In April 2011, the Department of Justice began investigating the MPEG Licensing Association (MPEG LA) to learn whether or not the group is unfairly trying to damage Google’s competitive prospects with the WebM video format. But maybe MPEG LA would be doing us all a favor by damaging WebM. That’s my take, anyway. Here’s the rationale. In February, MPEG LA …

In a story for Streaming Media Magazine, I asked patent licensing authority MPEG-LA whether any claims had emerged against the VP8 video codec used Google’s WebM. As you recall, MPEG-LA announced a call for patents “essential” to VP8 in March 2011. Apparently, there have been 12 patents found to be essential to Google’s WebM technology by MPEG-LA’s patent experts. The …

UPDATE I just got this notice from Lulu. Upon closer inspection of your work, our Quality Review specialists found that your book does not meet the eBook Retail Distribution Guidelines. REASON: Your ebook has been rejected for formatting issues. The images and/or text in your file are blurry or not formatted properly., Your ebook (cover, description or content) cannot contain …