Although speculation abounds about a forthcoming "storage" locker service from Apple, the company may face a holds nearly 40 video distribution patents, which have already been licensed by Microsoft in 2004 for nearly $60 million dollars.
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I'm sure that Apple could license them as well, if necessary. After all, Apple didn't invent Fairplay either. If they need it, they'll get it.
Apple owns huge chunks of Akamai (one of the leading and largest distributed streaming services). Akami already has license and distribution rights to most of the formats mentioned. Plus, Apple has its own proprietary streaming services and software that works very well. In two months, they've become the 9th largest service in the world. In addition, Apple's video streaming is in MPEG4/ Quicktime, which they invented and own all rights to, including methods of distribution/streaming.
Patents schmatents. You can't patent distribution (is FedEx the only carrier in the world? nope), just like you can't patent a color, or light, or water, or whatever...
The only time patents should be a problem is if Apple tried to use someone else's distribution technology. They've inventend their own, and they hold their own patents on it. They can stream video or anything else without using Burst's or M$'s technology.
The only hurdle they'll face is getting enough studios/networks on board, and coming up with a plan to make everyone happy - like they did with music, cause I sure as h*** do not want my videos streamed... When I fork over money, I want to download a file I can keep and manage myself thank you. If I can't do that, then I'll stick with DVDs.
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cringely skeptical?
next you'll tell me the sky is blue. cringely is so wrong about so many things it's not even funny. it's why he's a mid-level journalist and steve jobs is a billionaire.