[x264-devel] Announcing commercial licensing for x264

[Jason Garrett-Glaser]

On Mon, Jul 12, 2010 at 1:56 PM, Jason Garrett-Glaser
<darkshikari at gmail.com> wrote:
> To all prospective commercial users of x264,
>
> I would like to announce the availability of commercial licensing for
> x264.  Now the best video encoder in the world -- the undisputed
> winner of the 2010 MSU encoder comparison and the magic behind video
> systems by Google, Facebook, Avail Media, Vudu, Hulu, and many more --
> is available for everyone to use, even commercial software vendors.
> No longer do commercial application developers need to rely on
> overpriced and inferior competitors.
>
> This is intended to give an option to companies who are unable to use
> the GPL version, either due to patent concerns or issues with linking
> their proprietary applications to GPL code.
>
> A short summary of the terms:
>
> 1.  You buy a number of units of x264, which you can package with your
> products.  You can do basically anything you want -- you get a full
> license to the source (obviously, since it's open source to begin
> with!) and can modify it if you want.  The only restrictions on use
> and distribution are those necessary to make the per-unit licensing
> fees make sense.
> 2.  However, you must give your modifications back to us, x264 LLC.
> If they're useful, we'll roll them back into the official x264.  No
> proprietary forks!  If a change helps you, it should help the
> community, too.
> 3.  We're responsible for dealing with copyright issues.  If someone
> comes to you claiming that they own a significant interest in x264
> that we didn't acquire rights to, we have to fix it for you.  This
> means either stripping out the relevant code or replacing it.
> 4.  You're responsible for patent licensing if you're based in a
> nation where patents are an issue.  This isn't our choice; the rules
> of MPEG-LA require that if Company A uses Company B's encoder in their
> product, Company A must pay the fees, not Company B.  FYI, MPEG-LA's
> fees are zero for the first 100,000 units, 20 cents per unit until 5
> million, and 10 cents beyond that, capping at around $5m per year.
> 5.  Our planned starting price is $1 per unit, with a 10,000 unit minimum.
> 6.  Our license is LGPL-compatible, so you can use x264 in combination
> with libavcodec, libavformat, libswscale, and other popular LGPL
> multimedia libraries.
>
> How do you know if you need this license for a use of x264?  Here's a
> short rundown, though it is not a substitute for legal advice:
>
> 1.  Is your application GPL?  If so, you don't need this license.
> 2.  Is your application server-side only and not distributed to
> customers?  If so, you don't need this license.
> 3.  Is your application not GPL-compatible (e.g. proprietary),
> distributed to customers, and links to x264?  If so, you do need this
> license.
>
> Our promise to the x264 community:
>
> 1.  We (x264 LLC) are legally obliged, by our own contribution
> agreement, to never create a proprietary fork of x264.  Specifically,
> if we distribute a modified version of x264, we must open-source the
> modifications too.  No exceptions.
> 2.  The vast majority of all profits will be returned to the
> developers of x264 to allow them to dedicate more time to improving
> x264.  A small portion will go to paying off legal fees and a
> rainy-day fund.  We might also choose to use a small portion of it in
> the future for other open source-related purposes, such as sponsoring
> useful ffmpeg projects, like implementing 4:2:2 and 4:4:4 H.264
> decoding support in ffmpeg.
>
> Some example use-cases for x264-based applications:
>
> 1.  Low-latency streaming (videoconferencing, VNC).
> 2.  Offline video compression (transcoding applications, encoding for
> mobile devices and Flash).
> 3.  Disc media authoring (Blu-ray, AVCHD)
> 4.  Real-time broadcast (IPTV, cable, Flash, iPhone).
> 5.  Real-time recording (security cameras, screen capture).
>
> If your company is interested, contact x264 LLC at licensing at x264.com.
>  We have a draft license that we're interested in getting comments on
> -- the specific terms are still up for negotiation and can be
> customize to fit your needs.  We can also take contracts to add
> features to x264 and provide support for x264 as necessary.
>
> Jason Garrett-Glaser
>
> Lead x264 Developer
>
> x264 LLC
>

One thing to add to this -- payment options will be flexible for
non-standard customer business models.  For example, it would be silly
to charge a per-unit fee if the intent is to distribute x264 as part
of a free browser plugin.

Jason