That awesome AV1 media codec Google is using is under investigation for antitrust licensing

Thanks to a new codec called AV1, or AOMedia Video 1, which was developed by the Alliance for Open Media (AOM) which consists of Google, Microsoft, Mozilla, Adobe, Amazon, and a whole list of other big hitters in the industry, services like Stadia, YouTube, and Google Duo have been able to improve live streaming, video calling via RTC, and more. It also allows for reduced file sizes for offline files, and even HDR video playback with 4K via mobile networks.

Essentially, this media format is incredibly cool and shows loads of promise for the future of video technologies. However, there’s just one problem – it’s under investigation for antitrust practices. What, you thought you’d wake up today and not read something about Google being involved in a new antitrust issue? That’s cute, but I don’t blame you, we can always hope for good, uneventful days, right?

Anyway, The European Commission is investigating a licensing scheme that may have been occurring during the time the codec was created:

“The Commission has information that AOM and its members may be imposing licensing terms (mandatory royalty-free cross licensing) on innovators that were not a part of AOM at the time of the creation of the AV1 technical, but whose patents are deemed essential to (its) technical specifications,” the paper said.

Reuters

EU Antitrust regulators state that this action may be responsible for restricting innovators’ ability to compete with AV1’s technical specifications, and also could have eliminated incentives for them to innovate in the same space. At this time, companies involved in this potential scheme could end up paying up to 10% of their global turnover for breaching the EU’s antitrust rules. That’s a lot of money across each company, but ultimately, not much to them.

Again, this is an investigation, not an outright lawsuit at this stage, but if it turns into one, it may very well be yet another case of corporations doing bad things and being willing to take the hit financially in order to do whatever they have to do to push innovation despite other players in the field. Anyone surprised? No? Me either. Until we find out more though, everyone is innocent until proven guilty, and this is strictly informational.