The question whether the future of web video will be free or have a patent-licensing bill still has no clear cut answer till now. This is the reason why a format war regarding web video is still going on.

Currently, MPEG-LA, the patent-licensing organization which is the collector of patent royalties from users of the majority of famous video formats, has asked for a formal call for patents that V8, the video codec technology comes under. V8 is being made part of the WebM project by Google for promoting multimedia on the internet free from patents.

The V8 format got open-sourced by Google following it bought it in 2010. Further, anybody or company can make use of the V8 for free.

With suggestions that patents are there which really cover V8 and talks that it is intending to get together like patents as well as demand licensing fees there has been a practical declaration by MPEG-LA of a web-video war on Google.

Meanwhile Google told that it is going to defend its project and set up a coalition for giving support to free as well as open progress over the internet.