EU antitrust regulators are investigating the video licensing coverage of the Alliance for Open Media (AOM), whose members embrace Alphabet unit Google, Amazon, Apple and Meta, the European Commission stated on Thursday.
The investigation is the most recent to hit the tech business, which will probably be topic to powerful new guidelines in Europe subsequent yr that would power corporations to alter their core enterprise fashions and do extra to deal with unlawful content material on their platforms.
“The Commission confirms that it has a preliminary investigation ongoing into AOM’s licensing policy,” a spokesperson for the EU govt instructed Reuters.
“The fact that the Commission has a preliminary investigation does not prejudge the outcome of the investigation on the existence of an infringement,” the spokesperson stated, with out offering additional particulars.
AOM didn’t instantly reply to an emailed request for remark. Founded in 2015, the group goals to create a brand new normal software program for streaming higher-quality 4K video on browsers, gadgets, apps, and gaming, often known as AV1.
While the AV1 software program will not be but adopted broadly, Netflix and YouTube have began utilizing it for some prospects, and browsers resembling Google Chrome and Firefox have began to assist the brand new format.
Apple and Google didn’t instantly reply to an emailed request for remark. Meta and Amazon declined to remark. Microsoft, Netflix, Broadcom, Cisco, and Tencent, who’re additionally AOM members, didn’t instantly reply to emailed requests for remark.
Intel, Huawei, Mozilla, Samsung, and Nvidia are additionally AOM members, in accordance with its web site.
In a questionnaire despatched to some corporations earlier this yr and seen by Reuters, the EU watchdog stated it was investigating alleged anti-competitive behaviour associated to the license phrases of AV1 by AOM and its members in Europe.
“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 stated.
It stated this motion could also be limiting the innovators’ capacity to compete with the AV1 technical specification, and likewise eradicate incentives for them to innovate.
The questionnaire additionally requested in regards to the influence of an AOM patent license clause wherein licensees would have their patent licenses terminated instantly in the event that they launched patent lawsuits asserting that implementation infringes their claims.
Companies threat fines of as much as 10 p.c of their international turnover for breaching EU antitrust guidelines.
© Thomson Reuters 2022
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