Liaison statement
Response to LS on call for comments on an IETF WG on Internet Video Codec (netvc)

Dear ITU-T SG 16,

We are writing in response to the liaison statement received from ITU-T SG 16
requesting clarification about the goals the proposed Internet Video Codec
(NETVC) working group. The NETVC charter uses the word “competitive” in the
sense of being “comparable" and "commercially interesting." That is, the goal
of the working group is to produce a video codec that will need to have
comparable quality and efficiency as well as have IPR licensing terms make it
that commercially interesting to deploy widely at the time when the NETVC work
is finalized.

As the liaison statement notes, there are many concurrent ongoing efforts to
develop video codecs, and the NETVC work would merely be one additional such
effort. We do not view the proposed NETVC work as harmful for interoperability,
but rather as helpful, considering the fact that at present the licensing
environment creates barriers to full interoperability in many cases. One key
distinction of the NETVC work is a differentiation between 'licensing terms
that would enable broad use,' which is a subjective distinction, and
'royalty-free licensing terms,' which is a factual one. The combination of this
goal with the goal of achieving quality on par with modern, state-of-the-art
codecs is what makes NETVC distinctive.

Regards,
Alissa Cooper, IETF RAI area director
on behalf of the IESG