Can the code source under a HEIF License be used for a commercial project?

Question

For a commercial project, I need to add the support of the HEIF images (Nokia High-Efficiency Image File Format). I found a SDK provided by Nokia that seems to do the job. However I'm in trouble with the license agreement.

In the license, it is said:

Nokia Technologies Ltd (“Nokia”) hereby grants to you a non-sublicensable, perpetual, worldwide, non-exclusive, no-charge, royalty-free, irrevocable (except as stated in this license) license, under its copyrights and Licensed Patents only to, use, run, modify (in a way that still complies with the Specification), and copy the Software within the Licensed Field. For the avoidance of doubt the Licensed Patents shall not include Codec Patents. Codec Patent licenses are neither granted, implied nor otherwise conveyed hereunder.

which seems to indicate that the source code may be used inside a commercial project. However, the term "Licensed Field" refers to this paragraph:

Licensed Field means the non-commercial purposes of evaluation, testing and academic research in each non-commercial case to use, run, modify (in a way that still complies with the Specification) and copy the Software to (a) generate, using one or more encoded pictures as inputs, a file complying with the Specification and including the one or more encoded pictures that were given as inputs; and/or (b) read a file complying with the Specification, resulting into one or more encoded pictures included in the file as outputs.

which seems to indicate the exact opposite of the first paragraph above.

The copyright issues are not my strong point, so can somebody point me if the code relative to this agreement may be used in a commercial project or not?

Answer 1

IANAL/IANYL

In the first license except you provided it says you can only to,use, run, modify (in a way that still complies with the Specification), and copy the Software within the Licensed Field. Then, you continue with:

which seems to indicate that the source code may be used inside a commercial project.

I don't see a justification for that assertion. It says only .. in the Licensed Field. Without knowing what Licensed Field means you cannot assume anything. Knowing that, the license includes the second excerpt you provided, which says what Licensed Field means. Doing substitution results in the following created condition:

only to, use, run, modify (in a way that still complies with the Specification), and copy the Software within non-commercial purposes of evaluation, testing and academic research.

That seems to pretty much rule out any commercial purpose completely. It even rules out most non-commercial purposes except "evaluation, testing and academic research." That seems to even rule out using it to display your family photos on your personal (non-commercial) website since it is not evaluation, testing, or academic research.

In short: Find a different SDK, or get a commercial license from Nokia to use their SDK.