> People keep calling the AV-family codecs “royalty free,” but in practice they increasingly look like a legal and financial gamble.

And the alternative is… ?

For H.265 there are two HEVC licensing pools you have to sign with plus at least two non-pool companies:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Efficiency_Video_Coding#P...

Going with a non-AVx codec is no less complicated and fraught with lawsuit risk AFAICT.