Quoting: RandomizedKirbyTree47

Thankfully, Cloud Gaming fans still have the likes of GeForce NOW, Xbox Cloud Gaming and Luna

Where do cloud gaming fans who don't like subscriptions go?

You can connect your Steam library and play games that support Steam Cloud Play on Geforce Now.

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Quoting: pleasereadthemanualI researched this at the time but could not find a clear-cut answer. See, for example, this page on the End Software Patents wiki: https://wiki.endsoftwarepatents.org/wiki/Software_patents_exist_in_Europe,_kinda [External Link]

And this page: https://wiki.endsoftwarepatents.org/wiki/Do_software_patents_exist_in_my_area [External Link]

Quoting: endsoftwarepatentsFor example, the European Patent Office grants software patents. Courts in Germany have mostly rejected them, but courts in the UK have upheld some. This uncertainty reduces the problem: although there are 70,000 EPO granted software patents, the patent holders rarely go to court because they're afraid their patent will be invalidated.

This doesn't prevent the harm. Software patent holders in the EU can still threaten software developers, and they can demand sums of money. If the victim doesn't have enough money to defend themselves in court, then the patent holder might "win" and thus get money or market control even though their patent is probably invalid.

For France specifically, it's listed as part of a patent pool for H.264/AVC: https://web.archive.org/web/20110114054025/http://www.mpegla.com/main/programs/AVC/Pages/PatentList.aspx [External Link]

Indeed, it's not black and white in theory, but in practice I have never seen any company be concerned about software patents. The EU is incompetent as always, but software patent lawsuits are usually dismissed with one or two exceptions, if they occur at all, which is why I simplified my previous comment. In the 2000s, for example, Europe was flooded with unlicensed MP3 players imported from China. MPEG LA didn't even try to ban them and every business was able to sell them legally.
However, the situation regarding design protection and other patents is just as terrible as in the US, for example Apple has used these "protections" to ban devices in Europe after failing to do anything with software patents.

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Quoting: pleasereadthemanualAs for why ffmpeg's x264/x265 can be freely used by free software media players that distribute their software to users like VLC, it has been suggested that France cares less about software patents than other countries (I don't know how true this is).

It's true. France couldn't care less, since there are no software patents in the European Union. This is not country-specific or a softer attitude, but an explicit rejection of the entire concept of software patents. Nobody pays software patent fees here.

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