What kind of licenses do I need for home business?

CoolBlue wrote on 10/21/2007, 12:50 PM

I own the full suite of V8, Cinescore, and Sound Forge 9. To start a home based video business for home video transfers and also commercial editing for businesses, do I need to purchase any additional licenses? Do I need a Dolby AC-3 license for encoding audio, or a license to use the DVD Logo on my discs?

In the Vegas manual, under "Legal notices", it states that "Dolby 5.1 Creator Technology" is not intended for use in commercial or broadcast distribution..... Only approved Dolby encoders may be used......etc....

For MP3 format, it says an independent license is required.

For Sony AVC, it says to go to MPEGLA website for licensing.

Comments

TheHappyFriar wrote on 10/21/2007, 5:33 PM

ya know what... i didn't look at the DD license in this version. I assumed (wrongly) it was the same as the vegas 6 one.

it's different. in vegas 6 (maybe 7) you could use it commercially, you just couldn't use the logo. now you legally can't.

what a bite to the balls. :'(

don't bother using mp3 except for your own music collections. ogg is the "future" (because it's more open).

EDIT: DVDA doesn't have commercial limitations for DD, so now i'm confused.... if you can't render it in Vegas 8 for commercial/broadcast use, how can you use it in DVDA to sell to clients?

john-beale wrote on 10/21/2007, 10:53 PM

Is this a situation where Dolby 5.1 surround cannot be used commercially without additional license, but the regular Dolby AC3 stereo track can (?)

The MPEG-2 legalese in the Vegas 8 Pro manual is troubling, I had never read that before. Is there anyone who buys Vegas and does NOT make DVDs? It sounds like "Vegas 8 Pro" cannot be legally used for professional purposes, without a separate MPEG-LA license. Can that be right?

CoolBlue wrote on 10/24/2007, 9:04 PM

Well I was hoping someone had an answer. I assumed if I had a license to the software, that it came with commercial license for Dolby Digital and MPEG-2. Otherwise I would've just bought the home edition of Vegas.

RBartlett wrote on 10/25/2007, 12:04 AM

Part of the issue is that Dolby and MPEG-LA charge on a unit basis for their bread-and-butter product licensing. Same goes for Macrovision/CCA.

Interesting that we will eventually/soon be able to author CSS protected discs (using special media with the CSS/flag area in a writable form - which was prohibited from being available on DVDR blanks until September 2007).
http://www.dvdcca.org/DVDCCA%20Press%20Release%20070920.pdf

So Sony simply don't know what your volume and target market is. You need some volume to have a working relationship with the companies listed above. But if you have no relationship, you are operating above the law in most if not all countries.

Like many things to do with IPR, it is a nuisance for the small volume professional and Sony Madison/Toronto shouldn't foot the blame here IMHO. I suggest googling for the real rundown and then listening to what your company lawyer has to say. If you read up you'll know if your legal department is capable of flimflam, which isn't an uncommon problem in the legal service sector. You are essentially learning how to not damage a 3rd party in what you are undertaking when you make various DVD-Video media.

Most compression technologies are patented or protected against certain purposes that you may consider for their use. Even open source codecs have IPR/restrictions of some sort as do their file wrappers and occasionally even the filesystem you write them to. Just try to stay ahead of litigation or keep your head down and continue unabated.

The way I see it is that we are not users of DVD-Video technology, we are manufacturers of media product. As for the medium itself we are broadcasters too, or at the very least narrowcasters. Manufacturers have many responsibilities to their suppliers and customers. The world is stacked against the manufacturers too. Do then be prepared to pay DVD-FLLC, MPEG-LA, CCA, Dolby, Macrovision and even Philips (for the 12cm format and the value-add of a DVD+R), Sonic Solutions (for any InterActual compont usage) etc. [as I am sure the list of folks waiting in the queue just goes on]. It makes the JVC patent and protection on VHS seem quite trivial. So we get to understand DVD-Video and it's restrictions on use just as we start to get warmed up to Blu-Ray and HD-DVD (along with all the logos and technical ownerships).