[DMCA-Activists] MP3 decoding royalties

[Matthew Caron]

http://slashdot.org/articles/02/08/27/1626241.shtml?tid=155

Götz writes "The licensing terms of Thomson and the Fraunhofer
Gesellschaft, who are the owners of the mp3 patents, have changed. Now
not only mp3 encoders but also mp3 decoders require a license. This page
lists the fees -- it's $0.75 per decoder. As a consequence, Red Hat has
already removed all mp3 players from the Rawhide development version." 

Some thoughts:
1.) Something tells me I'll be converting all my MP3's to Ogg Vorbis
shortly. I hear it's better, I've just been lazy.

2.) Good thing I haven't bought an AudioTron yet. I wonder if it does
Ogg. Or if it will soon.

3.) This should be a software patent, not copyright, correct? Which also
means that it will run out shortly, correct? After all, MP3's have been
popular for, oh at least 5 years, closer to 10, I would guess, which
means that the patent is at least that old.

4.) Writing and distributing a decoder counts as what? Patent
infringement? If we reverse engineer the MP3 format, we can then write a
decoder for it, can't we?

5.) And what about LAME? Encoders have always had to pay royalties, but
the LAME people got around it by writing their own code (which is why it
was a patch to some demonstration code for the longest time). Couldn't
the same be done for MP3's?
-- 
MS Windows is only cheaper than Linux if you
steal it.
                        - Matt and Liz
~~ Matt Caron ~~