Patents covering GIF have expired.
JPEG implementation doesn't require license fees, same goes for JPEG 2000 and PNG.
H264 license is payed for the decoder/encoder. Apple pays license fees for the codec that is part of OS X (both desktop and mobile). There is a type of H264 license that covers codecs that come with operating system and that other applications can use.
You do NOT need to pay license fees for H264 if you use the decoder that Apple supplies with the OS.
If you have a *paid* website and stream H264 videos then you would need to pay the license fees, but that is completely unrelated.
There is much to do about Lodsys demanding a license-fee from app-developers for there in-app upgrades, we all assume that Apple's license to this technology should cover the app-developers.
How i understand it, the MPEG, JPG and GIF licences work exactly the same, Apple (member of the MPEG-LA) paid for the
licensing in osX and iOS but each graphic application also pays a licence on
there own. There is even a free licence to publish these formats on the
internet but a license non the less, apparently all 3 groups need
licensing.
Is this the same or are there differences i don't see?

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