Four companies start Blu-ray licensing program

Mitsubishi, Thomson, Toshiba and Warner Bros. jointly founded the BD4C Licensing Group. The organization will sell licenses to manufacturers of Blu-ray hardware and discs. Payment must be made per device or disk.

The new organization will license products that conform to Blu-ray Disc Association standards, including BD-ROMs, BD-recordables, BD players and BD recorders. Also, some licenses related to the DVD standard are included in the licensing program, such as for the use of hybrid Blu-ray discs. By establishing the BD4C, the participating companies are responding to the Blu-ray Disc Association’s desire to simplify the sale of licenses. They want to do this by harmonizing the rates and introducing a ‘one-stop-shop’. The organization is calling on other patent holders to also transfer their Blu-ray related technology to the BD4C.

The highest license fee, $7 per device, applies to Blu-ray recorders. For every built Blu-ray player, a manufacturer has to pay $ 4.50. License fees must also be paid to the BD4C for encoder and decoder parts, according to the price list, but the prices are lower than expected.

Remarkably, the BD4C Licensing Group will be headed by Toshiba. The Japanese manufacturer previously tried to push through its HD DVD format, but ultimately lost the battle with Blu-ray. Since his defeat, Toshiba has increasingly clearly endorsed the Blu-ray format and has now introduced several Blu-ray players under its own brand name.

Category License Fee in Dollars