docs: OpenH264/MPEG-LA royalty finding sharpens C1 -- not resolved

Cisco's own OpenH264 FAQ (openh264.org/faq.html) is explicit: they cover
MPEG-LA/AVC patent-pool royalties only for their own prebuilt binary,
downloaded at install time. Anyone who compiles OpenH264 from source
and redistributes it inside their own binary takes on "all applicable
license fees" themselves -- Cisco "will not be liable for any licensing
fees incurred by other parties" in that case.

LiveKit's client-sdk-cpp links Google libwebrtc via the webrtc-sdk
org's fork, whose documented build args (rtc_use_h264=true,
ffmpeg_branding="Chrome") are the standard Chromium/WebRTC recipe --
which links a from-source, statically-compiled copy of OpenH264 (from
Google's mirror, not Cisco's runtime binary) into libwebrtc. That is
exactly the shape of case Cisco's FAQ says voids their coverage. Not
independently confirmed against LiveKit's actual pinned v1.10.1 build
(their release archives ship only compiled output, no build manifest)
-- this is webrtc-sdk/libwebrtc's documented default, not a verified
fact about this specific artifact.

This sharpens C1 into a concrete mechanism instead of a general open
question. It does not resolve C1 -- if anything it strengthens the case
for treating it as unresolved -- and none of this is a substitute for
an actual legal opinion. Recorded in third_party/livekit/README.md (the
full writeup), README.md's Status section, and the release-notes
template in publish-release.sh so it reaches whoever opens a draft
release next, not just this one.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01RL8abRmgFXkVASHkkqiJbE

README.md

@@ -14,7 +14,13 @@ through the LiveKit SDK — a real patent/royalty question (OpenH264/WebRTC)
 that only the project owner can decide. Nothing in this repo should be built
 into a package and handed out, posted, or attached to a public release until
 that sign-off happens. See `third_party/livekit/README.md` for the specifics
-of what is and is not currently known/shipped on the licensing side. (CI in
+of what is and is not currently known/shipped on the licensing side —
+including a 2026-09-07 finding, sourced from Cisco's own OpenH264 FAQ, that
+the way LiveKit's WebRTC build normally links OpenH264 (statically, from
+source, not Cisco's runtime-downloaded binary) is specifically the case Cisco
+says voids their MPEG-LA royalty coverage and shifts it to the redistributor.
+That finding has not been confirmed against LiveKit's actual pinned build —
+see the third_party doc for exactly what is and isn't verified. (CI in
 `.gitea/workflows/build.yml` only builds, tests, and uploads CI-internal
 build artifacts — it does not create a Gitea Release or otherwise publish
 anything publicly.