MP3 it's not free anymore

[spiffydinosaur]

I was looking at www.qnxzone.com and found this news tid-bit. Seems Thompson media is going to start charging for all things related to MP3. They own the patents.

In come the open source heroes www.vorbis.com

This is what open source is all about!
 MP3 bad news

[jarrody2k]

Isn't *new*s supposed to be *new*?

[MrZammler]

Here's a mail I got back from them:

I am the public relations person for Thomson multimedia (mp3 licensing) and
was copied on your email.  Please take a look below at the company statement
response from Thmomson multimedia regarding the Slashdot posting - which was
written by someone who completely misunderstood the mp3 licensing program!
Most important, there is no change whatsoever to the mp3 licensing program,
which has pretty much stayed intact since its inception in 1995!  Please
stay with mp3 - it has always been Thomson's biggest objective to be totally
accessible and fair to the consumer, and always will be!

Sincerely,

Steve Syatt
SSA Public Relations (for Thomson multimedia, mp3 Licensing)



Statement from Thomson Multimedia, mp3 Licensing

In a posting appearing Tuesday August 27, 2002 on the Web site
‘slashdot.org,’ an individual cited a change in the mp3 license fee
structure of Thomson and Fraunhofer.  The writer of the post apparently
misread the mp3 licensing conditions, as Thomson’s mp3 licensing policy has
not experienced any change.

To clarify, since the beginning of our mp3 licensing program in 1995,
Thomson has never charged a per unit royalty for freely distributed software
decoders.  For commercially sold decoders – primarily hardware mp3 players –
the per-unit royalty has always been in place since the beginning of the
program.

Therefore, there is no change in our licensing policy and we continue to
believe that the royalty fees of .75 cents per mp3 player (on average
selling over $200 dollars) has no measurable impact on the consumer
experience.

They are not charging anything for freely distributed decoders.

[jumpship]

They are not charging anything for freely distributed
decoders.

So why can't I download BladENC in binary form?

JS

[ikir]

... :-( ...

[KennyR]

This is very serious. MP3 is a very special compressor. It uses data from studies of the human brain audial centres and the human ear to select which parts of the sample should be dropped for maximum compression, and most people won't even notice the bits that are missing. Unless you're not human, that is.

So its very unlikely there will be a free or open source algorithm even as remotely good as mp3. Not even ogg vorbis. So I wouldn't state vorbis as being an instant fix, more of yet another open source solution destined for parallel - if lesser - use. Remember PNG?

[spiffydinosaur]

@ jarrody2k

Isn't *new*s supposed to be *new*?

So maybe not everyone was as up to speed, like you. Don't sweat it. The article was dated Aug 27 on slash dot. thats not exactly a moth eaten blanket. :-P

[spiffydinosaur]

I thought this was a pretty good response. to the news:  open letter from Ogg

Ogg may not be the best, but, when cheap is your middle name ( me ) free is better. Anyway I have lost so much hearing it really dosen't matter. To all Please use hearing protection! Toneitus sucks. That must be why GOD made crickets they block out the ringing.

I hope that more programming languages start supporting this format. Say for example say Blitz. Then again maybe they do I haven't gotten my stuff yet.  :-D

[Skyraker]

ffs, go read the proper story at the register... theyre only charging .75 for each piece of hardware...

The Register Story

Skyraker.

[spiffydinosaur]

Ok! OK!

Stung once again. Trust can get me in trouble. But I would still rather trust than not. helps me learn who to trust. Even if it makes me look stupid.

Life is good! :-D

[whabang]

AFAIK, they can never get to LAME.