Villainous, disingenuous, yet surprisingly receptive to technical feedback. These are just a few off-the-record words used by video industry insiders to describe the Alliance for Open Media (AOM), the organization behind the AV1 video codec. It would now appear that European Union (EU) antitrust regulators are in agreement with at least one of the above adjectives, as the European Commission has launched an investigation into AOM’s infamously divisive royalty-free licensing policy. Reuters has blown the lid on the investigation, with a spokesperson confirming with the outlet that a preliminary investigation is ongoing. A caveat in the letter seen by Reuters states that “being at a preliminary stage does not prejudge the outcome of the investigation on the existence of an…