[asterisk-dev] Opus and VP8

[Tilghman Lesher]

Disclaimer:  I do not work for Digium, I am not a lawyer, and I'm not
speaking for any of the entities out there.

On Wed, May 29, 2013 at 2:10 PM, Shaun Clark <shaun_clark at hotmail.com> wrote:
> So what about g.729? You don't own that patent, but you still let us use it
> in Asterisk?

G.729 is licensed from the consortium that owns the patents on the
codec.  If you are not paying for your licenses, then they could very
well come after you for non-payment.  The only code out there that can
be used without paying a licensing fee is for non-commercial, academic
use only.  The licensing that Digium uses for G.729 specifically
indemnifies them against liability, should anybody make a claim that
G.729 infringes upon a patent that was not included in the package.

> Can't something like this be arranged for OPUS? It seems kind
> of important given how many parties are getting behind OPUS.

If a licensing entity is willing to indemnify Digium against liability
for infringement, I think they'd be willing to investigate that,
provided there isn't a minimum number of licenses that need to be sold
in order to obtain the favorable licensing agreement.

-Tilghman