Since this is about issues and not a popularity contest, I'll spell out what I concluded months ago (even before the extension of the free web video license was on the agenda): MPEG LA's commercial terms seem pretty reasonable.
I looked at some aspects of MPEG LA's AVC/H.264 licensing terms a couple of months ago and concluded that there really isn't a financial reason for which, for instance, Google or the Mozilla Foundation shouldn't simply pay them royalties:
http://fosspatents.blogspot.com/2010/06/mpeg-las-avch264-licensing-terms.html
I don't want software patents, and without them, we wouldn't have to worry about royalties. But I want to be realistic about the business implications of what happens with those patents.
If one wants to look for serious patent problems, MPEG LA isn't the place to search. One may consider the 20-year-monopoly that each of their patents represents to be unjustified; one can definitely argue that patents reward the first one to register something, but hurt others who make independent creations; but all of that is separate from the question of commercial fairness and reasonableness.
The real problem is strategic exclusionary use of patents as demonstrated by Apple vs. HTC and IBM vs. TurboHercules:
http://fosspatents.blogspot.com/2010/06/harmfulness-ranking-of-ways-to-use.html
Even Google appears to be an exclusionary user of its search engine patents, refusing to grant licenses to others.
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