of an AVC
Product to Sell AVC Video on a Title-by-Title, Subscription, Free
Television or Internet Broadcast basis, that party would need to
conclude the AVC License, even in the case where no royalties were
payable under the License.  On the other hand, if that party (either a
Consumer or business customer) simply uses an AVC Product for their
own internal purposes and not for the commercial purposes referenced
above, then such use would be included in the royalty paid for the AVC
Products by the licensed supplier.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Finally, I note that our AVC License provides worldwide coverage in
countries that have AVC Patent Portfolio Patents, including
Norway.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;I hope this clarification is helpful.  If I may be of any further
assistance, just let me know.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;The mentioning of Norwegian patents made me a bit confused, so I
asked for more information:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;

&lt;p&gt;But one minor question at the end.  If I understand you correctly,
you state in the quote above that there are patents in the AVC Patent
Portfolio that are valid in Norway.  This make me believe I read the
list available from &amp;lt;URL:
&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.mpegla.com/main/programs/AVC/Pages/PatentList.aspx&quot;&gt;http://www.mpegla.com/main/programs/AVC/Pages/PatentList.aspx&lt;/a&gt;
&amp;gt; incorrectly, as I believed the &quot;NO&quot; prefix in front of patents
were Norwegian patents, and the only one I could find under Mitsubishi
Electric Corporation expired in 2012.  Which patents are you referring
to that are relevant for Norway?&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Again, the quick answer explained how to read the list of patents
in that list:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Your understanding is correct that the last AVC Patent Portfolio
Patent in Norway expired on 21 October 2012.  Therefore, where AVC
Video is both made and Sold in Norway after that date, then no
royalties would be payable for such AVC Video under the AVC License.
With that said, our AVC License provides historic coverage for AVC
Products and AVC Video that may have been manufactured or Sold before
the last Norwegian AVC patent expired.  I would also like to clarify
that coverage is provided for the country of manufacture and the
country of Sale that has active AVC Patent Portfolio Patents.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Therefore, if a party offers AVC Products or AVC Video for Sale in
a country with active AVC Patent Portfolio Patents (for example,
Sweden, Denmark, Finland, etc.), then that party would still need
coverage under the AVC License even if such products or video are
initially made in a country without active AVC Patent Portfolio
Patents (for example, Norway).  Similarly, a party would need to
conclude the AVC License if they make AVC Products or AVC Video in a
country with active AVC Patent Portfolio Patents, but eventually Sell
such AVC Products or AVC Video in a country without active AVC Patent
Portfolio Patents.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;As far as I understand it, MPEG LA believe anyone using Adobe
Premiere and other video related software with a H.264 distribution
license need a license agreement with MPEG LA to use such tools for
anything non-private or commercial, while it is OK to set up a
Youtube-like service as long as no-one pays to get access to the
content.  I still have no clear idea how this applies to Norway, where
none of the patents MPEG LA is licensing are valid.  Will the
copyright terms take precedence or can those terms be ignored because
the patents are not valid in Norway?&lt;/p&gt;
</description>
        </item>
        
        <item>
                <title>MakerCon Nordic videos now available on Frikanalen</title>
                <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/MakerCon_Nordic_videos_now_available_on_Frikanalen.html</link>
                <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/MakerCon_Nordic_videos_now_available_on_Frikanalen.html</guid>
                <pubDate>Thu, 2 Jul 2015 14:10:00 +0200</pubDate>
                <description>&lt;p&gt;Last oktober I was involved on behalf of
&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.nuug.no/&quot;&gt;NUUG&lt;/a&gt; with recording the talks at
&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.makercon.no/&quot;&gt;MakerCon Nordic&lt;/a&gt;, a conference for
the Maker movement.  Since then it has been the plan to publish the
recordings on &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.frikanalen.no/&quot;&gt;Frikanalen&lt;/a&gt;, which
finally happened the last few days.  A few talks are missing because
the speakers asked the organizers to not publish them, but most of the
talks are available.  The talks are being broadcasted on RiksTV
channel 50 and using multicast on Uninett, as well as being available
from the Frikanalen web site.  The unedited recordings are
&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/user/MakerConNordic/&quot;&gt;available on
Youtube too&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;This is the list of talks available at the moment.  Visit the
&lt;a href=&quot;http://beta.frikanalen.no/video/?q=makercon&quot;&gt;Frikanalen video
pages&lt;/a&gt; to view them.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;ul&gt;

  &lt;li&gt;Evolutionary algorithms as a design tool - from art
      to robotics (Kyrre Glette)&lt;/li&gt;

  &lt;li&gt;Make and break (Hans Gerhard Meier)&lt;/li&gt;

  &lt;li&gt;Making a one year school course for young makers
      (Olav Helland)&lt;/li&gt;

  &lt;li&gt;Innovation Inspiration - IPR Databases as a Source of
      Inspiration (Hege Langlo)&lt;/li&gt;

  &lt;li&gt;Making a toy for makers (Erik Torstensson)&lt;/li&gt;

  &lt;li&gt;How to make 3D printer electronics (Elias Bakken)&lt;/li&gt;

  &lt;li&gt;Hovering Clouds: Looking at online tool offerings for Product
      Design and 3D Printing (William Kempton)&lt;/li&gt;

  &lt;li&gt;Travelling maker stories (Øyvind Nydal Dahl)&lt;/li&gt;

  &lt;li&gt;Making the first Maker Faire in Sweden (Nils Olander)&lt;/li&gt;

  &lt;li&gt;Breaking the mold: Printing 1000’s of parts (Espen Sivertsen)&lt;/li&gt;

  &lt;li&gt;Ultimaker — and open source 3D printing (Erik de Bruijn)&lt;/li&gt;

  &lt;li&gt;Autodesk’s 3D Printing Platform: Sparking innovation (Hilde
      Sevens)&lt;/li&gt;

  &lt;li&gt;How Making is Changing the World – and How You Can Too!
      (Jennifer Turliuk)&lt;/li&gt;

  &lt;li&gt;Open-Source Adventuring: OpenROV, OpenExplorer and the Future of
      Connected Exploration (David Lang)&lt;/li&gt;

  &lt;li&gt;Making in Norway (Haakon Karlsen Jr., Graham Hayward and Jens
      Dyvik)&lt;/li&gt;

  &lt;li&gt;The Impact of the Maker Movement (Mike Senese)&lt;/li&gt;

&lt;/ul&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Part of the reason this took so long was that the scripts NUUG had
to prepare a recording for publication were five years old and no
longer worked with the current video processing tools (command line
argument changes).  In addition, we needed better audio normalization,
which sent me on a detour to
&lt;a href=&quot;http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Measuring_and_adjusting_the_loudness_of_a_TV_channel_using_bs1770gain.html&quot;&gt;package
bs1770gain for Debian&lt;/a&gt;.  Now this is in place and it became a lot
easier to publish NUUG videos on Frikanalen.&lt;/p&gt;
</description>
        </item>
        
        <item>
                <title>Measuring and adjusting the loudness of a TV channel using bs1770gain</title>
                <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Measuring_and_adjusting_the_loudness_of_a_TV_channel_using_bs1770gain.html</link>
                <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Measuring_and_adjusting_the_loudness_of_a_TV_channel_using_bs1770gain.html</guid>
                <pubDate>Thu, 11 Jun 2015 13:40:00 +0200</pubDate>
                <description>&lt;p&gt;Television loudness is the source of frustration for viewers
everywhere.  Some channels are very load, others are less loud, and
ads tend to shout very high to get the attention of the viewers, and
the viewers do not like this.  This fact is well known to the TV
channels.  See for example the BBC white paper
&quot;&lt;a href=&quot;http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/rd/pubs/whp/whp-pdf-files/WHP202.pdf&quot;&gt;Terminology
for loudness and level dBTP, LU, and all that&lt;/a&gt;&quot; from 2011 for a
summary of the problem domain.  To better address the need for even
loadness, the TV channels got together several years ago to agree on a
new way to measure loudness in digital files as one step in
standardizing loudness.  From this came the ITU-R standard BS.1770,
&quot;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.itu.int/rec/R-REC-BS.1770/en&quot;&gt;Algorithms to
measure audio programme loudness and true-peak audio level&lt;/a&gt;&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;The ITU-R BS.1770 specification describe an algorithm to measure
loadness in LUFS (Loudness Units, referenced to Full Scale). But
having a way to measure is not enough.  To get the same loudness
across TV channels, one also need to decide which value to standardize
on.  For European TV channels, this was done in the EBU Recommondaton
R128, &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;https://tech.ebu.ch/docs/r/r128.pdf&quot;&gt;Loudness
normalisation and permitted maximum level of audio signals&lt;/a&gt;&quot;, which
specifies a recommended level of -23 LUFS.  In Norway, I have been
told that NRK, TV2, MTG and SBS have decided among themselves to
follow the R128 recommondation for playout from 2016-03-01.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;There are free software available to measure and adjust the loudness
level using the LUFS.  In Debian, I am aware of a library named
&lt;a href=&quot;https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/libebur128&quot;&gt;libebur128&lt;/a&gt;
able to measure the loudness and since yesterday morning a new binary
named &lt;a href=&quot;http://bs1770gain.sourceforge.net&quot;&gt;bs1770gain&lt;/a&gt;
capable of both measuring and adjusting was uploaded and is waiting
for NEW processing.  I plan to maintain the latter in Debian under the
&lt;a href=&quot;https://qa.debian.org/developer.php?email=pkg-multimedia-maintainers%40lists.alioth.debian.org&quot;&gt;Debian
multimedia&lt;/a&gt; umbrella.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;The free software based TV channel I am involved in,
&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.frikanalen.no/&quot;&gt;Frikanalen&lt;/a&gt;, plan to follow the
R128 recommondation ourself as soon as we can adjust the software to
do so, and the bs1770gain tool seem like a good fit for that part of
the puzzle to measure loudness on new video uploaded to Frikanalen.
Personally, I plan to use bs1770gain to adjust the loudness of videos
I upload to Frikanalen on behalf of &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.nuug.no/&quot;&gt;the
NUUG member organisation&lt;/a&gt;.  The program seem to be able to measure
the LUFS value of any media file handled by ffmpeg, but I&#39;ve only
successfully adjusted the LUFS value of WAV files.  I suspect it
should be able to adjust it for all the formats handled by ffmpeg.&lt;/p&gt;
</description>
        </item>
        
        <item>
                <title>Hva gjør at NRK kan distribuere H.264-video uten patentavtale med MPEG LA?</title>
                <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Hva_gj_r_at_NRK_kan_distribuere_H_264_video_uten_patentavtale_med_MPEG_LA_.html</link>
                <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Hva_gj_r_at_NRK_kan_distribuere_H_264_video_uten_patentavtale_med_MPEG_LA_.html</guid>
                <pubDate>Wed, 10 Jun 2015 15:20:00 +0200</pubDate>
                <description>&lt;p&gt;Helt siden jeg i 2012 fikk beskjed fra MPEG LA om at
&lt;a href=&quot;http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/MPEG_LA_mener_NRK_m__ha_avtale_med_dem_for___kringkaste_og_publisere_H_264_video.html&quot;&gt;NRK
trengte patentavtale med dem&lt;/a&gt; hvis de distribuerte H.264-video til
sluttbrukere, har jeg lurt på hva som gjør at NRK ikke har slik
avtale.  For noen dager siden fikk jeg endelig gjort noe med min
undring, og sendte 2015-05-28 følgende epost til info (at) nrk.no med
tittel &quot;Hva gjør at NRK kan distribuere H.264-video uten patentavtale
med MPEG LA?&quot;:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Jeg lurer på en ting rundt NRKs bruk av H.264-video på sine
websider samt distribusjon via RiksTV og kabel-TV.  Har NRK vurdert om
det er behov for en patentavtale med
&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.mpegla.com/&quot;&gt;MPEG LA&lt;/a&gt; slik det står i
programvarelisensene til blant annet Apple Final Cut Studio, Adobe
Premiere Pro, Avid og Apples Final Cut Pro X?&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Hvis dere har vurdert dette, hva var utfallet av en slik vurdering?&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Hvis dere ikke har vurdert dette, har NRK planer om å vurdere behovet
for patentavtale?&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;I følge en artikkel på
&lt;a href=&quot;https://nrkbeta.no/2012/02/01/siste-kutt-for-final-cut/&quot;&gt;NRK
Beta i 2012&lt;/a&gt; har NRK brukt eller testet både Apple Final Cut
Studio, Adobe Premiere Pro, Avid og Apples Final Cut Pro X til bruk
for å redigere video før sending. Alle disse har bruksvilkår
understøttet av opphavsretten som sier at de kun kan brukes til å lage
filmer til personlig og ikke-kommersiell bruk - med mindre en har en
lisensavtale med MPEG LA om bruk av patenter utstedt i USA for H.264.
Se f.eks. &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.avid.com/static/resources/common/documents/corporate/LICENSE.pdf&quot;&gt;bruksvilkårene for Avid&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;http://news.cnet.com/8301-30685_3-20000101-264.html&quot;&gt;Adobe Premiere&lt;/a&gt; og &lt;a href=&quot;http://images.apple.com/legal/sla/docs/finalcutstudio2.pdf&quot;&gt;Apple Final
Cut Studio&lt;/a&gt; og søk etter &quot;MPEG LA&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Dette får meg til å lure på om det er brudd på opphavsretten å bruke
disse verktøyene i strid med bruksvilkårene uten patentavtale med MPEG
LA.  Men NRK bruker jo tilsynelatende disse verktøyene uten patentavtale
med MPEG LA.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;I følge forfatteren av Open Broadcast Encoder finnes det to typer
H.264-relaterte avtaler en kan få med MPEG LA. Det er én for å lage
programvare og utstyr som produserer H.264-video, og en annen for å
kringkaste video som bruker H.264. Dette forteller meg at selv om
produsentene av utstyr og programvare som NRK bruker har en slik avtale
med MPEG LA, så trenges det en egen avtale for å kringkaste video på det
formatet.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;I følge Ryan Rodriguez hos MPEG LA, da jeg spurte ham på epost i
juni 2012, har NRK ikke en slik avtale med MPEG LA. Han sa videre at
NRK trenger en slik avtale hvis NRK tilbyr H.264-kodet video til
sluttbrukere.  Jeg sjekket listen med
&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.mpegla.com/main/programs/AVC/Pages/Licensees.aspx&quot;&gt;organisasjoner
med avtale med MPEG LA&lt;/a&gt; og NRK står fortsatt ikke der.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Jeg lurer dermed på hva som gjør at NRK kan bruke de overnevnte
videoredigeringsverktøyene, som tilsynelatende har krav om avtale med
MPEG LA for å kunne brukes slik NRK bruker dem, til å lage videofiler
for distribusjon uten å ha en avtale med MPEG LA om distribusjon av
H.264-video?  Dette er spesielt interessant å vite for oss andre som
også vurderer å spre H.264-video etter å ha redigert dem med disse mye
brukte videoredigeringsverktøyene.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Samme dag fikk jeg automatisk svar om at min henvendelse hadde fått
saksid 1294699.  Jeg fikk deretter følgende respons fra NRK
2015-06-09:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Hei, beklager lang svartid, men det tok litt tid å finne ut hvem som kunne
svare på dette.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;For selskaper som leverer h.264 til sluttbrukere på nett (f.eks
NRKs nett- tv utgaver som bruker h.264) - og som leverer slike
tjenester uten betaling fra forbrukere – er det heller ikke påkrevd
noen patentavtale.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20100825006629/en/MPEG-LA%E2%80%99s-AVC-License-Charge-Royalties-Internet#.VWb2ws_774Y&quot;&gt;http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20100825006629/en/MPEG-LA%E2%80%99s-AVC-License-Charge-Royalties-Internet#.VWb2ws_774Y&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Med vennlig hilsen
&lt;br&gt;Gunn Helen Berg
&lt;br&gt;Informasjonskonsulent, Publikumsservice&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;NRK
&lt;br&gt;Strategidivisjonen
&lt;Br&gt;Sentralbord: +47 23 04 70 00
&lt;br&gt;Post: NRK Publikumsservice, 8608 Mo i Rana
&lt;br&gt;nrk.no / info (at) nrk.no&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

Da dette ikke helt var svar på det jeg lurte på, sendte jeg samme dag
oppfølgerepost tilbake:

&lt;p&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;
&lt;p&gt;[Gunn Helen Berg]
&lt;br&gt;&gt; Hei, beklager lang svartid, men det tok litt tid å finne ut hvem som
&lt;br&gt;&gt; kunne svare på dette.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Takk for svar.  Men det besvarte ikke helt det jeg spurte om.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&gt; For selskaper som leverer h.264 til sluttbrukere på nett (f.eks NRKs
&lt;br&gt;&gt; nett- tv utgaver som bruker h.264) - og som leverer slike tjenester
&lt;br&gt;&gt; uten betaling fra forbrukere – er det heller ikke påkrevd noen
&lt;br&gt;&gt; patentavtale.
&lt;br&gt;&gt;
&lt;br&gt;&gt; http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20100825006629/en/MPEG-LA%E2%80%99s-AVC-License-Charge-Royalties-Internet#.VWb2ws_774Y&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Spørsmålet er ikke kun om MPEG LA krever patentavtale eller ikke
(hvilket ikke helt besvares av pressemeldingen omtalt over, gitt at
pressemeldingen kom i 2010, to år før MPEG LA ansvarlige for
internasjonal lisensiering egen Ryan Rodriguez fortalte meg på epost
at NRK trenger en lisens.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Det er uklart fra pressemeldingen hva &quot;Internet Broadcast AVC
Video&quot; konkret betyr, men i følge en
&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.mpegla.com/main/programs/avc/Documents/avcweb.pdf&quot;&gt;presentasjon
fra MPEG LA med tema &quot;AVC PAtent Portfoli License Briefing&quot; datert
2015-05-15&lt;/a&gt; gjelder &quot;Internet Broadcast AVC Video&quot; kun kringkasting
på Internet som ikke tilbyr valg av enkeltinnslag (&quot;not
title-by-title&quot;), hvilket jo NRK gjør på sine nettsider.  I tillegg
kringkaster jo NRK H.264-video også utenom Internet (RiksTV, kabel,
satelitt), hvilket helt klart ikke er dekket av vilkårene omtalt i
pressemeldingen.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Spørsmålet mitt er hvordan NRK kan bruke verktøy med bruksvilkår
som krever avtale med MPEG LA for det NRK bruker dem til, når NRK ikke
har avtale med MPEG LA.  Hvis jeg forsto spørsmålet riktig, så mener
NRK at dere ikke trenger avtale med MPEG LA, men uten slik avtale kan
dere vel ikke bruke hverken Apple Final Cut Studio, Adobe Premiere
Pro, Avid eller Apples Final Cut Pro X for å redigere video før
sending?&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Mine konkrete spørsmål var altså:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;ul&gt;

&lt;li&gt;Hvis NRK har vurdert om det er behov for en patentavtale med MPEG LA
   slik det er krav om i programvarelisensene til blant annet Apple
   Final Cut Studio, Adobe Premiere Pro, Avid og Apples Final Cut Pro X,
   hva var utfallet av en slik vurdering? Kan jeg få kopi av vurderingen
   hvis den er gjort skriftlig?&lt;/li&gt;

&lt;li&gt;Hvis NRK ikke har vurdert dette, har NRK planer om å vurdere behovet
   for patentavtale?&lt;/li&gt;

&lt;li&gt;Hva slags saksnummer fikk min henvendelse i NRKs offentlige
   postjournal?  Jeg ser at postjournalen ikke er publisert for den
   aktuelle perioden ennå, så jeg fikk ikke sjekket selv.&lt;/li&gt;

&lt;/ul&gt;
&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Det hjelper å ha funnet rette vedkommende i NRK, for denne gangen
fikk jeg svar tilbake dagen etter (2015-06-10), fra Geir Børdalen i
NRK:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Hei Petter Reinholdtsen&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Jeg har sjekket saken med distribusjonssjef for tv, Arild Hellgren
(som var teknologidirektør da bakkenettet ble satt opp). NRK v/
Hellgren hadde møte med MPEG LA sammen med den europeiske
kringkastingsunionen EBU før bakkenettet for TV ble satt opp
(igangsatt høsten 2007). I dette møtet ble det avklart at NRK/EBU ikke
trengte noen patentavtale for h.264 i forbindelse med oppsett av
bakkenettet eller bruk av MPEG4 h.264 som kompresjonsalgoritme fordi
tjenesten «in full»(nor: helt) var betalt av utsendelseselskapene og
ikke av forbrukerne.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.nrk.no/oppdrag/digitalt-bakkenett-1.3214555&quot;&gt;http://www.nrk.no/oppdrag/digitalt-bakkenett-1.3214555&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Det er også klart slått fast at selskaper som leverer video basert
på MPEG4 h.264 til sluttbrukere på nett, heller ikke påkrevd noen
patentavtale – så lenge de leverer slike tjenester uten betaling fra
sluttbrukere.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20100825006629/en/MPEG-LA%E2%80%99s-AVC-License-Charge-Royalties-Internet#.VWb2ws_774Y&quot;&gt;http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20100825006629/en/MPEG-LA%E2%80%99s-AVC-License-Charge-Royalties-Internet#.VWb2ws_774Y&lt;/a&gt;

&lt;p&gt;“MPEG LA announced today that its AVC Patent Portfolio License will
continue not to charge royalties for Internet Video that is free to
end users (known as “Internet Broadcast AVC Video”) during the entire
life of this License. MPEG LA previously announced it would not charge
royalties for such video through December 31, 2015 (see
&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.mpegla.com/Lists/MPEG%20LA%20News%20List/Attachments/226/n-10-02-02.pdf&quot;&gt;http://www.mpegla.com/Lists/MPEG%20LA%20News%20List/Attachments/226/n-10-02-02.pdf&lt;/a&gt;),
and today’s announcement makes clear that royalties will continue not
to be charged for such video beyond that time. Products and services
other than Internet Broadcast AVC Video continue to be
royalty-bearing.”&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Vi har derfor ikke noe behov for å vurdere noen patentavtale med
MPEG LA.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Understreker for øvrig at NRK ikke er låst til MPEG4 – h.264 som
utsendelsesformat – og at vi har brukt og bruker flere andre
alternativer i våre tjenester. Ulike «devicer» har ofte behov for
forskjellige løsninger – og NRK har forsøkt å levere med best mulig
kvalitet /økonomi /stabilitet avhengig av
plattform. Produksjonsformater i NRK spenner for øvrig over en rekke
forskjellige formater – hvor MPEG4 bare er en av disse. Når NRK kjøper
teknisk utstyr er betaling for kodekstøtte ofte en del av
anskaffelsesprisen for denne maskinvaren (enten dette er spesialiserte
enkodere eller forskjellige typer produksjonsutstyr).&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Vennlig hilsen
&lt;br&gt;Geir Børdalen&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;________________________________________
&lt;br&gt;Geir Børdalen
&lt;br&gt;Investeringsansvarlig NRK / Hovedprosjektleder - Origo
&lt;br&gt;Avdeling for utvikling, innovasjon, investering og eiendom
&lt;br&gt;NRK medietjenester
&lt;br&gt;Sentralbord: +47 23 04 70 00
&lt;br&gt;Post: NRK, AUTV (RBM5), Pb. 8500 Majorstuen, 0340 Oslo
&lt;br&gt;nrk.no
&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Et godt og grundig svar, som var informativt om hvordan NRK tenker
rundt patentavtale med MPEG LA, men heller ikke helt besvarte det jeg
lurte på, så jeg sendte epostoppfølging samme dag.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;
&lt;p&gt;[Geir Børdalen]
&lt;br&gt;&gt; Hei Petter Reinholdtsen&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Hei, og takk for raskt svar.  Er min henvendelse journalført slik
at den dukker opp i NRKs postjournal?&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Svaret ditt var meget nyttig, og jeg forstår ut fra det du skriver
at avklaringen med MPEG LA rundt H.264-distribusjon via bakkenettet
gjelder alle TV-kanaler i Norge.  Hvilke saksnummer fikk dokumenter
som ble opprettet i forbindelse med det omtalte møtet NRK v/Hellgren
og EBU hadde med MPEG LA (dvs. referater, avtaler, etc),
f.eks. dokumentet der formuleringen &quot;in full&quot; som du omtaler
finnes?&lt;p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Men det er et par ting jeg fortsatt ikke forstår.  Det ene er
hvorfor NRKs forståelse av hva &quot;Internet Broadcast AVC Video&quot; dekker
ser ut til å avvike fra det som presenteres i
&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.mpegla.com/main/programs/avc/Documents/avcweb.pdf&quot;&gt;lysark
fra MPEG LA&lt;/a&gt; i mai, der MPEG LA på lysark med overskriften
&quot;AVC/H.264 License Terms Participation Fees&quot; og undertittel &quot;Where
remuneration is from other sources&quot; skriver &quot;Internet Broadcast AVC
Video (not title-by-title, not subscription) – no royalty for life of
the AVC Patent Portfolio License&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Her leser jeg MPEG LA dithen at det kun er kringkasting uten
abonnement via Internet som er dekket at vilkårne omtalt i
pressemeldingen, mens jeg forstår deg dithen at NRK mener NRKs
nettsider som også har enkeltfilmer og innslag (som jeg forstår dekket
av formuleringen &quot;title-by-title&quot;) dekkes av &quot;Internet Broadcast AVC
Video&quot; fra MPEG LA.  Hva baserer dere denne tolkningen på?  Jeg har
ikke sett noe skriftlig fra MPEG LA som støtter NRKs tolkning, og
lurer på om dere har andre kilder enn den pressemeldingen fra 5 år
tilbake, der NRKS forståelse av hva &quot;Internet Broadcast AVC Video&quot;
dekker er beskrevet?&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Det andre er at eposten din ikke nevnte spørsmålet mitt om
bruksvilkårene til videoredigeringsverktøyene som NRK bruker.  Disse
har som tidligere nevnt krav om at de kun skal brukes til private og
ikke-kommersielle formål med mindre en har avtale med MPEG LA, og uten
avtale med MPEG LA kan det jo virke som om NRK bruker verktøyene i
strid med bruksvilkårene.  Hva gjør at disse bruksvilkårene ikke
gjelder for NRK?&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Noen minutter senere får jeg foreløpig siste svar i
føljetongen:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Hei igjen&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Vårt dokumentarkiv har fått en kopi (journalføringsnr kan jeg
dessverre ikke gi deg).&lt;p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&gt; Svaret ditt var meget nyttig, og jeg forstår ut fra det du
&lt;br&gt;&gt; skriver at avklaringen med MPEG LA rundt H.264-distribusjon via
&lt;br&gt;&gt; bakkenettet gjelder alle TV-kanaler i Norge.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Svar: Kan ikke svare for andre enn for NRK/EBU - og for bakkenettet
i Norge er det kun NRK som er et lisensbasert selskap. Kan ikke gi noe
svar på saksnr på dokumenter eller ytterligere informasjon da jeg selv
ikke var del i dette.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&gt; Men det er et par ting jeg fortsatt ikke forstår.  ...&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Svar: Kan ikke gå ytterligere inn i dette fra min side og mitt
fagfelt som er produksjon/publisering og systemstrukturene bak
disse. For øvrig ligger det etter vår formening ingen begrensninger
for NRK i mulighetene til publisering mht til kodek i
produksjonssystemer. Som tidligere skrevet mener vi at NRK ikke
trenger noen avtale med MPEG LA og støtter oss til det vi allerede har
kommunisert i forrige epost.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Mvh
&lt;br&gt;Geir Børdalen&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Det syntes vanskelig å komme videre når NRK ikke ønsker å gå inn i
problemstillingen rundt bruksvilkårene til videoredigeringsverktøyene
NRK bruker, så jeg sendte takk for svarene og avsluttet utvekslingen
så langt:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Tusen takk for rask respons, og oppklarende forklaring om hvordan
NRK tenker rundt MPEG LA.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Jeg vil høre med NRK-arkivet for å se om de kan spore opp de
omtalte dokumentene.  Jeg setter pris på om du kan dele titler, dato
eller annen informasjon som kan gjøre det enklere for arkivet å finne
dem.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Når det gjelder hvordan bruksvilkårene til
videoredigeringsverktøyene skal tolkes, så skal jeg høre med MPEG LA
og produsentene av verktøyene for å forsøke å få klarhet i hva de
mener er rikgig rettstilstand.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Jeg ble litt klokere, men fortsatt er det uklart for meg hva som er
grunnlaget til NRK for å se bort fra bruksvilkår i
videoredigeringsprogramvare som krever MPEG LA-avtale til alt annet
enn privat og ikke-kommersiell bruk.&lt;/p&gt;
</description>
        </item>
        
        <item>
                <title>Hvordan vurderer regjeringen H.264-patentutfordringen?</title>
                <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Hvordan_vurderer_regjeringen_H_264_patentutfordringen_.html</link>
                <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Hvordan_vurderer_regjeringen_H_264_patentutfordringen_.html</guid>
                <pubDate>Sun, 16 Nov 2014 10:30:00 +0100</pubDate>
                <description>&lt;p&gt;For en stund tilbake spurte jeg Fornyingsdepartementet om hvilke
juridiske vurderinger rundt patentproblemstillingen som var gjort da
H.264 ble tatt inn i &lt;a href=&quot;http://standard.difi.no/&quot;&gt;statens
referansekatalog over standarder&lt;/a&gt;.  Stig Hornnes i FAD tipset meg
om følgende som står i oppsumeringen til høringen om
referansekatalogen versjon 2.0, som jeg siden ved hjelp av en
innsynsforespørsel fikk tak i
&lt;a href=&quot;http://wiki.nuug.no/uttalelser/200901-standardkatalog-v2?action=AttachFile&amp;do=get&amp;target=kongelig-resolusjon.pdf&quot;&gt;PDF-utgaven av&lt;/a&gt;
datert 2009-06-03 (saksnummer 200803291, saksbehandler Henrik
Linnestad).&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Der står det følgende om problemstillingen:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;
&lt;strong&gt;4.4 Patentproblematikk&lt;/strong&gt;

&lt;p&gt;NUUG og Opera ser det som særlig viktig at forslagene knyttet til
lyd og video baserer seg på de royalty-frie standardene Vorbis, Theora
og FLAC.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Kommentarene relaterer seg til at enkelte standarder er åpne, men
inneholder tekniske prosedyrer som det i USA (og noen andre land som
Japan) er gitt patentrettigheter til. I vårt tilfelle berører dette
spesielt standardene Mp3 og H.264, selv om Politidirektoratet peker på
at det muligens kan være tilsvarende problematikk også for Theora og
Vorbis.  Dette medfører at det i USA kan kreves royalties for bruk av
tekniske løsninger knyttet til standardene, et krav som også
håndheves. Patenter kan imidlertid bare hevdes i de landene hvor
patentet er gitt, så amerikanske patenter gjelder ikke andre steder
enn USA.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Spesielt for utvikling av fri programvare er patenter
problematisk. GPL, en &quot;grunnleggende&quot; lisens for distribusjon av fri
programvare, avviser at programvare kan distribueres under denne
lisensen hvis det inneholder referanser til patenterte rutiner som
utløser krav om royalties. Det er imidlertid uproblematisk å
distribuere fri programvareløsninger under GPL som benytter de
aktuelle standardene innen eller mellom land som ikke anerkjenner
patentene. Derfor finner vi også flere implementeringer av Mp3 og
H.264 som er fri programvare, lisensiert under GPL.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;I Norge og EU er patentlovgivningen langt mer restriktiv enn i USA,
men det er også her mulig å få patentert metoder for løsning av et
problem som relaterer seg til databehandling. Det er AIF bekjent ikke
relevante patenter i EU eller Norge hva gjelder H.264 og Mp3, men
muligheten for at det finnes patenter uten at det er gjort krav om
royalties eller at det senere vil gis slike patenter kan ikke helt
avvises.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;AIF mener det er et behov for å gi offentlige virksomheter mulighet
til å benytte antatt royaltyfrie åpne standarder som et likeverdig
alternativ eller i tillegg til de markedsledende åpne standardene.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Det ser dermed ikke ut til at de har vurdert patentspørsmålet i
sammenheng med opphavsrettsvilkår slik de er formulert for f.eks.
Apple Final Cut Pro, Adobe Premiere Pro, Avid og Sorenson-verktøyene,
der det kreves brukstillatelse for patenter som ikke er gyldige i
Norge for å bruke disse verktøyene til annet en personlig og ikke
kommersiell aktivitet når det gjelder H.264-video.  Jeg må nok lete
videre etter svar på det spørsmålet.&lt;/p&gt;
</description>
        </item>
        
        <item>
                <title>New lsdvd release version 0.17 is ready</title>
                <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_lsdvd_release_version_0_17_is_ready.html</link>
                <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/New_lsdvd_release_version_0_17_is_ready.html</guid>
                <pubDate>Sat, 4 Oct 2014 08:40:00 +0200</pubDate>
                <description>&lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href=&quot;https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/&quot;&gt;lsdvd project&lt;/a&gt;
got a new set of developers a few weeks ago, after the original
developer decided to step down and pass the project to fresh blood.
This project is now maintained by Petter Reinholdtsen and Steve
Dibb.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;I just wrapped up
&lt;a href=&quot;https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/mailman/message/32896061/&quot;&gt;a
new lsdvd release&lt;/a&gt;, available in git or from
&lt;a href=&quot;https://sourceforge.net/projects/lsdvd/files/lsdvd/&quot;&gt;the
download page&lt;/a&gt;.  This is the changelog dated 2014-10-03 for version
0.17.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;ul&gt;

 &lt;li&gt;Ignore &#39;phantom&#39; audio, subtitle tracks&lt;/li&gt;
 &lt;li&gt;Check for garbage in the program chains, which indicate that a track is
   non-existant, to work around additional copy protection&lt;/li&gt;
 &lt;li&gt;Fix displaying content type for audio tracks, subtitles&lt;/li&gt;
 &lt;li&gt;Fix pallete display of first entry&lt;/li&gt;
 &lt;li&gt;Fix include orders&lt;/li&gt;
 &lt;li&gt;Ignore read errors in titles that would not be displayed anyway&lt;/li&gt;
 &lt;li&gt;Fix the chapter count&lt;/li&gt;
 &lt;li&gt;Make sure the array size and the array limit used when initialising
   the palette size is the same.&lt;/li&gt;
 &lt;li&gt;Fix array printing.&lt;/li&gt;
 &lt;li&gt;Correct subsecond calculations.&lt;/li&gt;
 &lt;li&gt;Add sector information to the output format.&lt;/li&gt;
 &lt;li&gt;Clean up code to be closer to ANSI C and compile without warnings
   with more GCC compiler warnings.&lt;/li&gt;

&lt;/ul&gt;

&lt;p&gt;This change bring together patches for lsdvd in use in various
Linux and Unix distributions, as well as patches submitted to the
project the last nine years.  Please check it out. :)&lt;/p&gt;
</description>
        </item>
        
        <item>
                <title>Suddenly I am the new upstream of the lsdvd command line tool</title>
                <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Suddenly_I_am_the_new_upstream_of_the_lsdvd_command_line_tool.html</link>
                <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Suddenly_I_am_the_new_upstream_of_the_lsdvd_command_line_tool.html</guid>
                <pubDate>Thu, 25 Sep 2014 11:20:00 +0200</pubDate>
                <description>&lt;p&gt;I use the &lt;a href=&quot;https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/&quot;&gt;lsdvd tool&lt;/a&gt;
to handle my fairly large DVD collection.  It is a nice command line
tool to get details about a DVD, like title, tracks, track length,
etc, in XML, Perl or human readable format.  But lsdvd have not seen
any new development since 2006 and had a few irritating bugs affecting
its use with some DVDs.  Upstream seemed to be dead, and in January I
sent a small probe asking for a version control repository for the
project, without any reply.  But I use it regularly and would like to
get &lt;a href=&quot;https://packages.qa.debian.org/lsdvd&quot;&gt;an updated version
into Debian&lt;/a&gt;.  So two weeks ago I tried harder to get in touch with
the project admin, and after getting a reply from him explaining that
he was no longer interested in the project, I asked if I could take
over.  And yesterday, I became project admin.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;I&#39;ve been in touch with a Gentoo developer and the Debian
maintainer interested in joining forces to maintain the upstream
project, and I hope we can get a new release out fairly quickly,
collecting the patches spread around on the internet into on place.
I&#39;ve added the relevant Debian patches to the freshly created git
repository, and expect the Gentoo patches to make it too.  If you got
a DVD collection and care about command line tools, check out
&lt;a href=&quot;https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/git/ci/master/tree/&quot;&gt;the git source&lt;/a&gt; and join
&lt;a href=&quot;https://sourceforge.net/p/lsdvd/mailman/&quot;&gt;the project mailing
list&lt;/a&gt;. :)&lt;/p&gt;
</description>
        </item>
        
        <item>
                <title>Do you need an agreement with MPEG-LA to publish and broadcast H.264 video in Norway?</title>
                <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Do_you_need_an_agreement_with_MPEG_LA_to_publish_and_broadcast_H_264_video_in_Norway_.html</link>
                <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Do_you_need_an_agreement_with_MPEG_LA_to_publish_and_broadcast_H_264_video_in_Norway_.html</guid>
                <pubDate>Mon, 25 Aug 2014 22:10:00 +0200</pubDate>
                <description>&lt;p&gt;Two years later, I am still not sure if it is legal here in Norway
to use or publish a video in H.264 or MPEG4 format edited by the
commercially licensed video editors, without limiting the use to
create &quot;personal&quot; or &quot;non-commercial&quot; videos or get a license
agreement with &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.mpegla.com&quot;&gt;MPEG LA&lt;/a&gt;.  If one
want to publish and broadcast video in a non-personal or commercial
setting, it might be that those tools can not be used, or that video
format can not be used, without breaking their copyright license.  I
am not sure.
&lt;a href=&quot;http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Trenger_en_avtale_med_MPEG_LA_for___publisere_og_kringkaste_H_264_video_.html&quot;&gt;Back
then&lt;/a&gt;, I found that the copyright license terms for Adobe Premiere
and Apple Final Cut Pro both specified that one could not use the
program to produce anything else without a patent license from MPEG
LA.  The issue is not limited to those two products, though.  Other
much used products like those from Avid and Sorenson Media have terms
of use are similar to those from Adobe and Apple.  The complicating
factor making me unsure if those terms have effect in Norway or not is
that the patents in question are not valid in Norway, but copyright
licenses are.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;These are the terms for Avid Artist Suite, according to their
&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.avid.com/US/about-avid/legal-notices/legal-enduserlicense2&quot;&gt;published
end user&lt;/a&gt;
&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.avid.com/static/resources/common/documents/corporate/LICENSE.pdf&quot;&gt;license
text&lt;/a&gt; (converted to lower case text for easier reading):&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;
&lt;p&gt;18.2. MPEG-4. MPEG-4 technology may be included with the
software. MPEG LA, L.L.C. requires this notice: &lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;This product is licensed under the MPEG-4 visual patent portfolio
license for the personal and non-commercial use of a consumer for (i)
encoding video in compliance with the MPEG-4 visual standard (“MPEG-4
video”) and/or (ii) decoding MPEG-4 video that was encoded by a
consumer engaged in a personal and non-commercial activity and/or was
obtained from a video provider licensed by MPEG LA to provide MPEG-4
video.  No license is granted or shall be implied for any other
use. Additional information including that relating to promotional,
internal and commercial uses and licensing may be obtained from MPEG
LA, LLC.  See http://www.mpegla.com. This product is licensed under
the MPEG-4 systems patent portfolio license for encoding in compliance
with the MPEG-4 systems standard, except that an additional license
and payment of royalties are necessary for encoding in connection with
(i) data stored or replicated in physical media which is paid for on a
title by title basis and/or (ii) data which is paid for on a title by
title basis and is transmitted to an end user for permanent storage
and/or use, such additional license may be obtained from MPEG LA,
LLC. See http://www.mpegla.com for additional details.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;18.3. H.264/AVC. H.264/AVC technology may be included with the
software.  MPEG LA, L.L.C. requires this notice:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;This product is licensed under the AVC patent portfolio license for
the personal use of a consumer or other uses in which it does not
receive remuneration to (i) encode video in compliance with the AVC
standard (“AVC video”) and/or (ii) decode AVC video that was encoded
by a consumer engaged in a personal activity and/or was obtained from
a video provider licensed to provide AVC video. No license is granted
or shall be implied for any other use. Additional information may be
obtained from MPEG LA, L.L.C. See http://www.mpegla.com.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Note the requirement that the videos created can only be used for
personal or non-commercial purposes.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;The Sorenson Media software have
&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.sorensonmedia.com/terms/&quot;&gt;similar terms&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;

&lt;p&gt;With respect to a license from Sorenson pertaining to MPEG-4 Video
Decoders and/or Encoders: Any such product is licensed under the
MPEG-4 visual patent portfolio license for the personal and
non-commercial use of a consumer for (i) encoding video in compliance
with the MPEG-4 visual standard (“MPEG-4 video”) and/or (ii) decoding
MPEG-4 video that was encoded by a consumer engaged in a personal and
non-commercial activity and/or was obtained from a video provider
licensed by MPEG LA to provide MPEG-4 video. No license is granted or
shall be implied for any other use. Additional information including
that relating to promotional, internal and commercial uses and
licensing may be obtained from MPEG LA, LLC. See
http://www.mpegla.com.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;With respect to a license from Sorenson pertaining to MPEG-4
Consumer Recorded Data Encoder, MPEG-4 Systems Internet Data Encoder,
MPEG-4 Mobile Data Encoder, and/or MPEG-4 Unique Use Encoder: Any such
product is licensed under the MPEG-4 systems patent portfolio license
for encoding in compliance with the MPEG-4 systems standard, except
that an additional license and payment of royalties are necessary for
encoding in connection with (i) data stored or replicated in physical
media which is paid for on a title by title basis and/or (ii) data
which is paid for on a title by title basis and is transmitted to an
end user for permanent storage and/or use. Such additional license may
be obtained from MPEG LA, LLC. See http://www.mpegla.com for
additional details.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Some free software like
&lt;a href=&quot;https://handbrake.fr/&quot;&gt;Handbrake&lt;/A&gt; and
&lt;a href=&quot;http://ffmpeg.org/&quot;&gt;FFMPEG&lt;/a&gt; uses GPL/LGPL licenses and do
not have any such terms included, so for those, there is no
requirement to limit the use to personal and non-commercial.&lt;/p&gt;
</description>
        </item>
        
        <item>
                <title>Hvordan enkelt laste ned filmer fra NRK med den &quot;nye&quot; løsningen</title>
                <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Hvordan_enkelt_laste_ned_filmer_fra_NRK_med_den__nye__l_sningen.html</link>
                <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Hvordan_enkelt_laste_ned_filmer_fra_NRK_med_den__nye__l_sningen.html</guid>
                <pubDate>Mon, 16 Jun 2014 19:20:00 +0200</pubDate>
                <description>&lt;p&gt;Jeg har fortsatt behov for å kunne laste ned innslag fra NRKs
nettsted av og til for å se senere når jeg ikke er på nett, men
&lt;a href=&quot;http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Hvordan_enkelt_laste_ned_filmer_fra_NRK.html&quot;&gt;min
oppskrift fra 2011&lt;/a&gt; sluttet å fungere da NRK byttet
avspillermetode.  I dag fikk jeg endelig lett etter oppdatert løsning,
og jeg er veldig glad for å fortelle at den enkleste måten å laste ned
innslag er å bruke siste versjon 2014.06.07 av
&lt;a href=&quot;http://rg3.github.io/youtube-dl/&quot;&gt;youtube-dl&lt;/a&gt;.  Støtten i
youtube-dl &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/rg3/youtube-dl/issues/2980&quot;&gt;kom
inn for 23 dager siden&lt;/a&gt; og
&lt;a href=&quot;http://packages.qa.debian.org/y/youtube-dl.html&quot;&gt;versjonen i
Debian&lt;/a&gt; fungerer fint også som backport til Debian Wheezy.  Det er
et lite problem, det håndterer kun URLer med små bokstaver, men hvis
en har en URL med store bokstaver kan en bare gjøre alle store om til
små bokstaver for å få youtube-dl til å laste ned.  Rapporterte
nettopp
&lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/rg3/youtube-dl/issues/2980&quot;&gt;problemet til
utviklerne&lt;/a&gt;, og antar de får fikset det snart.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Dermed er alt klart til å laste ned dokumentarene om
&lt;a href=&quot;http://tv.nrk.no/program/KOID23005014/usas-hemmelige-avlytting&quot;&gt;USAs
hemmelige avlytting&lt;/a&gt; og
&lt;a href=&quot;http://tv.nrk.no/program/KOID23005114/selskapene-bak-usas-avlytting&quot;&gt;Selskapene
bak USAs avlytting&lt;/a&gt;, i tillegg til
&lt;a href=&quot;http://tv.nrk.no/program/KOID20005814/et-moete-med-edward-snowden&quot;&gt;intervjuet
med Edward Snowden gjort av den tyske tv-kanalen ARD&lt;/a&gt;.  Anbefaler
alle å se disse, sammen med
&lt;a href=&quot;http://media.ccc.de/browse/congress/2013/30C3_-_5713_-_en_-_saal_2_-_201312301130_-_to_protect_and_infect_part_2_-_jacob.html&quot;&gt;foredraget
til Jacob Appelbaum på siste CCC-konferanse&lt;/a&gt;, for å forstå mer om
hvordan overvåkningen av borgerne brer om seg.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Takk til gode venner på foreningen NUUGs IRC-kanal
&lt;a href=&quot;irc://irc.freenode.net/%23nuug&quot;&gt;#nuug på irc.freenode.net&lt;/a&gt;
for tipsene som fikk meg i mål&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Oppdatering 2014-06-17&lt;/strong&gt;: Etter at jeg publiserte
denne, ble jeg tipset om bloggposten
&quot;&lt;a href=&quot;http://ingvar.blog.redpill-linpro.com/2012/05/31/downloading-hd-content-from-tv-nrk-no/&quot;&gt;Downloading
HD content from tv.nrk.no&lt;/a&gt;&quot; av Ingvar Hagelund, som har alternativ
implementasjon og tips for å lage mkv-fil med undertekstene inkludert.
Kanskje den passer bedre for deg?  I tillegg ble feilen i youtube-dl
ble fikset litt senere ut på dagen i går, samt at youtube-dl fikk
støtte for å laste ned undertitler.  Takk til Anders Einar Hilden for
god innsats og youtube-dl-utviklerne for rask respons.&lt;/p&gt;
</description>
        </item>
        
        <item>
                <title>Half the Coverity issues in Gnash fixed in the next release</title>
                <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Half_the_Coverity_issues_in_Gnash_fixed_in_the_next_release.html</link>
                <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Half_the_Coverity_issues_in_Gnash_fixed_in_the_next_release.html</guid>
                <pubDate>Tue, 29 Apr 2014 14:20:00 +0200</pubDate>
                <description>&lt;p&gt;I&#39;ve been following &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.getgnash.org/&quot;&gt;the Gnash
project&lt;/a&gt; for quite a while now.  It is a free software
implementation of Adobe Flash, both a standalone player and a browser
plugin.  Gnash implement support for the AVM1 format (and not the
newer AVM2 format - see
&lt;a href=&quot;http://lightspark.github.io/&quot;&gt;Lightspark&lt;/a&gt; for that one),
allowing several flash based sites to work.  Thanks to the friendly
developers at Youtube, it also work with Youtube videos, because the
Javascript code at Youtube detect Gnash and serve a AVM1 player to
those users. :) Would be great if someone found time to implement AVM2
support, but it has not happened yet.  If you install both Lightspark
and Gnash, Lightspark will invoke Gnash if it find a AVM1 flash file,
so you can get both handled as free software.  Unfortunately,
Lightspark so far only implement a small subset of AVM2, and many
sites do not work yet.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;A few months ago, I started looking at
&lt;a href=&quot;http://scan.coverity.com/&quot;&gt;Coverity&lt;/a&gt;, the static source
checker used to find heaps and heaps of bugs in free software (thanks
to the donation of a scanning service to free software projects by the
company developing this non-free code checker), and Gnash was one of
the projects I decided to check out.  Coverity is able to find lock
errors, memory errors, dead code and more.  A few days ago they even
extended it to also be able to find the heartbleed bug in OpenSSL.
There are heaps of checks being done on the instrumented code, and the
amount of bogus warnings is quite low compared to the other static
code checkers I have tested over the years.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Since a few weeks ago, I&#39;ve been working with the other Gnash
developers squashing bugs discovered by Coverity.  I was quite happy
today when I checked the current status and saw that of the 777 issues
detected so far, 374 are marked as fixed.  This make me confident that
the next Gnash release will be more stable and more dependable than
the previous one.  Most of the reported issues were and are in the
test suite, but it also found a few in the rest of the code.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;If you want to help out, you find us on
&lt;a href=&quot;https://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/gnash-dev&quot;&gt;the
gnash-dev mailing list&lt;/a&gt; and on
&lt;a href=&quot;irc://irc.freenode.net/#gnash&quot;&gt;the #gnash channel on
irc.freenode.net IRC server&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;
</description>
        </item>
        
        <item>
                <title>Video DVD reader library / python-dvdvideo - nice free software</title>
                <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Video_DVD_reader_library___python_dvdvideo___nice_free_software.html</link>
                <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Video_DVD_reader_library___python_dvdvideo___nice_free_software.html</guid>
                <pubDate>Fri, 21 Mar 2014 15:25:00 +0100</pubDate>
                <description>&lt;p&gt;Keeping your DVD collection safe from scratches and curious
children fingers while still having it available when you want to see a
movie is not straight forward.  My preferred method at the moment is
to store a full copy of the ISO on a hard drive, and use VLC, Popcorn
Hour or other useful players to view the resulting file.  This way the
subtitles and bonus material are still available and using the ISO is
just like inserting the original DVD record in the DVD player.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Earlier I used dd for taking security copies, but it do not handle
DVDs giving read errors (which are quite a few of them).  I&#39;ve also
tried using
&lt;a href=&quot;http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Ripping_problematic_DVDs_using_dvdbackup_and_genisoimage.html&quot;&gt;dvdbackup
and genisoimage&lt;/a&gt;, but these days I use the marvellous python library
and program
&lt;a href=&quot;http://bblank.thinkmo.de/blog/new-software-python-dvdvideo&quot;&gt;python-dvdvideo&lt;/a&gt;
written by Bastian Blank.  It is
&lt;a href=&quot;http://packages.qa.debian.org/p/python-dvdvideo.html&quot;&gt;in Debian
already&lt;/a&gt; and the binary package name is python3-dvdvideo. Instead
of trying to read every block from the DVD, it parses the file
structure and figure out which block on the DVD is actually in used,
and only read those blocks from the DVD.  This work surprisingly well,
and I have been able to almost backup my entire DVD collection using
this method.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;So far, python-dvdvideo have failed on between 10 and
20 DVDs, which is a small fraction of my collection.  The most common
problem is
&lt;a href=&quot;https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=720831&quot;&gt;DVDs
using UTF-16 instead of UTF-8 characters&lt;/a&gt;, which according to
Bastian is against the DVD specification (and seem to cause some
players to fail too).  A rarer problem is what seem to be inconsistent
DVD structures, as the python library
&lt;a href=&quot;https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=723079&quot;&gt;claim
there is a overlap between objects&lt;/a&gt;.  An equally rare problem claim
&lt;a href=&quot;https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=741878&quot;&gt;some
value is out of range&lt;/a&gt;.  No idea what is going on there.  I wish I
knew enough about the DVD format to fix these, to ensure my movie
collection will stay with me in the future.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;So, if you need to keep your DVDs safe, back them up using
python-dvdvideo. :)&lt;/p&gt;
</description>
        </item>
        
        <item>
                <title>IETF activity to standardise video codec</title>
                <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/IETF_activity_to_standardise_video_codec.html</link>
                <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/IETF_activity_to_standardise_video_codec.html</guid>
                <pubDate>Sat, 15 Sep 2012 20:00:00 +0200</pubDate>
                <description>&lt;p&gt;After the
&lt;a href=&quot;http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/IETF_standardize_its_first_multimedia_codec__Opus.html&quot;&gt;Opus
codec made&lt;/a&gt; it into &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.ietf.org/&quot;&gt;IETF&lt;/a&gt; as
&lt;a href=&quot;http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc6716&quot;&gt;RFC 6716&lt;/a&gt;, I had a look
to see if there is any activity in IETF to standardise a video codec
too, and I was happy to discover that there is some activity in this
area.  A non-&quot;working group&quot; mailing list
&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/video-codec&quot;&gt;video-codec&lt;/a&gt;
was
&lt;a href=&quot;http://ietf.10.n7.nabble.com/New-Non-WG-Mailing-List-video-codec-Video-codec-BoF-discussion-list-td119548.html&quot;&gt;created 2012-08-20&lt;/a&gt;.  It is intended to discuss the topic and if a
formal working group should be formed.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;I look forward to see how this plays out.  There is already
&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/video-codec/current/msg00003.html&quot;&gt;an
email from someone&lt;/a&gt; in the MPEG group at ISO asking people to
participate in the ISO group.  Given how ISO failed with OOXML and given
that it so far (as far as I can remember) only have produced
multimedia formats requiring royalty payments, I suspect
joining the ISO group would be a complete waste of time, but I am not
involved in any codec work and my opinion will not matter much.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;If one of my readers is involved with codec work, I hope she will
join this work to standardise a royalty free video codec within
IETF.&lt;/p&gt;
</description>
        </item>
        
        <item>
                <title>IETF standardize its first multimedia codec: Opus</title>
                <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/IETF_standardize_its_first_multimedia_codec__Opus.html</link>
                <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/IETF_standardize_its_first_multimedia_codec__Opus.html</guid>
                <pubDate>Wed, 12 Sep 2012 13:50:00 +0200</pubDate>
                <description>&lt;p&gt;Yesterday, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.ietf.org/&quot;&gt;IETF&lt;/a&gt; announced the
publication of of
&lt;a href=&quot;http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc6716&quot;&gt;RFC 6716, the Definition
of the Opus Audio Codec&lt;/a&gt;, a low latency, variable bandwidth, codec
intended for both VoIP, film and music.  This is the first time, as
far as I know, that IETF have standardized a multimedia codec.  In
&lt;a href=&quot;http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3533&quot;&gt;RFC 3533&lt;/a&gt;, IETF
standardized the OGG container format, and it has proven to be a great
royalty free container for audio, video and movies.  I hope IETF will
continue to standardize more royalty free codeces, after ISO and MPEG
have proven incapable of securing everyone equal rights to publish
multimedia content on the Internet.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;IETF require two interoperating independent implementations to
ratify a standard, and have so far ensured to only standardize royalty
free specifications.  Both are key factors to allow everyone (rich and
poor), to compete on equal terms on the Internet.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Visit the &lt;a href=&quot;http://opus-codec.org/&quot;&gt;Opus project page&lt;/a&gt; if
you want to learn more about the solution.&lt;/p&gt;
</description>
        </item>
        
        <item>
                <title>Git repository for song book for Computer Scientists</title>
                <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Git_repository_for_song_book_for_Computer_Scientists.html</link>
                <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Git_repository_for_song_book_for_Computer_Scientists.html</guid>
                <pubDate>Fri, 7 Sep 2012 13:50:00 +0200</pubDate>
                <description>&lt;p&gt;As I
&lt;a href=&quot;http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Song_book_for_Computer_Scientists.html&quot;&gt;mentioned
this summer&lt;/a&gt;, I have created a Computer Science song book a few
years ago, and today I finally found time to create a public
&lt;a href=&quot;https://gitorious.org/pere-cs-songbook/pere-cs-songbook&quot;&gt;Gitorious
repository for the project&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;If you want to help out, please clone the source and submit patches
to the HTML version.  To generate the PDF and PostScript version,
please use prince XML, or let me know about a useful free software
processor capable of creating a good looking PDF from the HTML.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Want to sing?  You can still find the song book in HTML, PDF and
PostScript formats at
&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.hungry.com/~pere/cs-songbook/&quot;&gt;Petter&#39;s Computer
Science Songbook&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;
</description>
        </item>
        
        <item>
                <title>Mer oppfølging fra MPEG-LA om avtale med dem for å kringkaste og publisere H.264-video</title>
                <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Mer_oppf_lging_fra_MPEG_LA_om_avtale_med_dem_for___kringkaste_og_publisere_H_264_video.html</link>
                <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Mer_oppf_lging_fra_MPEG_LA_om_avtale_med_dem_for___kringkaste_og_publisere_H_264_video.html</guid>
                <pubDate>Thu, 5 Jul 2012 23:50:00 +0200</pubDate>
                <description>&lt;p&gt;I føljetongen om H.264
&lt;a href=&quot;http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/MPEG_LA_mener_NRK_m__ha_avtale_med_dem_for___kringkaste_og_publisere_H_264_video.html&quot;&gt;forlot
jeg leserne i undring&lt;/a&gt; om hvor pakken fra MPEG-LA tok veien, og om
hvilke selskaper i Norge som har avtale med MPEG-LA.  Da Ryan hos
MPEG-LA dro på ferie sendte jeg min melding videre til hans kollega,
og dagen etter fikk jeg følgende svar derfra:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Date: Fri, 29 Jun 2012 18:32:34 +0000
&lt;br&gt;From: Sidney Wolf &amp;lt;SWolf (at) mpegla.com&amp;gt;
&lt;br&gt;To: Petter Reinholdtsen &amp;lt;pere (at) hungry.com&amp;gt;
&lt;br&gt;Cc: Ryan Rodriguez &amp;lt;RRodriguez (at) mpegla.com&amp;gt;
&lt;br&gt;Subject: RE: Do NRK have a license agreement with MPEG-LA?&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Dear Mr. Reinholdtsen,&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Thank you for your message. As you know, Ryan is currently our of the
office, so it will be my pleasure to assist you.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Per your request, attached please find an electronic copy of the
AVC Patent Portfolio License. Please note that the electronic copy of
the License is provided as a convenience and for informational
purposes only. When concluding the Licenses, only the hard copies
provided by MPEG LA may be used.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;To your question, MPEG LA lists our Licensees on our website
according to each program.  The lists are in alphabetical order, so it
is very easy to search.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;I hope that this was helpful. If we can be of additional
assistance, please let me know.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Kind regards,&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Sidney A. Wolf
&lt;br&gt;Manager, Global Licensing
&lt;br&gt;MPEG LA&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Selv om et epostvedlegg er nyttig for mottakeren, så håpet jeg å få
et dokument jeg kunne dele med alle leserne av bloggen min, og ikke et
som må deles på individuell basis.  Opphavsretten krever godkjenning
fra rettighetsinnehaver før en kan gjøre slikt, så dermed fulgte jeg
opp med et spørsmål om dette var greit.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Date: Wed, 4 Jul 2012 20:25:06 +0200
&lt;br&gt;From: Petter Reinholdtsen &amp;lt;pere (at) hungry.com&amp;gt;
&lt;br&gt;To: Sidney Wolf &amp;lt;SWolf (at) mpegla.com&amp;gt;
&lt;br&gt;Cc: Ryan Rodriguez &amp;lt;RRodriguez (at) mpegla.com&amp;gt;
&lt;br&gt;Subject: Re: Do NRK have a license agreement with MPEG-LA?&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Thank you for your reply.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;[Sidney Wolf]
&lt;br&gt;&amp;gt; Per your request, attached please find an electronic copy of the AVC
&lt;br&gt;&amp;gt; Patent Portfolio License. Please note that the electronic copy of
&lt;br&gt;&amp;gt; the License is provided as a convenience and for informational
&lt;br&gt;&amp;gt; purposes only. When concluding the Licenses, only the hard copies
&lt;br&gt;&amp;gt; provided by MPEG LA may be used.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;This is useful for me to learn, but the reason I asked for the
Internet address of the licensing document was to ensure I could
publish a link to it when I discuss the topic of H.264 licensing here
in Norway, and allow others to verify my observations.  I can not do
the same with an email attachment.  Thus I would like to ask you if it
is OK with MPEG LA that I publish this document on the Internet for
others to read?&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; To your question, MPEG LA lists our Licensees on our website
&lt;br&gt;&amp;gt; according to each program. The lists are in alphabetical order, so
&lt;br&gt;&amp;gt; it is very easy to search.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;I am afraid this do not help me locate Norwegian companies in the
list of Licensees.  I do not know the name of all companies and
organisations in Norway, and thus do not know how to locate the
Norwegian ones on that list.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; I hope that this was helpful. If we can be of additional assistance,
&lt;br&gt;&amp;gt; please let me know.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Absoutely helpful to learn more about how MPEG LA handle licensing.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;--
&lt;br&gt;Happy hacking
&lt;br&gt;Petter Reinholdtsen&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Jeg håpet også at det skulle være mulig å få vite hvilke av de
mange hundre som har avtale med MPEG-LA om bruk av H.264 som holdt til
i Norge.  Begge mine håp falt i grus med svaret fra MPEG-LA.

&lt;p&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Date: Thu, 5 Jul 2012 17:42:39 +0000
&lt;br&gt;From: Sidney Wolf &amp;lt;SWolf (at) mpegla.com&amp;gt;
&lt;br&gt;To: &#39;Petter Reinholdtsen&#39; &amp;lt;pere (at) hungry.com&amp;gt;
&lt;br&gt;Cc: Ryan Rodriguez &amp;lt;RRodriguez (at) mpegla.com&amp;gt;
&lt;br&gt;Subject: RE: Do NRK have a license agreement with MPEG-LA?&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Dear Mr. Reinholdtsen,&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Thank you for your reply.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;We appreciate the additional explanation you have provided and for
asking our permission to publish the electronic copy of the License in
advance of doing so.  Typically, MPEG LA prefers to distribute the
electronic copies of our Licenses to interested parties. Therefore,
please feel free to send interested parties to the AVC portion of our
website, http://www.mpegla.com/main/programs/AVC/Pages/Intro.aspx for
their further reference.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;As previously mentioned, MPEG LA maintains a list of Licensees in good
standing on our website according to each program. Due to the large
volume of Licensees, it would be administratively impractical to
provide this level of detail to interested parties.  Therefore, I am
afraid we are not in a position to assist you with your request.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Kind regards,&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Sidney A. Wolf
&lt;br&gt;Manager, Global Licensing
&lt;br&gt;MPEG LA&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Men takket være epostvedlegget kunne jeg søke på Google etter
setningen &quot;WHEREAS, a video standard commonly referred to as AVC has
been defined and is referred to in this Agreement as the “AVC
Standard” (as more fully defined herein below)&quot; som finnes i avtalen,
og lokalisere en kopi fra 2007 av
&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1342960/000119312509050004/dex1024.htm&quot;&gt;lisensavtalen
mellom MPEG-LA og DivX, Inc.&lt;/a&gt;, slik at mine lesere kan se hvordan
avtalen så ut da.  Jeg har ikke sammenlignet tekstene for å se om noe
har endret seg siden den tid, men satser på at teksten er representativ.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Jeg aner fortsatt ikke hvor FedEx tok veien med pakken fra
MPEG-LA.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Update 2012-07-06: Jeg er visst ikke den første som forsøker å få
klarhet i problemstillinger rundt H.264, og kom nettopp over en veldig
interessant bloggpost fra 2010 hos LibreVideo med tittelen
&quot;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.librevideo.org/blog/2010/06/14/mpeg-la-answers-some-questions-about-avch-264-licensing/&quot;&gt;MPEG-LA
answers some questions about AVC/H.264 licensing&lt;/a&gt;.  Anbefales!&lt;/p&gt;
</description>
        </item>
        
        <item>
                <title>Departementenes servicesenter har ingen avtale om bruk av H.264 med MPEG-LA</title>
                <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Departementenes_servicesenter_har_ingen_avtale_om_bruk_av_H_264_med_MPEG_LA.html</link>
                <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Departementenes_servicesenter_har_ingen_avtale_om_bruk_av_H_264_med_MPEG_LA.html</guid>
                <pubDate>Fri, 29 Jun 2012 09:40:00 +0200</pubDate>
                <description>&lt;p&gt;Da fikk jeg nettopp svar fra
&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.dss.dep.no/&quot;&gt;Departementenes servicesenter&lt;/a&gt;
(DSS) på
&lt;a href=&quot;http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Trenger_en_avtale_med_MPEG_LA_for___publisere_og_kringkaste_H_264_video_.html&quot;&gt;mitt
spørsmål om avtale rundt bruk av H.264&lt;/a&gt;.  De har ingen avtale med
MPEG LA eller dets representanter.  Her er svaret.

&lt;p&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Date: Fri, 29 Jun 2012 07:04:42 +0000
&lt;br&gt;From: Nielsen Mette Haga &amp;lt;Mette-Haga.Nielsen (at) dss.dep.no&amp;gt;
&lt;br&gt;To: Petter Reinholdtsen &amp;lt;petter.reinholdtsen (at) ...&amp;gt;
&lt;br&gt;CC: Postmottak &amp;lt;Postmottak (at) dss.dep.no&amp;gt;
&lt;br&gt;Subject: SV: Innsynsbegjæring om MPEG/H.264-relaterte avtaler&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;DSS har ikke inngått noen egen lisensavtale med MPEG-LA eller noen som
representerer MPEG-LA i Norge. Videoløsningen på regjeringen.no er
levert av Smartcom:tv. Lisensforholdet rundt H.264 er ikke omtalt i
vår avtale med Smartcom.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Vennlig hilsen&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Mette Haga Nielsen
&lt;br&gt;Fung. seksjonssjef&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Departementenes servicesenter&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Informasjonsforvaltning

&lt;p&gt;Mobil 93 09 83 51
&lt;br&gt;E-post mette-haga.nielsen (at) dss.dep.no&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Hvis den norske regjeringen representert ved DSS ikke har slik
avtale, så kan en kanskje konkludere med at det ikke trengs?  Jeg er
ikke trygg på at det er god juridisk grunn å stå på, men det er i det
minste interessant å vite at hverken NRK eller DSS har funnet det
nødvendig å ha avtale om bruk av H.264.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Det forklarer ikke hvordan de kan ignorere bruksvilkårene knyttet
til bruk av opphavsrettsbeskyttet materiale de bruker til
videoproduksjon, med mindre slike vilkår kan ignoreres av selskaper og
privatpersoner i Norge.  Har de lov til å bryte vilkårene, eller har
de brutt dem og så langt sluppet unna med det?  Jeg aner ikke.&lt;/p&gt;
</description>
        </item>
        
        <item>
                <title>MPEG-LA mener NRK må ha avtale med dem for å kringkaste og publisere H.264-video</title>
                <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/MPEG_LA_mener_NRK_m__ha_avtale_med_dem_for___kringkaste_og_publisere_H_264_video.html</link>
                <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/MPEG_LA_mener_NRK_m__ha_avtale_med_dem_for___kringkaste_og_publisere_H_264_video.html</guid>
                <pubDate>Thu, 28 Jun 2012 20:00:00 +0200</pubDate>
                <description>&lt;p&gt;Etter at NRK
&lt;a href=&quot;http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/NRK_nekter___finne_og_utlevere_eventuell_avtale_med_MPEG_LA.html&quot;&gt;nektet
å spore opp eventuell avtale med MPEG-LA&lt;/a&gt; eller andre om bruk av
MPEG/H.264-video etter at jeg &lt;a
href=&quot;http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Trenger_en_avtale_med_MPEG_LA_for___publisere_og_kringkaste_H_264_video_.html&quot;&gt;ba
om innsyn i slike avtaler&lt;/a&gt;, tenkte jeg at i stedet for å forsøke å
få NRK til å finne en slik avtale, så burde det være like enkelt å
spørre MPEG-LA om de hadde avtale med NRK.  Spørsmålet ble sendt før
jeg fikk tips fra Kieran Kunhya om hvor listen over lisensinnehavere
&quot;in Good Standing&quot; befant seg.  MPEG-LA svarte meg i dag, og kan
fortelle at NRK ikke har noen avtale med dem, så da er i det minste det
slått fast.  Ikke overraskende mener MPEG-LA at det trengs en avtale
med MPEG-LA for å streame H.264, men deres rammer er jo
rettstilstanden i USA og ikke Norge.  Jeg tar dermed den delen av
svaret med en klype salt.  Jeg er dermed fortsatt ikke klok på om det
trengs en avtale, og hvis det trengs en avtale her i Norge, heller
ikke sikker på om NRK har en avtale med noen andre enn MPEG-LA som
gjør at de ikke trenger avtale direkte med MPEG-LA.  Jeg håper NRKs
jurister har vurdert dette, og at det er mulig å få tilgang til
vurderingen uansett om de trenger en avtale eller ikke.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Her er epostutvekslingen med MPEG-LA så langt.  Håper ikke
utvekslingen fører til NRK plutselig får en litt uventet pakke fra
MPEG-LA.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Date: Mon, 25 Jun 2012 15:29:37 +0200
&lt;br&gt;From: Petter Reinholdtsen &amp;lt;pere (at) hungry.com&amp;gt;
&lt;br&gt;To: licensing-web (at) mpegla.com
&lt;br&gt;Subject: Do NRK have a license agreement with MPEG-LA?&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Hi.  I have a small question for you, that I hope it is OK that I
ask.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Is there any license agreements between MPEG-LA and NRK, &amp;lt;URL:
&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.nrk.no/&quot;&gt;http://www.nrk.no/&lt;/a&gt; &amp;gt;, the
Norwegian national broadcasting cooperation?  I am not sure if they
need one, and am just curious if such agreeement exist.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;The postal address is&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;
  NRK
  &lt;br&gt;Postbox 8500, Majorstuen
  &lt;br&gt;0340 Oslo
  &lt;br&gt;Norway
&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;if it make it easier for you to locate such agreement.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Can you tell me how many entities in Norway have an agreement with
MPEG-LA, and the name of these entities?&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;--
&lt;br&gt;Happy hacking
&lt;br&gt;Petter Reinholdtsen
&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;I dag, to dager senere, fikk jeg følgende svar:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Date: Thu, 28 Jun 2012 14:11:17 +0000
&lt;br&gt;From: Ryan Rodriguez &amp;lt;RRodriguez (at) mpegla.com&gt;
&lt;br&gt;To: Petter Reinholdtsen &amp;lt;pere (at) hungry.com&gt;
&lt;br&gt;CC: MD Administration &amp;lt;MDAdministration (at) mpegla.com&gt;
&lt;br&gt;Subject: RE: Do NRK have a license agreement with MPEG-LA?&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Dear Mr. Reinholdtsen,&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Thank you for your message and for your interest in MPEG LA. We
appreciate hearing from you and I will be happy to assist you.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;To begin, I will assume that you are referring to AVC/H.264
technology in your message below, as this technology is commonly used
in the transmission of video content.  In that case, please allow me
to briefly summarize the coverage provided by our AVC Patent Portfolio
License.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;P&gt;Our AVC License provides coverage for end products and video
services that make use of AVC/H.264 technology.  Accordingly, the
party offering such end products and video to End Users concludes the
AVC License and is responsible for paying the applicable royalties
associated with the end products/video they offer.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;While the Norwegian Broadcast Corporation (NRK) is not currently a
Licensee to MPEG LA&#39;s AVC License (or any other Portfolio License
offered by MPEG LA), if NRK offers AVC Video to End Users for
remuneration (for example, Title-by-Title, Subscription, Free
Television, or Internet Broadcast AVC Video), then NRK will need to
conclude the AVC License and may be responsible for paying applicable
royalties associated with the AVC Video it distributes.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Today I will send you a FedEx package containing a copy of our AVC
License for your review.  You should receive the License document
within the next few days.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Meanwhile, MPEG LA currently has several Norwegian Licensees that
can be found under the &quot;Licensees&quot; header within the respective
portion of our website.  For example, you may find our list of
Licensees in Good Standing to our AVC License in the AVC portion of
our website,
&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.mpegla.com/main/programs/AVC/Pages/Licensees.aspx&quot;&gt;http://www.mpegla.com/main/programs/AVC/Pages/Licensees.aspx&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;I hope the above information is helpful.  If you have additional
questions or need further assistance with the AVC License, please feel
free to contact me directly.  I look forward to hearing from you again
soon.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Best regards,&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Ryan&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Ryan M. Rodriguez
&lt;br&gt;Licensing Associate
&lt;br&gt;MPEG LA
&lt;br&gt;5425 Wisconsin Avenue
&lt;br&gt;Suite 801
&lt;br&gt;Chevy Chase, MD 20815
&lt;br&gt;U.S.A.
&lt;br&gt;Phone:  +1 (301) 986-6660 x211
&lt;br&gt;Fax:    +1 (301) 986-8575
&lt;br&gt;Email: rrodriguez (at) mpegla.com&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Meldingen om utsendt FedEx-pakke var så merkelig at jeg
øyeblikkelig sendte svar tilbake og spurte hva i alle dager han mente,
da han jo ikke hadde fått noen postadresse som nådde meg.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Date: Thu, 28 Jun 2012 16:36:15 +0200
&lt;br&gt;From: Petter Reinholdtsen &amp;lt;pere (at) hungry.com&amp;gt;
&lt;br&gt;To: Ryan Rodriguez &amp;lt;RRodriguez (at) mpegla.com&amp;gt;
&lt;br&gt;Cc: MD Administration &amp;lt;MDAdministration (at) mpegla.com&amp;gt;
&lt;br&gt;Subject: Re: Do NRK have a license agreement with MPEG-LA?&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;[Ryan Rodriguez]
&lt;br&gt;&amp;gt; Dear Mr. Reinholdtsen,&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Thank you for your quick reply.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; Today I will send you a FedEx package containing a copy of our AVC
&lt;br&gt;&amp;gt; License for your review.  You should receive the License document
&lt;br&gt;&amp;gt; within the next few days.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;The part about sending a FedEx package confused me, though.  I did not
&lt;br&gt;give you my address, nor am I associated with NRK in any way, so I hope
&lt;br&gt;you did not try to send me a package using the address of NRK.  If you
&lt;br&gt;would send me the Internet address of to the document, it would be more
&lt;br&gt;useful to me to be able to download it as an electronic document.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; Meanwhile, MPEG LA currently has several Norwegian Licensees that can
&lt;br&gt;&amp;gt; be found under the &quot;Licensees&quot; header within the respective portion
&lt;br&gt;&amp;gt; of our website.  For example, you may find our list of Licensees in
&lt;br&gt;&amp;gt; Good Standing to our AVC License in the AVC portion of our website,
&lt;br&gt;&amp;gt; http://www.mpegla.com/main/programs/AVC/Pages/Licensees.aspx&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;How can I recognize the Norwegian licensees?&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;--
&lt;br&gt;Happy hacking
&lt;br&gt;Petter Reinholdtsen&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Selv om jeg svarte kun noen minutter etter at jeg fikk eposten fra
MPEG-LA, fikk jeg eposten under som automatisk var beskjed på min
siste epost.  Får håpe noen likevel følger opp &quot;FedEx-pakken&quot;.  For å
øke sjansen for at noen revurderer utsending av pakke uten mottaker,
videresendte jeg min epost til swolf (at) mpegla.com, så får vi se.
Har ikke hørt noe mer 3 timer senere, så jeg mistenker at ingen leste
min epost tidsnok.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Date: Thu, 28 Jun 2012 14:36:20 +0000
&lt;br&gt;From: Ryan Rodriguez &amp;lt;RRodriguez (at) mpegla.com&amp;gt;
&lt;br&gt;To: Petter Reinholdtsen &amp;lt;pere (at) hungry.com&amp;gt;
&lt;br&gt;Subject: Automatic reply: Do NRK have a license agreement with MPEG-LA?&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Thank you for your message.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;I will be out of the office until Thursday, July 5 and will respond
to all messages upon my return.  If this is a matter that requires
immediate attention, please contact Sidney Wolf (swolf (at)
mpegla.com)&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Best regards,&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Ryan&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Ryan M. Rodriguez
&lt;br&gt;Licensing Associate
&lt;br&gt;MPEG LA&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Litt klokere, men fortsatt ikke klok på mitt opprinnelige spørsmål,
som er om en trenger avtale med MPEG-LA for å publisere eller
kringkaste H.264-video i Norge.&lt;/p&gt;
</description>
        </item>
        
        <item>
                <title>NRK nekter å finne og utlevere eventuell avtale med MPEG-LA</title>
                <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/NRK_nekter___finne_og_utlevere_eventuell_avtale_med_MPEG_LA.html</link>
                <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/NRK_nekter___finne_og_utlevere_eventuell_avtale_med_MPEG_LA.html</guid>
                <pubDate>Mon, 25 Jun 2012 15:10:00 +0200</pubDate>
                <description>&lt;p&gt;Jeg fikk nettopp svar fra NRK på
&lt;a href=&quot;http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Trenger_en_avtale_med_MPEG_LA_for___publisere_og_kringkaste_H_264_video_.html&quot;&gt;min
forespørsel om kopi av avtale&lt;/a&gt; med MPEG-LA eller andre om bruk av
MPEG og/eller H.264.  Svaret har fått saksreferanse 2011/371 (mon tro
hva slags sak fra 2011 dette er?) hos NRK og lyder som følger:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Svar på innsynsbegjæring i MPEG / H.264-relaterte
avtaler&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Viser til innsynsbegjæring av 19. juni 2012. Kravet om innsyn
gjelder avtale som gjør at NRK «ikke er begrenset av de generelle
bruksvilkårene som gjelder for utstyr som bruker MPEG og/eller
H.264».&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;I henhold til offentleglova § 28 annet ledd må innsynskravet gjelde
en bestemt sak eller i rimelig utstrekning saker av en bestemt
sak. Det er på det rene at det aktuelle innsynskravet ikke gjelder en
bestemt sak. Spørsmålet som reiser seg er om identifiseringsgraden er
tilstrekkelig. I Justisdepartementets «Rettleiar til offentleglova»
står følgende:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;«Kravet om at innsynskravet må gjelde ei bestemt sak er til hinder
for at eit innsynskrav kan gjelde alle saker av ein bestemt art, utan
at den enkelte saka blir identifisert.  Ein kan med andre ord i
utgangspunktet ikkje krevje innsyn i til dømes alle saker om
utsleppsløyve hos Statens forureiningstilsyn frå dei siste tre åra,
med mindre ein identifiserer kvar enkelt sak, til dømes med tilvising
til dato, partar eller liknande.»&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Vedrørende denne begrensningen har Justisdepartementet uttalt
følgende (Lovavdelingens uttalelser JDLOV-2010-3295):&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;«Bakgrunnen for avgrensinga av kva innsynskravet kan gjelde,
er fyrst og fremst at meir generelle innsynskrav, utan noka form for
identifikasjon av kva ein eigentleg ynskjer, ville vere svært
vanskelege å handsame for forvaltninga.»&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;I samme sak uttaler Lovavdelingen følgende:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;«Det følgjer vidare av offentleglova § 28 andre ledd at det `i
rimeleg utstrekning&#39; kan krevjast innsyn i `saker av ein bestemt
art&#39;. Vilkåret om at eit innsynskrav berre `i rimeleg utstrekning&#39; kan
gjelde saker av ein bestemt art, er i hovudsak knytt til kor
arbeidskrevjande det vil vere å finne fram til dei aktuelle
dokumenta. I tillegg reknar vi med at vilkåret kan gje grunnlag for å
nekte innsyn i tilfelle der innsynskravet er så omfattande (gjeld så
mange dokument) at arbeidsmengda som ville gått med til å handsame
det, er større enn det ein `i rimeleg utstrekning&#39; kan krevje (sjølv
om det nok skal mykje til).»&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;NRK har ikke noen egen sammenstilling over avtaler innenfor
bestemte områder som omtales i innsynsbegjæringen. De måtte søkes på
vanlig måte. I tillegg finnes ikke noen automatisert måte å finne
avtaler som «ikke er begrenset av de generelle bruksvilkårene som
gjelder for utstyr som bruker MPEG og/eller H.264». En slik
gjennomgang av avtaler måtte gjøres manuelt av en person med
spesialistkunnskap. Dette vil kreve at NRK avsetter omfattende
ressurser for å finne frem relevante avtaler og for deretter å vurdere
om de dekkes av det innsynsbegjæringen omfattes.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;På bakgrunn av dette nekter NRK innsyn, med den begrunnelsen at
innsynskravet er så omfattende at arbeidsmengden for å håndtere kravet
vil være langt større enn det som i rimelig utstrekning kan kreves i
henhold til offentleglova § 28 annet ledd.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Avslag på deres innsynsbegjæring kan påklages til Kultur- og
kirkedepartementet innen tre uker fra det tidspunkt avslaget kommer
frem til mottakeren, i henhold til reglene i offentleglova § 32,
jf. forvaltningsloven kapittel VI. Klagen skal stiles til Kultur- og
kirkedepartementet, og sendes til NRK.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;NRK er imidlertid etter Offentleglova forpliktet å gi ut journaler,
slik at en eventuell søknad om innsyn kan tydeligere identifisere
hvilke dokumenter som det ønskes innsyn i. NRKs offentlige journaler
for inneværende og forrige måned ligger ute på
NRK.no/innsyn. Journaler som går lengre tilbake i tid, kan sendes ut
på forespørsel til innsyn (at) nrk.no.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Med hilsen
&lt;br&gt;Dokumentarkivet i NRK
&lt;br&gt;v/ Elin Brandsrud
&lt;br&gt;Tel. direkte: 23 04 29 29
&lt;br&gt;Post: RBM3, Postboks 8500 Majorstuen, 0340 Oslo
&lt;br&gt;innsyn (at) nrk.no&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Svaret kom
&lt;a href=&quot;http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2012-06-25-video-mpegla-nrk.pdf&quot;&gt;i
PDF-form som vedlegg på epost&lt;/a&gt;.  Jeg er litt usikker på hvordan jeg
best går videre for å bli klok, men jeg har jo i hvert fall tre uker
på å vurdere om jeg skal klage.  Enten må nok forespørselen
reformuleres eller så må jeg vel klage.  Synes jo det er merkelig at
NRK ikke har bedre kontroll med hvilke avtaler de har inngått.  Det
burde jo være noen i ledelsen som vet om de har signert en avtale med
MPEG-LA eller ikke...&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Oppdatering 2012-06-25 20:20: Et google-søk på &quot;2011/371 nrk&quot;
sendte meg til postjournalen for
&lt;a href=&quot;http://nrk.no/contentfile/file/1.8212365!offentligjournal19062012.pdf&quot;&gt;2012-06-19&lt;/a&gt;
og
&lt;a href=&quot;http://nrk.no/contentfile/file/1.8214156!offentligjournal20062012.pdf&quot;&gt;2012-06-20&lt;/a&gt;
hos NRK som viser mine forespørsler og viser at sakens tittel hos NRK
er &quot;Graphic Systems Regions MA 2378/10E&quot;.  Videre søk etter &quot;Graphic
Systems Regions&quot; viser at dette er saken til et anbud om
&quot;&lt;a href=&quot;http://no.mercell.com/m/mts/Tender/27179412.aspx&quot;&gt;a graphics
system for 12 or 13 sites broadcasting regional news&lt;/a&gt;&quot; hos Mercell
Sourcing Service, også omtalt på
&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.publictenders.net/tender/595705&quot;&gt;Public
Tenders&lt;/a&gt; og
&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.doffin.no/search/show/search_view.aspx?ID=JAN155521&quot;&gt;Doffin&lt;/a&gt;.
Jeg er dog usikker på hvordan dette er relatert til min
forespørsel.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Oppdatering 2012-06-25 22:40: Ble tipset av Kieran Kunhya, fra
miljøet rundt
&lt;a href=&quot;http://code.google.com/p/open-broadcast-encoder/&quot;&gt;Open
Broadcast Encoder&lt;/a&gt;, at listen over de som har lisensavtale med
MPEG-LA er
&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.mpeg-la.com/main/programs/AVC/Pages/Licensees.aspx&quot;&gt;tilgjengelig
på web&lt;/a&gt;.  Veldig fint å oppdage hvor den finnes, da jeg må ha lett
etter feil ting da jeg forsøke å finne den.  Der står ikke NRK, men
flere andre &quot;Broadcasting Company&quot;-oppføringer.  Lurer på om det betyr
at NRK ikke trenger avtale, eller noe helt annet?&lt;/p&gt;
</description>
        </item>
        
        <item>
                <title>Song book for Computer Scientists</title>
                <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Song_book_for_Computer_Scientists.html</link>
                <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Song_book_for_Computer_Scientists.html</guid>
                <pubDate>Sun, 24 Jun 2012 13:30:00 +0200</pubDate>
                <description>&lt;p&gt;Many years ago, while studying Computer Science at the
&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.uit.no/&quot;&gt;University of Tromsø&lt;/a&gt;, I started
collecting computer related songs for use at parties.  The original
version was written in LaTeX, but a few years ago I got help from
Håkon W. Lie, one of the inventors of W3C CSS, to convert it to HTML
while keeping the ability to create a nice book in PDF format.  I have
not had time to maintain the book for a while now, and guess I should
put it up on some public version control repository where others can
help me extend and update the book.  If anyone is volunteering to help
me with this, send me an email.  Also let me know if there are songs
missing in my book.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;I have not mentioned the book on my blog so far, and it occured to
me today that I really should let all my readers share the joys of
singing out load about programming, computers and computer networks.
Especially now that &lt;a href=&quot;http://debconf12.debconf.org/&quot;&gt;Debconf
12&lt;/a&gt; is about to start (and I am not going).  Want to sing?  Check
out &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.hungry.com/~pere/cs-songbook/&quot;&gt;Petter&#39;s
Computer Science Songbook&lt;/a&gt;.
</description>
        </item>
        
        <item>
                <title>Trenger en avtale med MPEG-LA for å publisere og kringkaste H.264-video?</title>
                <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Trenger_en_avtale_med_MPEG_LA_for___publisere_og_kringkaste_H_264_video_.html</link>
                <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Trenger_en_avtale_med_MPEG_LA_for___publisere_og_kringkaste_H_264_video_.html</guid>
                <pubDate>Thu, 21 Jun 2012 13:40:00 +0200</pubDate>
                <description>&lt;p&gt;Trengs det avtale med MPEG-LA for å ha lovlig rett til å
distribuere og kringkaste video i MPEG4 eller med videokodingen H.264?
&lt;a href=&quot;http://webmink.com/essays/h-264/&quot;&gt;H.264 og MPEG4 er jo ikke en
fri og åpen standard&lt;/a&gt; i henhold til
&lt;a href=&quot;http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Fri_og__pen_standard__slik_Digistan_ser_det.html&quot;&gt;definisjonen
til Digistan&lt;/a&gt;, så i enkelte land er det ingen tvil om at du må ha
en slik avtale, men jeg må innrømme at jeg ikke vet om det også
gjelder Norge.  Det ser uansett ut til å være en juridisk interessant
problemstilling.  Men jeg tenkte her om dagen som så, at hvis det er
nødvendig, så har store aktører som
&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.nrk.no/&quot;&gt;NRK&lt;/a&gt; og
&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.regjeringen.no/&quot;&gt;regjeringen&lt;/a&gt; skaffet seg en
slik avtale.  Jeg har derfor sendt forespørsel til begge (for
regjeringen sin del er det Departementenes Servicesenter som gjør
jobben), og bedt om kopi av eventuelle avtaler de har om bruk av MPEG
og/eller H.264 med MPEG-LA eller andre aktører som opererer på vegne
av MPEG-LA.  Her er kopi av eposten jeg har sendt til
&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.dss.dep.no/&quot;&gt;Departementenes Servicesenter&lt;/a&gt;.
Forespørselen til NRK er veldig lik.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Date: Tue, 19 Jun 2012 15:18:33 +0200
&lt;br&gt;From: Petter Reinholdtsen
&lt;br&gt;To: postmottak@dss.dep.no
&lt;br&gt;Subject: Innsynsbegjæring om MPEG/H.264-relaterte avtaler
 
&lt;p&gt;Hei.  Jeg ber herved om innsyn og kopi av dokumenter i DSS relatert
til avtaler rundt bruk av videoformatene MPEG og H.264.  Jeg er
spesielt interessert i å vite om DSS har lisensavtale med MPEG-LA
eller noen som representerer MPEG-LA i Norge.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;MPEG og H.264 er videoformater som brukes både til kringkasting
(f.eks. i bakkenett og kabel-TV) og videopublisering på web, deriblant
via Adobe Flash.  MPEG-LA, &amp;lt;URL:
&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.mpeg-la.com/&quot;&gt;http://www.mpeg-la.com/&lt;/a&gt; &amp;gt;, er
en organisasjon som har fått oppgaven, av de kjente rettighetshavere
av immaterielle rettigheter knyttet til MPEG og H.264, å selge
bruksrett for MPEG og H.264.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Via regjeringen.no kringkastes med MPEG og H.264-baserte
videoformater, og dette ser ut til å være organisert av DSS.  Jeg
antar dermed at DSS har avtale med en eller annen aktør om dette.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;F.eks. har Adobe Premiere Pro har følgende klausul i følge &amp;lt;URL:
&lt;a href=&quot;http://news.cnet.com/8301-30685_3-20000101-264.html&quot;&gt;http://news.cnet.com/8301-30685_3-20000101-264.html&lt;/a&gt;
&amp;gt;:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;

  &lt;p&gt;6.17. AVC DISTRIBUTION. The following notice applies to software
  containing AVC import and export functionality: THIS PRODUCT IS
  LICENSED UNDER THE AVC PATENT PORTFOLIO LICENSE FOR THE PERSONAL AND
  NON-COMMERCIAL USE OF A CONSUMER TO (a) ENCODE VIDEO IN COMPLIANCE
  WITH THE AVC STANDARD (&quot;AVC VIDEO&quot;) AND/OR (b) DECODE AVC VIDEO THAT
  WAS ENCODED BY A CONSUMER ENGAGED IN A PERSONAL AND NON-COMMERCIAL
  ACTIVITY AND/OR AVC VIDEO THAT WAS OBTAINED FROM A VIDEO PROVIDER
  LICENSED TO PROVIDE AVC VIDEO. NO LICENSE IS GRANTED OR SHALL BE
  IMPLIED FOR ANY OTHER USE. ADDITIONAL INFORMATION MAY BE OBTAINED
  FROM MPEG LA L.L.C. SEE
  &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.mpegla.com&quot;&gt;http://www.mpegla.com&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Her er det kun &quot;non-commercial&quot; og &quot;personal and non-commercial&quot;
aktivitet som er tillatt uten ekstra avtale med MPEG-LA.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Et annet tilsvarende eksempel er Apple Final Cut Pro, som har
følgende klausul i følge &amp;lt;URL:
&lt;a href=&quot;http://images.apple.com/legal/sla/docs/finalcutstudio2.pdf&quot;&gt;http://images.apple.com/legal/sla/docs/finalcutstudio2.pdf&lt;/a&gt;
&amp;gt;:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;

  &lt;p&gt;15. Merknad om H.264/AVC. Hvis Apple-programvaren inneholder
  funksjonalitet for AVC-koding og/eller AVC-dekoding, krever
  kommersiell bruk ekstra lisensiering og følgende gjelder:
  AVC-FUNKSJONALITETEN I DETTE PRODUKTET KAN KUN ANVENDES AV
  FORBRUKERE OG KUN FOR PERSONLIG OG IKKE- KOMMERSIELL BRUK TIL (i)
  KODING AV VIDEO I OVERENSSTEMMELSE MED AVC-STANDARDEN (&quot;AVC-VIDEO&quot;)
  OG/ELLER (ii) DEKODING AV AVC-VIDEO SOM ER KODET AV EN FORBRUKER TIL
  PERSONLIG OG IKKE-KOMMERSIELL BRUK OG/ELLER DEKODING AV AVC-VIDEO
  FRA EN VIDEOLEVERANDØR SOM HAR LISENS TIL Å TILBY
  AVC-VIDEO. INFORMASJON OM ANNEN BRUK OG LISENSIERING KAN INNHENTES
  FRA MPEG LA L.L.C. SE HTTP://WWW.MPEGLA.COM.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
  
&lt;p&gt;Tilsvarende gjelder for andre programvarepakker, kamera, etc som
bruker MPEG og H.264, at en må ha en avtale med MPEG-LA for å ha lov
til å bruke programmet/utstyret hvis en skal lage noe annet enn
private filmer og i ikke-kommersiell virksomhet.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Jeg er altså interessert i kopi av avtaler DSS har som gjør at en
ikke er begrenset av de generelle bruksvilkårene som gjelder for
utstyr som bruker MPEG og/eller H.264.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Nå venter jeg spent på svaret.  Jeg planlegger å blogge om svaret
her.&lt;/p&gt;
</description>
        </item>
        
        <item>
                <title>HTC One X - Your video?  What do you mean?</title>
                <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/HTC_One_X___Your_video___What_do_you_mean_.html</link>
                <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/HTC_One_X___Your_video___What_do_you_mean_.html</guid>
                <pubDate>Thu, 26 Apr 2012 13:20:00 +0200</pubDate>
                <description>&lt;p&gt;In &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.idg.no/computerworld/article243690.ece&quot;&gt;an
article today&lt;/a&gt; published by Computerworld Norway, the photographer
&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.urke.com/eirik/&quot;&gt;Eirik Helland Urke&lt;/a&gt; reports
that the video editor application included with
&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.htc.com/www/smartphones/htc-one-x/#specs&quot;&gt;HTC One
X&lt;/a&gt; have some quite surprising terms of use.  The article is mostly
based on the twitter message from mister Urke, stating:

&lt;p&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;
&quot;&lt;a href=&quot;http://twitter.com/urke/status/194062269724897280&quot;&gt;Drøy
brukeravtale: HTC kan bruke MINE redigerte videoer kommersielt. Selv
kan jeg KUN bruke dem privat.&lt;/a&gt;&quot;
&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;I quickly translated it to this English message:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;
&quot;Arrogant user agreement: HTC can use MY edited videos
commercially.  Although I can ONLY use them privately.&quot;
&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;I&#39;ve been unable to find the text of the license term myself, but
suspect it is a variation of the MPEG-LA terms I
&lt;a href=&quot;http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Terms_of_use_for_video_produced_by_a_Canon_IXUS_130_digital_camera.html&quot;&gt;discovered
with my Canon IXUS 130&lt;/a&gt;.  The HTC One X specification specifies that
the recording format of the phone is .amr for audio and .mp3 for
video.  AMR is
&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adaptive_Multi-Rate_audio_codec#Licensing_and_patent_issues&quot;&gt;Adaptive
Multi-Rate audio codec&lt;/a&gt; with patents which according to the
Wikipedia article require an license agreement with
&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.voiceage.com/&quot;&gt;VoiceAge&lt;/a&gt;.  MP4 is
&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H.264/MPEG-4_AVC#Patent_licensing&quot;&gt;MPEG4 with
H.264&lt;/a&gt;, which according to Wikipedia require a licence agreement
with &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.mpegla.com/&quot;&gt;MPEG-LA&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;I know why I prefer
&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.digistan.org/open-standard:definition&quot;&gt;free and open
standards&lt;/a&gt; also for video.&lt;/p&gt;
</description>
        </item>
        
        <item>
                <title>RAND terms - non-reasonable and discriminatory</title>
                <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/RAND_terms___non_reasonable_and_discriminatory.html</link>
                <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/RAND_terms___non_reasonable_and_discriminatory.html</guid>
                <pubDate>Thu, 19 Apr 2012 22:20:00 +0200</pubDate>
                <description>&lt;p&gt;Here in Norway, the
&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.regjeringen.no/nb/dep/fad.html?id=339&quot;&gt; Ministry of
Government Administration, Reform and Church Affairs&lt;/a&gt; is behind
a &lt;a href=&quot;http://standard.difi.no/forvaltningsstandarder&quot;&gt;directory of
standards&lt;/a&gt; that are recommended or mandatory for use by the
government.  When the directory was created, the people behind it made
an effort to ensure that everyone would be able to implement the
standards and compete on equal terms to supply software and solutions
to the government.  Free software and non-free software could compete
on the same level.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;But recently, some standards with RAND
(&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reasonable_and_non-discriminatory_licensing&quot;&gt;Reasonable
And Non-Discriminatory&lt;/a&gt;) terms have made their way into the
directory.  And while this might not sound too bad, the fact is that
standard specifications with RAND terms often block free software from
implementing them.  The reasonable part of RAND mean that the cost per
user/unit is low,and the non-discriminatory part mean that everyone
willing to pay will get a license.  Both sound great in theory.  In
practice, to get such license one need to be able to count users, and
be able to pay a small amount of money per unit or user.  By
definition, users of free software do not need to register their use.
So counting users or units is not possible for free software projects.
And given that people will use the software without handing any money
to the author, it is not really economically possible for a free
software author to pay a small amount of money to license the rights
to implement a standard when the income available is zero.  The result
in these situations is that free software are locked out from
implementing standards with RAND terms.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Because of this, when I see someone claiming the terms of a
standard is reasonable and non-discriminatory, all I can think of is
how this really is non-reasonable and discriminatory.  Because free
software developers are working in a global market, it does not really
help to know that software patents are not supposed to be enforceable
in Norway.  The patent regimes in other countries affect us even here.
I really hope the people behind the standard directory will pay more
attention to these issues in the future.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;You can find more on the issues with RAND, FRAND and RAND-Z terms
from Simon Phipps
(&lt;a href=&quot;http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/simon-says/2010/11/rand-not-so-reasonable/&quot;&gt;RAND:
Not So Reasonable?&lt;/a&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Update 2012-04-21: Just came across a
&lt;a href=&quot;http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/open-enterprise/2012/04/of-microsoft-netscape-patents-and-open-standards/index.htm&quot;&gt;blog
post from Glyn Moody&lt;/a&gt; over at Computer World UK warning about the
same issue, and urging people to speak out to the UK government.  I
can only urge Norwegian users to do the same for
&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.standard.difi.no/hoyring/hoyring-om-nye-anbefalte-it-standarder&quot;&gt;the
hearing taking place at the moment&lt;/a&gt; (respond before 2012-04-27).
It proposes to require video conferencing standards including
specifications with RAND terms.&lt;/p&gt;
</description>
        </item>
        
        <item>
                <title>Hvordan enkelt laste ned filmer fra NRK</title>
                <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Hvordan_enkelt_laste_ned_filmer_fra_NRK.html</link>
                <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Hvordan_enkelt_laste_ned_filmer_fra_NRK.html</guid>
                <pubDate>Sat, 5 Nov 2011 15:20:00 +0100</pubDate>
                <description>&lt;p&gt;Ofte har jeg lyst til å laste ned et innslag fra NRKs nettsted for
å se det senere når jeg ikke er på nett, eller for å ha det
tilgjengelig når jeg en gang i fremtiden ønsker å referere til
innslaget selv om NRK har fjernet det fra sine nettsider.  I dag fant
jeg et lite script som fikser jobben.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Scriptet er laget av Jan Henning Thorsen og tilgjengelig fra
&lt;a href=&quot;http://jhthorsen.github.com/snippets/nrk-downloader/&quot;&gt;github&lt;/a&gt;,
og gjør det veldig enkelt å laste ned.  Kjør &lt;tt&gt;nrk-downloader.sh
http://www1.nrk.no/nett-tv/klipp/582810&lt;/tt&gt; for å hente ned et enkelt
innslag eller &lt;tt&gt;nrk-downloader.sh
http://www1.nrk.no/nett-tv/kategori/3521&lt;/tt&gt; for å laste ned alle
episodene i en serie.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Det er ikke rakettforskning å laste ned NRK-&quot;strømmer&quot;, og
tidligere gjorde jeg dette manuelt med mplayer.  Scriptet til
Hr. Thorsen gjør det raskere og enklere for meg, men jeg vil ikke si
at det er en revolusjonerende løsning.  Jeg mener jo fortsatt at
påstanden fra NRKs ansatte om at det er
&lt;a href=&quot;http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Best___ikke_fortelle_noen_at_streaming_er_nedlasting___.html&quot;&gt;vesensforskjellig
å legge tilgjengelig for nedlasting og for streaming&lt;/a&gt; er
meningsløs.&lt;/p&gt;
</description>
        </item>
        
        <item>
                <title>What is missing in the Debian desktop, or why my parents use Kubuntu</title>
                <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_is_missing_in_the_Debian_desktop__or_why_my_parents_use_Kubuntu.html</link>
                <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_is_missing_in_the_Debian_desktop__or_why_my_parents_use_Kubuntu.html</guid>
                <pubDate>Fri, 29 Jul 2011 08:10:00 +0200</pubDate>
                <description>&lt;p&gt;While at Debconf11, I have several times during discussions
mentioned the issues I believe should be improved in Debian for its
desktop to be useful for more people.  The use case for this is my
parents, which are currently running Kubuntu which solve the
issues.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;I suspect these four missing features are not very hard to
implement.  After all, they are present in Ubuntu, so if we wanted to
do this in Debian we would have a source.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;ol&gt;

&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Simple GUI based upgrade of packages.&lt;/strong&gt; When there
are new packages available for upgrades, a icon in the KDE status bar
indicate this, and clicking on it will activate the simple upgrade
tool to handle it.  I have no problem guiding both of my parents
through the process over the phone.  If a kernel reboot is required,
this too is indicated by the status bars and the upgrade tool.  Last
time I checked, nothing with the same features was working in KDE in
Debian.&lt;/li&gt;

&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Simple handling of missing Firefox browser
plugins.&lt;/strong&gt; When the browser encounter a MIME type it do not
currently have a handler for, it will ask the user if the system
should search for a package that would add support for this MIME type,
and if the user say yes, the APT sources will be searched for packages
advertising the MIME type in their control file (visible in the
Packages file in the APT archive).  If one or more packages are found,
it is a simple click of the mouse to add support for the missing mime
type.  If the package require the user to accept some non-free
license, this is explained to the user.  The entire process make it
more clear to the user why something do not work in the browser, and
make the chances higher for the user to blame the web page authors and
not the browser for any missing features.&lt;/li&gt;

&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Simple handling of missing multimedia codec/format
handlers.&lt;/strong&gt; When the media players encounter a format or codec
it is not supporting, a dialog pop up asking the user if the system
should search for a package that would add support for it.  This
happen with things like MP3, Windows Media or H.264.  The selection
and installation procedure is very similar to the Firefox browser
plugin handling.  This is as far as I know implemented using a
gstreamer hook.  The end result is that the user easily get access to
the codecs that are present from the APT archives available, while
explaining more on why a given format is unsupported by Ubuntu.&lt;/li&gt;

&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Better browser handling of some MIME types.&lt;/strong&gt; When
displaying a text/plain file in my Debian browser, it will propose to
start emacs to show it.  If I remember correctly, when doing the same
in Kunbutu it show the file as a text file in the browser.  At least I
know Opera will show text files within the browser.  I much prefer the
latter behaviour.&lt;/li&gt;

&lt;/ol&gt; 

&lt;p&gt;There are other nice features as well, like the simplified suite
upgrader, but given that I am the one mostly doing the dist-upgrade,
it do not matter much.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;I really hope we could get these features in place for the next
Debian release.  It would require the coordinated effort of several
maintainers, but would make the end user experience a lot better.&lt;/p&gt;
</description>
        </item>
        
        <item>
                <title>Gnash enteres Google Summer of Code 2011</title>
                <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Gnash_enteres_Google_Summer_of_Code_2011.html</link>
                <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Gnash_enteres_Google_Summer_of_Code_2011.html</guid>
                <pubDate>Wed, 6 Apr 2011 09:00:00 +0200</pubDate>
                <description>&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.getgnash.org/&quot;&gt;The Gnash project&lt;/a&gt; is still
the most promising solution for a Free Software Flash implementation.
A few days ago the project
&lt;a href=&quot;http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/gnash-dev/2011-04/msg00011.html&quot;&gt;announced&lt;/a&gt;
that it will participate in Google Summer of Code.  I hope many
students apply, and that some of them succeed in getting AVM2 support
into Gnash.&lt;/p&gt;
</description>
        </item>
        
        <item>
                <title>Why isn&#39;t Debian Edu using VLC?</title>
                <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Why_isn_t_Debian_Edu_using_VLC_.html</link>
                <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Why_isn_t_Debian_Edu_using_VLC_.html</guid>
                <pubDate>Sat, 27 Nov 2010 11:30:00 +0100</pubDate>
                <description>&lt;p&gt;In the latest issue of Linux Journal, the readers choices were
presented, and the winner among the multimedia player were VLC.
Personally, I like VLC, and it is my player of choice when I first try
to play a video file or stream.  Only if VLC fail will I drag out
gmplayer to see if it can do better.  The reason is mostly the failure
model and trust.  When VLC fail, it normally pop up a error message
reporting the problem.  When mplayer fail, it normally segfault or
just hangs.  The latter failure mode drain my trust in the program.&lt;p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;But even if VLC is my player of choice, we have choosen to use
mplayer in &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.skolelinux.org/&quot;&gt;Debian
Edu/Skolelinux&lt;/a&gt;.  The reason is simple.  We need a good browser
plugin to play web videos seamlessly, and the VLC browser plugin is
not very good.  For example, it lack in-line control buttons, so there
is no way for the user to pause the video.  Also, when I
&lt;a href=&quot;http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/BrowserMultimedia&quot;&gt;last
tested the browser plugins&lt;/a&gt; available in Debian, the VLC plugin
failed on several video pages where mplayer based plugins worked.  If
the browser plugin for VLC was as good as the gecko-mediaplayer
package (which uses mplayer), we would switch.&lt;/P&gt;

&lt;p&gt;While VLC is a good player, its user interface is slightly
annoying.  The most annoying feature is its inconsistent use of
keyboard shortcuts.  When the player is in full screen mode, its
shortcuts are different from when it is playing the video in a window.
For example, space only work as pause when in full screen mode.  I
wish it had consisten shortcuts and that space also would work when in
window mode.  Another nice shortcut in gmplayer is [enter] to restart
the current video.  It is very nice when playing short videos from the
web and want to restart it when new people arrive to have a look at
what is going on.&lt;/p&gt;
</description>
        </item>
        
        <item>
                <title>Best å ikke fortelle noen at streaming er nedlasting...</title>
                <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Best___ikke_fortelle_noen_at_streaming_er_nedlasting___.html</link>
                <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Best___ikke_fortelle_noen_at_streaming_er_nedlasting___.html</guid>
                <pubDate>Sat, 30 Oct 2010 11:20:00 +0200</pubDate>
                <description>&lt;p&gt;I dag la jeg inn en kommentar på en sak hos NRKBeta
&lt;a href=&quot;http://nrkbeta.no/2010/10/27/bakom-blindpassasjer-del-1/&quot;&gt;om
hvordan TV-serien Blindpassasjer ble laget&lt;/a&gt; i forbindelse med at
filmene NRK la ut ikke var tilgjengelig i et
&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.digistan.org/open-standard:definition&quot;&gt;fritt og
åpent format&lt;/a&gt;.  Dette var det jeg skrev publiserte der 07:39.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&quot;Vi fikk en kommentar rundt måten streamet innhold er beskyttet fra
nedlasting.  Mange av oss som kan mer enn gjennomsnittet om systemer
som dette, vet at det stort sett er mulig å lure ut ting med den
nødvendige forkunnskapen.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Haha.  Å streame innhold er det samme som å laste ned innhold, så å
beskytte en stream mot nedlasting er ikke mulig.  Å skrive noe slikt
er å forlede leseren.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Med den bakgrunn blir forklaringen om at noen rettighetshavere kun
vil tillate streaming men ikke nedlasting meningsløs.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Anbefaler forresten å lese
&lt;a href=&quot;http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/simon-says/2010/10/drm-is-toxic-to-culture/index.htm&quot;&gt;http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/simon-says/2010/10/drm-is-toxic-to-culture/index.htm&lt;/a&gt;
om hva som ville være konsekvensen hvis digitale avspillingssperrer
(DRM) fungerte.  Det gjør de naturligvis ikke teknisk - det er jo
derfor de må ha totalitære juridiske beskyttelsesmekanismer på plass,
men det er skremmende hva samfunnet tillater og NRK er med på å bygge
opp under.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Ca. 20 minutter senere får jeg følgende epost fra Anders Hofseth i
NRKBeta:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;
&lt;p&gt;From: Anders Hofseth &amp;lt;XXX@gmail.com&gt;
&lt;br&gt;To: &quot;pere@hungry.com&quot; &amp;lt;pere@hungry.com&gt;
&lt;br&gt;Cc: Eirik Solheim &amp;lt;XXX@gmail.com&gt;, Jon Ståle Carlsen &amp;lt;XXX@gmail.com&gt;, Henrik Lied &amp;lt;XXX@gmail.com&gt;
&lt;br&gt;Subject: Re: [NRKbeta] Kommentar: &quot;Bakom Blindpassasjer: del 1&quot;
&lt;br&gt;Date: Sat, 30 Oct 2010 07:58:44 +0200&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Hei Petter.
&lt;br&gt;Det du forsøker dra igang er egentlig en interessant diskusjon,
men om vi skal kjøre den i kommentarfeltet her, vil vi kunne bli bedt
om å fjerne blindpassasjer fra nett- tv og det vil heller ikke bli
særlig lett å klarere ut noe annet arkivmateriale på lang tid.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Dette er en situasjon NRKbeta ikke ønsker, så kommentaren er
fjernet og den delen av diskusjonen er avsluttet på nrkbeta, vi antar
konsekvensene vi beskriver ikke er noe du ønsker heller...&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Med hilsen,
&lt;br&gt;-anders&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Ring meg om noe er uklart: 95XXXXXXX&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Ble så fascinert over denne holdningen, at jeg forfattet og sendte
over følgende svar.  I og med at debatten er fjernet fra NRK Betas
kommentarfelt, så velger jeg å publisere her på bloggen min i stedet.
Har fjernet epostadresser og telefonnummer til de involverte, for å
unngå at de tiltrekker seg uønskede direkte kontaktforsøk.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;
&lt;p&gt;From: Petter Reinholdtsen &amp;lt;pere@hungry.com&gt;
&lt;br&gt;To: Anders Hofseth &amp;lt;XXX@gmail.com&gt;
&lt;br&gt;Cc: Eirik Solheim &amp;lt;XXX@gmail.com&gt;,
&lt;br&gt;        Jon Ståle Carlsen &amp;lt;XXX@gmail.com&gt;,
&lt;br&gt;        Henrik Lied &amp;lt;XXX@gmail.com&gt;
&lt;br&gt;Subject: Re: [NRKbeta] Kommentar: &quot;Bakom Blindpassasjer: del 1&quot;
&lt;br&gt;Date: Sat, 30 Oct 2010 08:24:34 +0200&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;[Anders Hofseth]
&lt;br&gt;&gt; Hei Petter.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Hei.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&gt; Det du forsøker dra igang er egentlig en interessant diskusjon, men
&lt;br&gt;&gt; om vi skal kjøre den i kommentarfeltet her, vil vi kunne bli bedt om
&lt;br&gt;&gt; å fjerne blindpassasjer fra nett- tv og det vil heller ikke bli
&lt;br&gt;&gt; særlig lett å klarere ut noe annet arkivmateriale på lang tid.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Godt å se at du er enig i at dette er en interessant diskusjon.  Den
vil nok fortsette en stund til.  :)&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Må innrømme at jeg synes det er merkelig å lese at dere i NRK med
vitende og vilje ønsker å forlede rettighetshaverne for å kunne
fortsette å legge ut arkivmateriale.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Kommentarer og diskusjoner i bloggene til NRK Beta påvirker jo ikke
faktum, som er at streaming er det samme som nedlasting, og at innhold
som er lagt ut på nett kan lagres lokalt for avspilling når en ønsker
det.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Det du sier er jo at klarering av arkivmateriale for publisering på
web krever at en holder faktum skjult fra debattfeltet på NRKBeta.
Det er ikke et argument som holder vann. :)&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&gt; Dette er en situasjon NRKbeta ikke ønsker, så kommentaren er fjernet
&lt;br&gt;&gt; og den delen av diskusjonen er avsluttet på nrkbeta, vi antar
&lt;br&gt;&gt; konsekvensene vi beskriver ikke er noe du ønsker heller...&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Personlig ønsker jeg at NRK skal slutte å stikke hodet i sanden og
heller være åpne på hvordan virkeligheten fungerer, samt ta opp kampen
mot de som vil låse kulturen inne.  Jeg synes det er en skam at NRK
godtar å forlede publikum.  Ville heller at NRK krever at innhold som
skal sendes skal være uten bruksbegresninger og kan publiseres i
formater som heller ikke har bruksbegresninger (bruksbegresningene til
H.264 burde få varselbjellene i NRK til å ringe).&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;At NRK er med på DRM-tåkeleggingen og at det kommer feilaktive
påstander om at &quot;streaming beskytter mot nedlasting&quot; som bare er egnet
til å bygge opp om en myte som er skadelig for samfunnet som helhet.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Anbefaler &amp;lt;URL:&lt;a href=&quot;http://webmink.com/2010/09/03/h-264-and-foss/&quot;&gt;http://webmink.com/2010/09/03/h-264-and-foss/&lt;/a&gt;&gt; og en
titt på
&amp;lt;URL: &lt;a href=&quot;http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Terms_of_use_for_video_produced_by_a_Canon_IXUS_130_digital_camera.html&quot;&gt;http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Terms_of_use_for_video_produced_by_a_Canon_IXUS_130_digital_camera.html&lt;/a&gt; &gt;.
for å se hva slags bruksbegresninger H.264 innebærer.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Hvis dette innebærer at NRK må være åpne med at arkivmaterialet ikke
kan brukes før rettighetshaverene også innser at de er med på å skade
samfunnets kultur og kollektive hukommelse, så får en i hvert fall
synliggjort konsekvensene og antagelig mer flammer på en debatt som er
langt på overtid.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&gt; Ring meg om noe er uklart: XXX&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Intet uklart, men ikke imponert over måten dere håndterer debatten på.
Hadde du i stedet kommet med et tilsvar i kommentarfeltet der en
gjorde det klart at blindpassasjer-blogpostingen ikke var riktig sted
for videre diskusjon hadde dere i mine øyne kommet fra det med
ryggraden på plass.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;PS: Interessant å se at NRK-ansatte ikke bruker NRK-epostadresser.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Som en liten avslutning, her er noen litt morsomme innslag om temaet.
&amp;lt;URL: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.archive.org/details/CopyingIsNotTheft&quot;&gt;http://www.archive.org/details/CopyingIsNotTheft&lt;/a&gt; &gt; og
&amp;lt;URL: &lt;a href=&quot;http://patentabsurdity.com/&quot;&gt;http://patentabsurdity.com/&lt;/a&gt; &gt; hadde vært noe å kringkaste på
NRK1. :)&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Vennlig hilsen,
&lt;br&gt;--
&lt;br&gt;Petter Reinholdtsen&lt;/p&gt;
</description>
        </item>
        
        <item>
                <title>Software updates 2010-10-24</title>
                <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Software_updates_2010_10_24.html</link>
                <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Software_updates_2010_10_24.html</guid>
                <pubDate>Sun, 24 Oct 2010 22:45:00 +0200</pubDate>
                <description>&lt;p&gt;Some updates.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;My &lt;a href=&quot;http://pledgebank.com/gnash-avm2&quot;&gt;gnash pledge&lt;/a&gt; to
raise money for the project is going well.  The lower limit of 10
signers was reached in 24 hours, and so far 13 people have signed it.
More signers and more funding is most welcome, and I am really curious
how far we can get before the time limit of December 24 is reached.
:)&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;On the #gnash IRC channel on irc.freenode.net, I was just tipped
about what appear to be a great code coverage tool capable of
generating code coverage stats without any changes to the source code.
It is called
&lt;a href=&quot;http://simonkagstrom.github.com/kcov/index.html&quot;&gt;kcov&lt;/a&gt;,
and can be used using &lt;tt&gt;kcov &amp;lt;directory&amp;gt; &amp;lt;binary&amp;gt;&lt;/tt&gt;.
It is missing in Debian, but the git source built just fine in Squeeze
after I installed libelf-dev, libdwarf-dev, pkg-config and
libglib2.0-dev.  Failed to build in Lenny, but suspect that is
solvable.  I hope kcov make it into Debian soon.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Finally found time to wrap up the release notes for &lt;a
href=&quot;http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu-announce/2010/10/msg00002.html&quot;&gt;a
new alpha release of Debian Edu&lt;/a&gt;, and just published the second
alpha test release of the Squeeze based Debian Edu /
&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.skolelinux.org/&quot;&gt;Skolelinux&lt;/a&gt;
release.  Give it a try if you need a complete linux solution for your
school, including central infrastructure server, workstations, thin
client servers and diskless workstations.  A nice touch added
yesterday is RDP support on the thin client servers, for windows
clients to get a Linux desktop on request.&lt;/p&gt;
</description>
        </item>
        
        <item>
                <title>Pledge for funding to the Gnash project to get AVM2 support</title>
                <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Pledge_for_funding_to_the_Gnash_project_to_get_AVM2_support.html</link>
                <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Pledge_for_funding_to_the_Gnash_project_to_get_AVM2_support.html</guid>
                <pubDate>Tue, 19 Oct 2010 14:45:00 +0200</pubDate>
                <description>&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.getgnash.org/&quot;&gt;The Gnash project&lt;/a&gt; is the
most promising solution for a Free Software Flash implementation. It
has done great so far, but there is still far to go, and recently its
funding has dried up.  I believe AVM2 support in Gnash is vital to the
continued progress of the project, as more and more sites show up with
AVM2 flash files.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;To try to get funding for developing such support, I have started
&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.pledgebank.com/gnash-avm2&quot;&gt;a pledge&lt;/a&gt; with the
following text:&lt;/P&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;

  &lt;p&gt;&quot;I will pay 100$ to the Gnash project to develop AVM2 support but
  only if 10 other people will do the same.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;

  &lt;p&gt;- Petter Reinholdtsen, free software developer&lt;/p&gt;

  &lt;p&gt;Deadline to sign up by: 24th December 2010&lt;/p&gt;

  &lt;p&gt;The Gnash project need to get support for the new Flash file
  format AVM2 to work with a lot of sites using Flash on the
  web. Gnash already work with a lot of Flash sites using the old AVM1
  format, but more and more sites are using the AVM2 format these
  days. The project web page is available from
  http://www.getgnash.org/ . Gnash is a free software implementation
  of Adobe Flash, allowing those of us that do not accept the terms of
  the Adobe Flash license to get access to Flash sites.&lt;/p&gt;

  &lt;p&gt;The project need funding to get developers to put aside enough
  time to develop the AVM2 support, and this pledge is my way to try
  to get this to happen.&lt;/p&gt;

  &lt;p&gt;The project accept donations via the OpenMediaNow foundation,
  &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.openmedianow.org/?q=node/32&quot;&gt;http://www.openmedianow.org/?q=node/32&lt;/a&gt; .&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;I hope you will support this effort too.  I hope more than 10
people will participate to make this happen.  The more money the
project gets, the more features it can develop using these funds.
:)&lt;/p&gt;
</description>
        </item>
        
        <item>
                <title>Terms of use for video produced by a Canon IXUS 130 digital camera</title>
                <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Terms_of_use_for_video_produced_by_a_Canon_IXUS_130_digital_camera.html</link>
                <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Terms_of_use_for_video_produced_by_a_Canon_IXUS_130_digital_camera.html</guid>
                <pubDate>Thu, 9 Sep 2010 23:55:00 +0200</pubDate>
                <description>&lt;p&gt;A few days ago I had the mixed pleasure of bying a new digital
camera, a Canon IXUS 130.  It was instructive and very disturbing to
be able to verify that also this camera producer have the nerve to
specify how I can or can not use the videos produced with the camera.
Even thought I was aware of the issue, the options with new cameras
are limited and I ended up bying the camera anyway.  What is the
problem, you might ask?  It is software patents, MPEG-4, H.264 and the
MPEG-LA that is the problem, and our right to record our experiences
without asking for permissions that is at risk.

&lt;p&gt;On page 27 of the Danish instruction manual, this section is
written:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;blockquote&gt;
&lt;p&gt;This product is licensed under AT&amp;T patents for the MPEG-4 standard
and may be used for encoding MPEG-4 compliant video and/or decoding
MPEG-4 compliant video that was encoded only (1) for a personal and
non-commercial purpose or (2) by a video provider licensed under the
AT&amp;T patents to provide MPEG-4 compliant video.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;No license is granted or implied for any other use for MPEG-4
standard.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;/blockquote&gt;

&lt;p&gt;In short, the camera producer have chosen to use technology
(MPEG-4/H.264) that is only provided if I used it for personal and
non-commercial purposes, or ask for permission from the organisations
holding the knowledge monopoly (patent) for technology used.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;This issue has been brewing for a while, and I recommend you to
read
&quot;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.osnews.com/story/23236/Why_Our_Civilization_s_Video_Art_and_Culture_is_Threatened_by_the_MPEG-LA&quot;&gt;Why
Our Civilization&#39;s Video Art and Culture is Threatened by the
MPEG-LA&lt;/a&gt;&quot; by Eugenia Loli-Queru and
&quot;&lt;a href=&quot;http://webmink.com/2010/09/03/h-264-and-foss/&quot;&gt;H.264 Is Not
The Sort Of Free That Matters&lt;/a&gt;&quot; by Simon Phipps to learn more about
the issue.  The solution is to support the
&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.digistan.org/open-standard:definition&quot;&gt;free and
open standards&lt;/a&gt; for video, like &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.theora.org/&quot;&gt;Ogg
Theora&lt;/a&gt;, and avoid MPEG-4 and H.264 if you can.&lt;/p&gt;
</description>
        </item>
        
        <item>
                <title>Some notes on Flash in Debian and Debian Edu</title>
                <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Some_notes_on_Flash_in_Debian_and_Debian_Edu.html</link>
                <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Some_notes_on_Flash_in_Debian_and_Debian_Edu.html</guid>
                <pubDate>Sat, 4 Sep 2010 10:10:00 +0200</pubDate>
                <description>&lt;p&gt;In the &lt;a href=&quot;http://popcon.debian.org/unknown/by_vote&quot;&gt;Debian
popularity-contest numbers&lt;/a&gt;, the adobe-flashplugin package the
second most popular used package that is missing in Debian.  The sixth
most popular is flashplayer-mozilla.  This is a clear indication that
working flash is important for Debian users.  Around 10 percent of the
users submitting data to popcon.debian.org have this package
installed.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;In the report written by Lars Risan in August 2008
(«&lt;a href=&quot;http://wiki.skolelinux.no/Dokumentasjon/Rapporter?action=AttachFile&amp;do=view&amp;target=Skolelinux_i_bruk_rapport_1.0.pdf&quot;&gt;Skolelinux
i bruk – Rapport for Hurum kommune, Universitetet i Agder og
stiftelsen SLX Debian Labs&lt;/a&gt;»), one of the most important problems
schools experienced with &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.skolelinux.org/&quot;&gt;Debian
Edu/Skolelinux&lt;/a&gt; was the lack of working Flash.  A lot of educational
web sites require Flash to work, and lacking working Flash support in
the web browser and the problems with installing it was perceived as a
good reason to stay with Windows.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;I once saw a funny and sad comment in a web forum, where Linux was
said to be the retarded cousin that did not really understand
everything you told him but could work fairly well.  This was a
comment regarding the problems Linux have with proprietary formats and
non-standard web pages, and is sad because it exposes a fairly common
understanding of whose fault it is if web pages that only work in for
example Internet Explorer 6 fail to work on Firefox, and funny because
it explain very well how annoying it is for users when Linux
distributions do not work with the documents they receive or the web
pages they want to visit.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;This is part of the reason why I believe it is important for Debian
and Debian Edu to have a well working Flash implementation in the
distribution, to get at least popular sites as Youtube and Google
Video to working out of the box.  For Squeeze, Debian have the chance
to include the latest version of Gnash that will make this happen, as
the new release 0.8.8 was published a few weeks ago and is resting in
unstable.  The new version work with more sites that version 0.8.7.
The Gnash maintainers have asked for a freeze exception, but the
release team have not had time to reply to it yet.  I hope they agree
with me that Flash is important for the Debian desktop users, and thus
accept the new package into Squeeze.&lt;/p&gt;
</description>
        </item>
        
        <item>
                <title>Regjerningens oppsummering av høringen om standardkatalogen versjon 2</title>
                <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Regjerningens_oppsummering_av_h_ringen_om_standardkatalogen_versjon_2.html</link>
                <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Regjerningens_oppsummering_av_h_ringen_om_standardkatalogen_versjon_2.html</guid>
                <pubDate>Thu, 9 Jul 2009 14:40:00 +0200</pubDate>
                <description>&lt;p&gt;For å forstå mer om hvorfor standardkatalogens versjon 2 ble som
den ble, har jeg bedt om kopi fra FAD av dokumentene som ble lagt frem
for regjeringen da de tok sin avgjørelse.  De er nå lagt ut på NUUGs
wiki, direkte tilgjengelig via &quot;&lt;a
href=&quot;http://wiki.nuug.no/uttalelser/200901-standardkatalog-v2?action=AttachFile&amp;do=get&amp;target=kongelig-resolusjon.pdf&quot;&gt;Referansekatalogen
v2.0 - Oppsummering av høring&lt;/a&gt;&quot; og &quot;&lt;a
href=&quot;http://wiki.nuug.no/uttalelser/200901-standardkatalog-v2?action=AttachFile&amp;do=get&amp;target=kongelig-resolusjon-katalogutkast.pdf&quot;&gt;Referansekatalog
for IT-standarder i offentlig sektor Versjon 2.0, dd.mm.åååå -
UTKAST&lt;/a&gt;&quot;.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Det er tre ting jeg merker meg i oppsummeringen fra
høringsuttalelsen da jeg skummet igjennom den.  Det første er at
forståelsen av hvordan programvarepatenter påvirker fri
programvareutvikling også i Norge når en argumenterer med at
royalty-betaling ikke er et relevant problem i Norge.  Det andre er at
FAD ikke har en prinsipiell forståelse av verdien av en enkelt
standard innenfor hvert område.  Det siste er at påstander i
høringsuttalelsene ikke blir etterprøvd (f.eks. påstanden fra
Microsoft om hvordan Ogg blir standardisert og påstanden fra
politidirektoratet om patentproblemer i Theora).&lt;/p&gt;
</description>
        </item>
        
        <item>
                <title>Regjerningen forlater prinsippet om ingen royalty-betaling i standardkatalogen versjon 2</title>
                <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Regjerningen_forlater_prinsippet_om_ingen_royalty_betaling_i_standardkatalogen_versjon_2.html</link>
                <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Regjerningen_forlater_prinsippet_om_ingen_royalty_betaling_i_standardkatalogen_versjon_2.html</guid>
                <pubDate>Mon, 6 Jul 2009 21:00:00 +0200</pubDate>
                <description>&lt;p&gt;Jeg ble glad da regjeringen
&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.digi.no/817635/her-er-statens-nye-it-standarder&quot;&gt;annonserte&lt;/a&gt;
versjon 2 av
&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.regjeringen.no/upload/FAD/Vedlegg/IKT-politikk/Referansekatalogen_versjon2.pdf&quot;&gt;statens
referansekatalog over standarder&lt;/a&gt;, men trist da jeg leste hva som
faktisk var vedtatt etter
&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.regjeringen.no/nb/dep/fad/dok/horinger/horingsdokumenter/2009/horing---referansekatalog-versjon-2.html&quot;&gt;høringen&lt;/a&gt;.
De fleste av de valgte åpne standardene er gode og vil bidra til at
alle kan delta på like vilkår i å lage løsninger for staten, men
noen av dem blokkerer for de som ikke har anledning til å benytte
spesifikasjoner som krever betaling for bruk (såkalt
royalty-betaling).  Det gjelder spesifikt for H.264 for video og MP3
for lyd.  Så lenge bruk av disse var valgfritt mens Ogg Theora og Ogg
Vorbis var påkrevd, kunne alle som ønsket å spille av video og lyd
fra statens websider gjøre dette uten å måtte bruke programmer der
betaling for bruk var nødvendig.  Når det nå er gjort valgfritt for
de statlige etatene å bruke enten H.264 eller Theora (og MP3 eler
Vorbis), så vil en bli tvunget til å forholde seg til
royalty-belastede standarder for å få tilgang til videoen og
lyden.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Det gjør meg veldig trist at regjeringen har forlatt prinsippet om
at alle standarder som ble valgt til å være påkrevd i katalogen skulle
være uten royalty-betaling.  Jeg håper det ikke betyr at en har mistet
all forståelse for hvilke prinsipper som må følges for å oppnå
likeverdig konkurranse mellom aktørene i IT-bransjen.  NUUG advarte
mot dette i
&lt;a href=&quot;http://wiki.nuug.no/uttalelser/200901-standardkatalog-v2&quot;&gt;sin
høringsuttalelse&lt;/a&gt;, men ser ut til å ha blitt ignorert.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Oppdatering 2012-06-29: Kom over &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.regjeringen.no/upload/FAD/Vedlegg/IKT-politikk/Refkat_v2.pdf&quot;&gt;en
rapport til FAD&lt;/a&gt; fra da versjon 1 av katalogen ble vedtatt, og der
er det tydelig at problemstillingen var kjent og forstått.&lt;/p&gt;
</description>
        </item>
        
        <item>
                <title>Microsofts misvisende argumentasjon rundt multimediaformater</title>
                <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Microsofts_misvisende_argumentasjon_rundt_multimediaformater.html</link>
                <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Microsofts_misvisende_argumentasjon_rundt_multimediaformater.html</guid>
                <pubDate>Fri, 26 Jun 2009 13:30:00 +0200</pubDate>
                <description>&lt;p&gt;I
&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.regjeringen.no/upload/FAD/Vedlegg/Hoeringer/Refkat_V2/MicrosoftNorge.pdf&quot;&gt;Microsoft
sin høringsuttalelse&lt;/a&gt; til
&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.regjeringen.no/nb/dep/fad/dok/horinger/horingsdokumenter/2009/horing---referansekatalog-versjon-2.html?id=549422&quot;&gt;forslag
til versjon 2 av statens referansekatalog over standarder&lt;/a&gt;, lirer
de av seg følgende FUD-perle:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&quot;Vorbis, OGG, Theora og FLAC er alle tekniske
  spesifikasjoner overordnet styrt av xiph.org, som er en
  ikke-kommersiell organisasjon.  Etablerte og anerkjente
  standardiseringsorganisasjoner, som Oasis, W3C og Ecma, har en godt
  innarbeidet vedlikeholds- og forvaltningsprosess av en standard.
  Det er derimot helt opp til hver enkelt organisasjon å bestemme
  hvordan tekniske spesifikasjoner videreutvikles og endres, og disse
  spesifikasjonene bør derfor ikke defineres som åpne
  standarder.&quot;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;De vokter seg vel for å nevne den anerkjente
standardiseringsorganisasjonen IETF, som er organisasjonen bak HTTP,
IP og det meste av protokoller på Internet, og RFC-standardene som
IETF står bak.  Ogg er spesifisert i
&lt;a href=&quot;http://ietf.org/rfc/rfc3533.txt&quot;&gt;RFC 3533&lt;/a&gt;, og er uten
tvil å anse som en åpen standard.  Vorbis er
&lt;a href=&quot;http://ietf.org/rfc/rfc5215.txt&quot;&gt;RFC 5215&lt;/a&gt;.  Theora er

under standardisering via IETF, med
&lt;a href=&quot;http://svn.xiph.org/trunk/theora/doc/draft-ietf-avt-rtp-theora-00.txt&quot;&gt;siste
utkast publisert 2006-07-21&lt;/a&gt; (riktignok er dermed teksten ikke
skrevet i stein ennå, men det blir neppe endringer som ikke er
bakoverkompatibel).  De kan være inne på noe når det gjelder FLAC da
jeg ikke finner tegn til at &lt;a
href=&quot;http://flac.sourceforge.net/format.html&quot;&gt;spesifikasjonen
tilgjengelig på web&lt;/a&gt; er på tur via noen
standardiseringsorganisasjon, men i og med at folkene bak Ogg, Theora
og Vorbis også har involvert seg i Flac siden 2003, så ser jeg ikke
bort fra at også den organiseres via IETF.  Jeg kjenner personlig lite
til FLAC.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Uredelig argumentasjon bør en holde seg for god til å komme med,
spesielt når det er så enkelt i dagens Internet-hverdag å gå
misvisende påstander etter i sømmene.&lt;/p&gt;
</description>
        </item>
        
        <item>
                <title>When web browser developers make a video player...</title>
                <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/When_web_browser_developers_make_a_video_player___.html</link>
                <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/When_web_browser_developers_make_a_video_player___.html</guid>
                <pubDate>Sat, 17 Jan 2009 18:50:00 +0100</pubDate>
                <description>&lt;p&gt;As part of the work we do in &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.nuug.no&quot;&gt;NUUG&lt;/a&gt;
to publish video recordings of our monthly presentations, we provide a
page with embedded video for easy access to the recording.  Putting a
good set of HTML tags together to get working embedded video in all
browsers and across all operating systems is not easy.  I hope this
will become easier when the &amp;lt;video&amp;gt; tag is implemented in all
browsers, but I am not sure.  We provide the recordings in several
formats, MPEG1, Ogg Theora, H.264 and Quicktime, and want the
browser/media plugin to pick one it support and use it to play the
recording, using whatever embed mechanism the browser understand.
There is at least four different tags to use for this, the new HTML5
&amp;lt;video&amp;gt; tag, the &amp;lt;object&amp;gt; tag, the &amp;lt;embed&amp;gt; tag and
the &amp;lt;applet&amp;gt; tag.  All of these take a lot of options, and
finding the best options is a major challenge.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;I just tested the experimental Opera browser available from &lt;a
href=&quot;http://labs.opera.com&quot;&gt;labs.opera.com&lt;/a&gt;, to see how it handled
a &amp;lt;video&amp;gt; tag with a few video sources and no extra attributes.
I was not very impressed.  The browser start by fetching a picture
from the video stream.  Not sure if it is the first frame, but it is
definitely very early in the recording.  So far, so good. Next,
instead of streaming the 76 MiB video file, it start to download all
of it, but do not start to play the video.  This mean I have to wait
for several minutes for the downloading to finish.  When the download
is done, the playing of the video do not start!  Waiting for the
download, but I do not get to see the video?  Some testing later, I
discover that I have to add the controls=&quot;true&quot; attribute to be able
to get a play button to pres to start the video.  Adding
autoplay=&quot;true&quot; did not help.  I sure hope this is a misfeature of the
test version of Opera, and that future implementations of the
&amp;lt;video&amp;gt; tag will stream recordings by default, or at least start
playing when the download is done.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;The test page I used (since changed to add more attributes) is
&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20090113-foredrag-om-foredrag/&quot;&gt;available
from the nuug site&lt;/a&gt;.  Will have to test it with the new Firefox
too.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;In the test process, I discovered a missing feature.  I was unable
to find a way to get the URL of the playing video out of Opera, so I
am not quite sure it picked the Ogg Theora version of the video.  I
sure hope it was using the announced Ogg Theora support. :)&lt;/p&gt;
</description>
        </item>
        
        <item>
                <title>The sorry state of multimedia browser plugins in Debian</title>
                <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_sorry_state_of_multimedia_browser_plugins_in_Debian.html</link>
                <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_sorry_state_of_multimedia_browser_plugins_in_Debian.html</guid>
                <pubDate>Tue, 25 Nov 2008 00:10:00 +0100</pubDate>
                <description>&lt;p&gt;Recently I have spent some time evaluating the multimedia browser
plugins available in Debian Lenny, to see which one we should use by
default in Debian Edu.  We need an embedded video playing plugin with
control buttons to pause or stop the video, and capable of streaming
all the multimedia content available on the web.  The test results and
notes are available on
&lt;a href=&quot;http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/BrowserMultimedia&quot;&gt;the
Debian wiki&lt;/a&gt;.  I was surprised how few of the plugins are able to
fill this need.  My personal video player favorite, VLC, has a really
bad plugin which fail on a lot of the test pages.  A lot of the MIME
types I would expect to work with any free software player (like
video/ogg), just do not work.  And simple formats like the
audio/x-mplegurl format (m3u playlists), just isn&#39;t supported by the
totem and vlc plugins.  I hope the situation will improve soon.  No
wonder sites use the proprietary Adobe flash to play video.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;For Lenny, we seem to end up with the mplayer plugin.  It seem to
be the only one fitting our needs. :/&lt;/p&gt;
</description>
        </item>
        
        </channel>
</rss>