Is HEIC Patent Risk Real for Small Web Services?

Apple uses HEIC as the default iPhone photo format — which means almost every image your users upload from iOS is potentially HEIC. But HEIC is built on HEVC, which is encumbered by a messy patent pool (MPEG LA + HEVC Advance). The question If you're running a small, free image converter that processes HEIC files server-side, are you actually exposed to legal risk? Here's what I found after researching this for Convertify : Patent holders typically target device manufacturers and encoders , not web services There's no known case of a small web service being sued for HEIC processing Using libheif (open source) doesn't grant a patent license, but practically, enforcement at this level hasn't happened The real risk threshold seems to be commercial scale — think millions of users or hardware bundling My conclusion Theoretical risk exists, but practical risk for indie/small services is low. Has anyone dealt with this, consulted a lawyer, or found solid resources on this topic? Would love to