MPEG-4 backers feel the heat

"Proponents of MPEG-4 are decrying Microsoft's new licensing fees for rival technology, saying that the pricing poses unfair competition and threatens consumer choice," claims CNet. Comment: The obvious problem for the MPEG-4 standard bearers is that, with competition from Microsoft, they might not make quite so much money from patent licensing and usage fees. (Apple, you may recall, made a noble stand against the group's earlier, more outrageous demands.) However, there seems to be both confusion and hypocrisy here. First, Microsoft and MPEG-LA are selling different things: Microsoft is licensing software technology and not patents whereas MPEG-LA is licensing patents and not technology (if you want to implement MPEG-4, you have to do that yourself). Second, Microsoft's charges are not noticeably different from the ones charged by Real Networks for its proprietary technolgy. Third, whatever Microsoft charged, it would be attacked. This is now standard practice in the industry. It Microsoft charges more then by definition it is overcharging consumers; if it charges less then it is undercutting rival producers; and if it charges the same it is not being competitive and possibly, by implication, conspiring in a price-fixing cartel.