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You can't play songs purchased from iTunes on your Creative MP3 player beause Creative didn't acquire a license to decode Apple's DRM-encoded AAC files from Apple. I don't know if Creative attempted to acquire a license or not.

Normal unencoded AAC files are a standard (MPEG-4 AAC standard http://www.vialicensing.com/products/mpeg4aac/stan dard.html) are can be licensed by anybody.

BTW. The MPEG-4 AAC standard was created by Dolby, as was the AC3 standard used on every DVD with audio.

From a purely technical standpoint, open standards seem quite attractive. However, until the patent system gets reworked so software patents get invalidated or have a high level of specificity required in comparing claims, even 'open' standards can become proprietary in a legal sense.

Some 'licensing' companies (e.g. Via Licensing and MPEG LA) will, if a standard looks like it will get some significant use in the market, make a 'call for patents', which means they ask anyone with a patent who thinks their patent would have some 'essentiality' to any implementation that used the standard to submit their patent for review. If one of these 'licensing' companies thinks the patent would apply generally to any system or application implementation that would make use of the standard, they add that patent with others of like merits to a 'patent pool' and then go after anyone using the standard to demand license fees for the pool. In this fashion, any open standard becomes a candidate for such companies to essentially leech off the standard and thereby prevent open, as in fee-less, use of the standard.

Open standards, then, face two hurdles beyond the technical ones. First, the well-known business interest some companies have in keeping their formats proprietary so you will not stop using their systems or software. Second, the less well-known, but growing legal problems with those who want to profit from the patent system without adding any real value in terms of standard creation or implementations. Open standards remain a good technical goal and we should pursue them, but this underscores some of the challenges to keep in mind.

IANAL and trying hard to use FLAC which is not that iTunes friendly!

Ugh. Well, alright, your heart is in the right place.

AAC isn't owned by anyone in particular. It's an MPEG (thus also ISO/IEC) standard. Technology in AAC is owned by many companies, among them Dolby, FhG, RCA, and Coding Technologies in a recent extension. It is true that anyone can license it, of course.

Actually Via handles the AAC licensing. There are several companies that benefit from those payments including dolby/thomson and fraunhofer to name a few.
http://www.vialicensing.com/products/mpeg4aac/lice nseFAQ.html

MPEGLA handles the MPEG4/AVC licensing.

I wonder who those guys called ISO are, that they endorse the MPEG-4 audio spec that includes AAC? Maybe a stardards body?

Really? And they get source code? What specific techniques are used to encode audio into WMA? Oh yeah... they're not available. Microsoft just points you at their pre-compiled library and says 'use that.'

Perhaps for the encoder, but I'd imagine that licensees get decoder source code so that they can port it to whatever DSP a device uses (as you hint later). Remember that pocket-size players don't have an x86 monoculture the way consumer PCs do.

I don't know of any independant software implementations of WMA (with or without DRM). FairPlay (without its DRM) is an AAC file -- a format that has more than a few independant implementations.

AAC implementations aren't as independent as you think; they're licensed by a division of Dolby on a royalty basis, which is incompatible with free software. Your argument may be valid in a decade and a half when the essential AAC patents expire, but it isn't now.

I already have all the information I need to implement the FairPlay/AAC format; the spec is freely available. I can write a compliant FairPlay encoder, a decoder, and DRM protection facilities. And as long as I don't try to sell music using my implementation, Apple will be hard-pressed to touch me.

But what about Dolby?

It appears that the only audio formats comparable to .m4a (MPEG-4 AAC audio) that have a published spec and are thought to be free of patent encumbrance are .ogg (Ogg Vorbis) and .mpc (Musepack).

Really? And they get source code? What specific techniques are used to encode audio into WMA? Oh yeah... they're not available. Microsoft just points you at their pre-compiled library and says 'use that.'

Perhaps for the encoder, but I'd imagine that licensees get decoder source code so that they can port it to whatever DSP a device uses (as you hint later). Remember that pocket-size players don't have an x86 monoculture the way consumer PCs do.

I don't know of any independant software implementations of WMA (with or without DRM). FairPlay (without its DRM) is an AAC file -- a format that has more than a few independant implementations.

AAC implementations aren't as independent as you think; they're licensed by a division of Dolby on a royalty basis, which is incompatible with free software. Your argument may be valid in a decade and a half when the essential AAC patents expire, but it isn't now.

I already have all the information I need to implement the FairPlay/AAC format; the spec is freely available. I can write a compliant FairPlay encoder, a decoder, and DRM protection facilities. And as long as I don't try to sell music using my implementation, Apple will be hard-pressed to touch me.

But what about Dolby?

It appears that the only audio formats comparable to .m4a (MPEG-4 AAC audio) that have a published spec and are thought to be free of patent encumbrance are .ogg (Ogg Vorbis) and .mpc (Musepack).

What makes you think Apple would license AAC to any store or portable-player company for any less than exorbitant fees? What good does it do Apple if people can play AAC music bought from Napster on a Dell player, unless they get huge license fees that no company is gonna pay?

> > How much more of a standard do you want than MP3!?!?

> Really? Does that include tracks downloaded from iTunes?

Yes. Those are in a format made by the same people. Which is not Apple.

Have a peek at the MPEG-4 AAC Licensing FAQ

Say hello to the word "standards"

Um, are you sure?

Um, no, they licensed it from Dolby. The DRM is something dolby allowed for in the spec, Apple is one company that does it but so is InterTrust.

WMA is entirely ms-owned and not standardized, fairplay is a layer over MPEG4/AAC, which is standardized and not under apple's control.

You are right except that I wonder why the non-iPod players ignore AAC. Is there a stiff licensing fee?

AAC is licensed by Vialicensing. There you can also find the licensing fees (note that there are different formats like MPEG-2 AAC and MPEG-4 AAC...). Iguess if Apple can pay them it should not be impossible for others to pay them.

And in terms of AAC being ignored: That might be true for other digital players, but that doesn't mean that AAC is not used apart from Apple. Some examples you can find in another post of mine.

If Apple did make it an open format[...]

It's not Apple's format, the rights for AAC(!) are owned by a group of companies and institutes. So it's not Apple's choice to open it.

1: AAC is an open standard and there are open-source encoders/decoders.
4: Apple probably couldn't sue or demand money if a competitor implemented AAC

Apart from these open source license issues you also have to pay attention to the involved patents of the AAC and MP4 formats that are handled by the licensing administrators Via Licensing.

Then ask Via Licensing:

Who needs to license MPEG-4 AAC patents?
An MPEG-4 AAC patent license is required for manufacturers or developers of complete (or substantially complete) end-user encoder and/or decoder products.

What kind of weird world do you live in where a patented algoritm requiring royalties equals "an open standard"? These patents mean Apple is free to harass and sue anyone who implements and/or distributes AAC without paying the Apple tax. This completely excludes all free and open source software. Why do you think FAAC are afraid to distribute binaries?

Er. Its a mpeg audio group codec, and rather a frauenhofer product than a doulby one.

Err, no. AAC is a Dolby Audio codec, period. The fact that it was chosen as one of several different available audio codecs in the MPEG-4 standard is irrelevant in this context, because Apple is only using the audio codec here (it's not implementing a full MPEG-4 system).

Like many codecs chosen as interoperability standards by the MPEG-4 working group, the rights to AAC are owned by a private company, in this case Dolby Laboratories. Dolby has set up a subsidiary called "Via Licensing" to collect royalties for AAC. It charges a fee per encoder or decoder. You can read about it at their site.

In any case, Apple had nothing to do with writing the AAC codec. It licensed it from Via Licensing.

Maybe you can explain this to me...

I've heard a bunch of people say that AAC is "free" or "uncucumbered", but

http://www.vialicensing.com/products/mpeg4aac/lice nse.terms.html

that suggests otherwise.

What are the free codecs? I only know of the Ogg stuff (Voribs, Theora, FLAC, etc.).

Somehow people think that "free" doesn't matter.

Why are "they" picking on Apple? Because Apple does not want to play fair (pun intended). They will not allow "Fair" play to be used by anyone else. They want to own the online music market to drive iPod sales. I am not a fan of MS, but at least with MS "if you pay you can play". MS _wants_ to license their DRM, they want the whole world to license it. Silly Apple is making another huge mistake that will eventually make iTunes a niche market like their other products. If they just allowed anyone to license "Fair" play, then they could not only make money from the sale of iPods, but also license fees for _every_ competing portable player out there.

The sad thing is that because of this dumb move by Apple, I bet MS's DRM will win out. That means MS DRM for MS OS'es only. MS will always lag with a Mac OS version and you can bet there will never be a Linux version. So all portable players out there suddenly become "MS only".

Before anyone messes it up, AAC is an open format, while the Fairplay DRM standard is not.

Who needs to license MPEG-4 AAC patents?

An MPEG-4 AAC patent license is required for manufacturers or developers of complete (or substantially complete) end-user encoder and/or decoder products, or for manufacturers/developers of component encoder and/or decoder products that are provided directly to end-users.

It should be noted that while AAC is "open", it is patent encumbered. If you want to write a software AAC encoder or player, you need to pay Dolby. Although there are open source decoders, their legal status is unclear. Of course, you also need to pay Microsoft for WMA, bit it is a little cheaper.

The same applies to Fraunhofer for MP3 if I believe, although I can't find pricing information right now. Unfortunately, the most free and open format lacks market penetration.

WMA support which is, regardless of what Apple maniacs might say, much more useful than proprietary AAC support

AAC isn't proprietary.

WMA is.

For the billionth time. Apple did use a proprietary standard. Here's the "licence"

http://www.vialicensing.com/products/mpeg4aac/stan dard.html

AAC, MP4, whatever, it's owned.

By the way, it's spelled "proprietary".

http://www.cogsci.princeton.edu/cgi-bin/webwn?stag e=1&word=proprietary

Before you post, perhaps you might consider checking out your assumptions and spelling.

"Apple AAC" - WRONG: check out DOLBY's AAC licensing page, you'll see the list of licensing prices anyone can pay if he/she so desires and has the funds.

"[...] the problems Apple AAC [...] files do" - pure FUD: which are those problems? State them or shut up.

As I was saying to your child poster the royalty for mpeg4-aac is about 52 cents for the codec.

royalties: http://www.vialicensing.com/products/mpeg4aac/lice nse.terms.html
spec: http://www.iso.org/iso/en/CatalogueDetailPage.Cata logueDetail?CSNUMBER=36083&ICS1=35&ICS2=40&ICS 3=

Microsoft's sample product and royalty schedule says 25 cents for audio codec plus another 25 cents to network read (stream).

That's a 2 cent difference.

The licensing agreement also includes verbage that says 'you will also pay a royalty schedule for Plays Windows Media Logo License' ... so maybe that's where the scales tip past the 2 cents.

Anyhow, MS says, "oooo WMA costs half as much as mpeg-4 for video!!"... makes you wonder why it's not an ISO if it's so great and cheap.

If you are a WMA licensee I'd be interested to know what your real costs are.

Yeah - actually over here http://www.vialicensing.com/products/mpeg4aac/lice nse.terms.html it lets us know that Apple spends about 62 cents for each copy of iTunes (or more technically, for each OS X install, since the codec will be a lib framework available to all software and users on the machine). The cost is for software.

Windows varieties will all have this cost covered (and could be even less as MS ships more units).

So, fwiw, your parent poster there was correct when he claimed that Vorbis was the only "free and open" codec, as that's actually the case, it was released to the public domain. Mpeg4-aac is an open spec (not proprietary), but it's not free.

Sorry for nitpicking you... :)

There are patent licenses you are expected/required to take out in order to do MPEG4 based audio and video streaming. These don't really apply for the small users (the first $50,000 worth is free or something like that) but do really kick in when the BBC is trying to stream to thousands of concurrent users now and perhaps many more in the future.

In order to use Darwin SS with Quicktime Broadcaster for internet video streaming you actually have to sign 2 licences. One for the video codec (MPEG4 Part 2 aka H.263)http://www.mpegla.com/m4v/ and one for the file format/streaming structure http://www.mpegla.com/m4s/.

The audio codec (AAC) is fortunately free for use and only charged for encoders and decoders. It is handled by Via Licensing (a Dolby spin off) http://www.vialicensing.com/products/mpeg4aac/lice nse.terms.html

If you want to use the cutting edge MPEG4 video codec (MPEG4-Part 10 aka H.264) which is the target that Dirac is aiming at then you currently have to pick your way between the competing licensors as the MPEG-LA and Via Licensing have overlapping sets of patent holders so you may need two licenses.

As a side note the patents in the MPEG4-Systems bundle seem very week to me although I haven't had time to search for prior art. Many of them are either for fairly trivial ideas or for things that were used in the 80s on workstations that are now being reinvented for limited computing power set top boxes. The Apple patent on which is meant to cover the hinting of media files is probably especially weak as it has just a single, slightly convoluted claim.

MP3 is MPEG-1 Layer 3 audio. Are you saying AAC is the audio compression defined by MPEG-4? I didn't think so...

Don't believe me, read for yourself:
- Apple's AAC page
- AAC licensing page
- Audiocoding - open source AAC codec
- MPEG-4

Note you may have to search for either AAC or "Advanced Audio Coding".

I must nit-pick:
Protected AAC files are encrypted. AAC on its own is not encrypted, you just need to get a license from Dolby to use it.
I bring this up only because many people (not intelligent slash-dotters, of course) seem to think that all AAC files are encrypted and only Apple-blessing allows you to read them. That's only true for iTMS files.

MP3 is a defacto open standard.
MP3 is insanely expensive.
AAC is an open standard.
MPEG4 AAC is also expensive.

Ease up on the FUD, AAC isn't any more closed than the MP3 you're so eager to praise. They're both open MPEG standards.

They are both MPEG standards -- but implementing AAC encoders or decoders requires purchasing licenses.

Unfortunately, unlike W3C-approved standards, MPEG standards do *not* need to be either patent-unencumbered or have a blanket license granted for implementation purposes upon standardization.

Fraunhoffer has claimed that it has patent rights over MP3. You can look at an analysis here. Basically, they have patents that cover encoders (but have been ignoring free encoders thus far), and while they claim to have patents that cover decoders, some folks have taken issue with this point, and concluded that decoders can be freely produced.

Ogg Vorbis is not encumbered by patents.

Apple doesn't charge royalties for AAC use Dolby does. Sadly, just because it's an "open standard" does not mean it's free from patent restrictions, so long as the licensing terms are "reasonable and non-discriminatory".

• Yes, Apple's music files are encoded in AAC.
• Yes, AAC is an open standard, in that it is publically documented (for a reproduction fee to ISO), just not a free one, patent-wise or royalty-wise.
• Apple's AAC files are then protected with DRM using Apple's FairPlay (if this FairPlay is related to VeriDisc's FairPlay is unknown, Apple lists FairPlay under their Apple's copyright).
• If folks had bothered to read the article the DRM opportunity is pretty much what it was about, not the AAC format. FWIW FairPlay could be applied to mp3's too.
• As DRM goes FairPlay is pretty liberal and there have been few problems (Cory Doctorow's consistantly forgetting to un-license machines aside)
• Can FairPlay be broken? Probably, there are ways at getting to the AAC files via Apple's freely distributed QuickTime architecture (this is what iTunes uses).
• There's also the trivial exercise of using iTunes to burn a CD then re-ripping the music. Of course the music has then been lossily encoded twice, with different encoders, so it's sorta like listening to a copy of a tape of a FM broadcast.
• Ultimately though at US$1 a song & US$10/album most folks appear willing to own the music legitimately. Furthermore Apple has made it absurdly simple to share music locally via their iTunes software so most dorm & office style needs are handled that way.
• Of course, the article pretty much ignores if Apple wants to be in the Music or IP licensing business at all. They only gave MS their previous Apple-IP license when their mutual lawsuits seemed deadlocked for eternity. The Mac licensing program cannibalized their own sales before it was killed off, their FireWire licensing plan shot itself in the foot, there doesn't even seem to be much co-branding like used to happen with special speakers and such for Macs. These days Apple seems pretty intent on only doing things that directly support selling, or at least evangelizing, Mac hardware.

• Yes, Apple's music files are encoded in AAC.
• Yes, AAC is an open standard, in that it is publically documented (for a reproduction fee to ISO), just not a free one, patent-wise or royalty-wise.
• Apple's AAC files are then protected with DRM using Apple's FairPlay (if this FairPlay is related to VeriDisc's FairPlay is unknown, Apple lists FairPlay under their Apple's copyright).
• If folks had bothered to read the article the DRM opportunity is pretty much what it was about, not the AAC format. FWIW FairPlay could be applied to mp3's too.
• As DRM goes FairPlay is pretty liberal and there have been few problems (Cory Doctorow's consistantly forgetting to un-license machines aside)
• Can FairPlay be broken? Probably, there are ways at getting to the AAC files via Apple's freely distributed QuickTime architecture (this is what iTunes uses).
• There's also the trivial exercise of using iTunes to burn a CD then re-ripping the music. Of course the music has then been lossily encoded twice, with different encoders, so it's sorta like listening to a copy of a tape of a FM broadcast.
• Ultimately though at US$1 a song & US$10/album most folks appear willing to own the music legitimately. Furthermore Apple has made it absurdly simple to share music locally via their iTunes software so most dorm & office style needs are handled that way.
• Of course, the article pretty much ignores if Apple wants to be in the Music or IP licensing business at all. They only gave MS their previous Apple-IP license when their mutual lawsuits seemed deadlocked for eternity. The Mac licensing program cannibalized their own sales before it was killed off, their FireWire licensing plan shot itself in the foot, there doesn't even seem to be much co-branding like used to happen with special speakers and such for Macs. These days Apple seems pretty intent on only doing things that directly support selling, or at least evangelizing, Mac hardware.

> Make it so players can use the codec for FREE.

I guess you're referring to Apple's Fairplay DRM part. But AAC is a patented format, to implement it even without DRM, you also need to pay a share to Dolby. I doubt Apple is going to pay other developers their license fees.

There are only three recognized formats for audio on DVDs. On PAL DVDs, the compressed format is MPEG-1 Layer 2. On both PAL and NTSC DVDs, PCM (uncompressed digital audio) is used. On NTSC DVDs, the compressed format is Dolby Digital AC-3. The "AAC" you refer to is not the AAC that is sometimes referred to in the MPEG-2 specification; however, MPEG-2 for DVDs is a restricted subset of that specification. In fact, I get paid to show folks how to do this every day, since it's my work.

There's a great FAQ as to the formats for DVD audio.

However, the AAC standard referred to in the article is part of the MPEG-4 standard, and the MPEG-4 AAC does incorporate the formal MPEG-2 specification's AAC as one part of its capabilities.

http://www.vialicensing.com/products/mpeg4aac/stan dard.html

Just a minor detail to mention here. Dolby licenses two different versions of their AAC codes. iTunes, when encoding for end users, uses the Dolby Consumer codec (affordably licensed by Apple in Quicktime 6). The Itunes Music Store uses the Dolby Professional codec (which would not be affordable to license in iTunes). Thus, AACs coming out of the iTunes Music Store have a higher quality at the same compression rate than the same songs you rip and convert on your own copy of iTunes.

Your argument is made moot by the fact that AAC is an open format. It's only the DRM portion that's "closed".

I already rip my CDs to AAC format instead of MP3 for the higher quality/smaller filesize. So why would I need OGG?

You do pay a license fee for AAC. The $15000 fee is the "sign up fee". There are no royalties on distributing AAC files.

WMA licensing fees are much less.

In addition there is also a royalty involved. For WMA this is true but for AAC you pay only an upfront fee ($15000) but no royalties. That might be a reason not to support WMA by default in the iPod!?

AAC has consistantly beat Vorbis in listening tests at all higher (64+) bitrates.

I haven't seen those tests. A quick Google for "AAC Vorbis listening tests" didn't turn up any that were slam-dunk victories of AAC over Vorbis. Could you please point me to some of the listening test results you have seen?

why OGG if you have AAC?

Because AAC is covered by patents, and Ogg isn't.

If the platform you use has a good AAC encoder, and the licensing requirements for AAC aren't a problem for you, then you might as well use AAC. I certainly won't tell you not to do so.

But keep in mind that a bunch of companies hold basic patents on AAC, and they can change the licensing deal anytime until the patents run out. In practice, you will probably never need to care about this, unless you want to distribute music commercially. But it means that if you use AAC, some companies are allowed to tell you what you can do with your AAC, at least some of the time.

With Ogg, I have my choice of several players, all free and all legal. I have a free, legal encoder.

There are now several good players that support Ogg, and in future most or all players will support Ogg. Ogg is a safe bet for the future, with excellent quality at reasonable bit rates. Since I'm already using Ogg, I'm unlikely to change for AAC.

If you are already using AAC, you probably aren't in a hurry to change for Ogg, either. That's fine with me.

steveha

Dosen't necessairly need to be open-source, but I a agree. Idealy it SHOULD be...

AAC is about as open and patent-less as MP3 is... That is to say: NOT.

Lookie lookie

AAC is owned by Dolby...

I'm not sure if that's exactly correct. According to Apple, AAC was developed by the MPEG group, of which Dolby is a member, but appears to be a large organization with hundreds of members.

I don't profess to follow all the inner workings of the MPEG group, or how the AAC licensing works, but this page has some details. Those licensing fees are collected by Via Licensing (an independent subsidiary of Dolby), but that doesn't mean the IP is owned by Dolby....

But I'm just researching by random Google searches... someone else might have better (as in knowledgable) info than me.

--Mid

AAC is owned by Dolby...

I'm not sure if that's exactly correct. According to Apple, AAC was developed by the MPEG group, of which Dolby is a member, but appears to be a large organization with hundreds of members.

I don't profess to follow all the inner workings of the MPEG group, or how the AAC licensing works, but this page has some details. Those licensing fees are collected by Via Licensing (an independent subsidiary of Dolby), but that doesn't mean the IP is owned by Dolby....

But I'm just researching by random Google searches... someone else might have better (as in knowledgable) info than me.

--Mid

Apple is only one of many companies *using* AAC. Apple did not invent it. Apple did not invent it. Apple did not invent it.

"AAC was developed by the MPEG group that includes Dolby, Fraunhofer (FhG), AT&T, Sony, and Nokia"
http://www.apple.com/mpeg4/aac/

"MPEG-4 AAC has been specified as the high-quality general audio coder for 3G wireless terminals. Apple Computer has incorporated MPEG-4 AAC into QuickTime 6 and iTunes 4, as well as the latest version of its award-winning iPod portable music player. The Digital Radio Mondiale system (the next-generation digital replacement for radio broadcasting under 30 MHZ) builds on the audio coding of MPEG-4 AAC."
http://www.vialicensing.com/products/mpeg4aac/stan dard.html

Young grasshopper, you fail to see the point of AAC. There is nothing "open" about it. Just because it's part of an MPEG spec does not make it "open", and it's most certainly NOT FREE.

Consider this: who's seriously supporting AAC right now besides Apple? (crickets chirping). That's right - Apple probably has a special deal with Dolby which allows Apple, and only Apple, to distribute free software (itunes) incorporating the AAC codec.

You know what that is?

PLATFORM LOCK-IN.

Same goes for WMA, Real, etc. The big guys get behind a format and then they get to keep everyone else out unless they pony up.

Say no to proprietary formats. Say no to DRM. It's your music.

as for AAC my guess is licensing issues

Are there any up-front fees connected with the AAC patent-license agreement?
Yes. There is an initial fee of $15,000 due upon execution of the license. This is a one-time payment and not an annual fee.

I hope they work through it and get a license, though. I won't be buying one if I can't stream my music to it, and I've ripped everything I own in AAC.

as for AAC my guess is licensing issues

Are there any up-front fees connected with the AAC patent-license agreement?
Yes. There is an initial fee of $15,000 due upon execution of the license. This is a one-time payment and not an annual fee.

I hope they work through it and get a license, though. I won't be buying one if I can't stream my music to it, and I've ripped everything I own in AAC.

How is MPEG-4 AAC, an open, licensable standard, a "closed media format"????