It’s actually shared patent pool with H265, most big tech companies already license it for the latter, there was some litigation with Snapchat I think regarding AV1. Royalties are for distribution, I assume, so posting AV1 video might be a no-no. I meant to ask if the ‘patented’ stuff is even used when encoding an image. (NB the codec is not patented, nobody claims that afaik, but rather it might be patent encumbered, as in it uses algorithm that might be patented as a part of its design)