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For many who are new to Blu-ray Disc (BD), the bewildering selection of licenses and fees are causing a lot of confusion. Unlike DVD, which had a fairly loose approach to licenses for content creators, there ARE some BD licenses that may not be obvious to all, even those who are experienced in DVD! I'll spend the next few posts clarifying what you may be expect of licensing for BD usage.
Types of Licenses: There are two different sets of license requirements: AACS for content protection for Replicated discs (BD-ROM) and BDA licenses for various manufacturers of drives, players, recordeds, media and yes, even CONTENT producers! AACS Licenses:
If you are going to replicate BD-ROM discs of ANY format (BD 25, BD50, even BD5 or BD9 which use DVD media) you will be REQUIRED to sign a participation agreement with AACS, and also to obtain a per-title (actually, per-glass-master) Title Key Certificate. These costs may be considered significant, if you're a small producer.
As of August 2008 these costs are: $3000 (one-time) to join the AACS program $1300 per glass master for a title key certificate $00.04 per disc, royalty payable to AACS For larger publishers, these fees may be small sums, but for small publishers, AACS costs may be an unexpectedly large expense. The GOOD news is that AACS is NOT used on BD-R or BD-RE media, and you are free to create BD projects that are burned on BD-R/RE without any need for an AACS license of any kind. You can even create a project that is distributed on a fair number of BD-R/RE discs that have been DUPLICATED. AACS is directly tied to REPLICATION of BD, and not an issue with the BD recordable formats. Let me be clear: AACS is ONLY required if you are going to replicate a quantity of BD-ROM discs by using a BD Replicator. NOTE: AACS s only ONE of three possible content protection schemes (BD+ and BD-ROM Mark are others, which we will discuss in future posts. More info here: http://www.blu-raydisc.info/content_prov/rom2content_prot.php BDA FLLA and Content Provider (CPA) Licenses FLLA (Format Logo Licensing Agreement) and CPA licenses are another thing, and may not be obvious to many who are first getting into BD. FLLA licenses have to do with the use of the BD format Logo (the Blu-ray Disc mark you have no doubt seen). Authoring companies who plan to create commercial titles for replication should investigate if the FLLA for BD-ROM is required for their expected workload (requirements are somewhat uncertain). Authoring facilities planing on creating titles using BD-J or BD Live are encouraged to become FLLA licensees, to facilitate their interactions with licensed repicators. An FLLA agreement for BD-ROM is currently $4000 for 5 years, and must be aid at the time of licensing
Another benefit for BD-FLLA licensed authoring facilities: the licensing provisions subscribed to will pass through to benefit the clients who engage that licensed facility for BD-ROM authoring, eliminating the need for the client company (usually the content owner) to obtain a license themselves (usually a CPA or CPA-light license for large or small content publishers, respectively). CPA Licenses
If a content owner is expecting to publish "many" commercial BD titles during a year, it may be in their best interest to become a direct CPA licensee, or a CPA-Light licensee. The costs are different: A CPA license costs $3000/yr for 5 yrs; CPA-light costs $500/yr for 5 yrs. see: http://www.blu-raydisc.info/content_prov.php I realize this many not yet be a complete listing of all license possibilities, so any specific license inquiries should be addressed to the BDA licensing agent at:
agent@blu-raydisc.info To summarize the above:
you should NOT need a CPA license if you are only creating small quantities on BD recordable, and you should not need an FLLA license as long as you are not attempting to use the BD Logo or Logotype in any advertising, or on the disc itself (other than a pre-printed BD logo on a BD-R/RE disc, which has alreayd been licensed).
You can label your own discs as being a "Blu-ray Disc" in plain text - this is allowed. BD logo examples and guidance can be found here: http://www.blu-raydisc.info/bluray_logo/content_prov_logo.php Hope this helps you make some sense of these requirements. Future posts will expand on these license types and requirements.
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