> it wouldn't be at all surprising to see some legal action on the part of MPEG-LA
It would be pretty unlikely actually. MPEG-LA has been threatening about Vorbis for the last 11 years and nothing has happened so far, same thing with theora. The last thing MPGEG-LA want is to reveal what patents exactly are being used by WebM (if any), they'd rather spread FUD and make companies pay for licenses out of fear like they always have as the patent troll that they are. I (and probably Google too) would actually love for them to start suing so we can finally debunk those patents, which is why they probably won't.
The difference being that Vorbis has almost no commercial traction. If large, popular services (like YouTube, for instance) decided to go with a codec like WebM, the MPEG-LA might finally decide to make good on those threats.
YouTube announced months ago that they're transcoding pretty much everything they have to WebM. They've been working on it ever since; a significant fraction of YouTube videos are available in WebM right this second.
Vorbis is being used in many of the biggest games, the gaming industry is a multi-billion dollar one, why not sue them? Doesn't make sense unless they really secretly hate google and only want to sue them...
True, but Vorbis is an audio spec, not a video one. Theora, which would arguably be more on MPEG-LA's radar, is used in only a handful of titles: http://wiki.xiph.org/Games_that_use_Theora
It would be pretty unlikely actually. MPEG-LA has been threatening about Vorbis for the last 11 years and nothing has happened so far, same thing with theora. The last thing MPGEG-LA want is to reveal what patents exactly are being used by WebM (if any), they'd rather spread FUD and make companies pay for licenses out of fear like they always have as the patent troll that they are. I (and probably Google too) would actually love for them to start suing so we can finally debunk those patents, which is why they probably won't.