Slashdot Mirror
Thomson Announces Royalties For MP3 Streaming
Michael Smith points to an article at techreview.com in which "we read about Thomson Multimedia announcing royalties for mp3 streaming, finally. 2% of ALL revenues related to streaming, with a $2000 minimum. A compelling reason to move to Ogg Vorbis for those who have been holding out?" RMS has been pointing out that MP3 is hampered by patents for a long time now; the proof-bearing pudding is on the way. Same Thomson that wants smart cards everywhere; the pay-for-play view of the world is at least consistent there.
I am not moving until they come up with a better extension. What the hell is an ogg?
In truth, the biggest drawback is that my DVD player and my MP3 player doesn't play OGGs. So why bother converting over?
Unfortunately, apart from in some OSS circles, *nobody* knows about OGG. Apart from the fact that the name (whilst cool to us geeks) is confusing and bizarre to most people, it gets no publicity in the eyes of the people we should be encouraging to use it, and there is next to no audio available in OGG form
/me thinks back to when Justin was still in college and winamp was still (though Justin will deny it to keep AOL from being sued) a wrapper for AMP. Back then everything you said could have been applied to MP3. I mean come on MPEG 2 Layer 3 Audio WTF is that if not geeky sounding!
That's simply not true. Ogg isn't a music format.
OTOH, it *is* a bitstream format, and one of the bitstreams it can contain is the Vorbis format, which is a music format.
Oh boo hoo. Stop being so damn PC.
Yeah, this already exists. It's called "The United States Patent Office."
Or, since there are a number of music players that can play both Ogg and MP3, you could (gasp) not convert all that old music (heathen!), but rip to Ogg whenever you rip new music. Why exactly do they all have to be the same?
If you're streaming, you're probably re-encoding to a lower, streamable bitrate anyways (at least, I do, my on-disk MP3s are usually 192kbit VBR or higher, but my radio streams are 24kbit and 56kbit), so it doesn't matter what the source is.
WWJD? JWRTFM!!!
One thing that really made me happy is to see that Sonic Foundry's two biggest products (Sound Forge and Acid) now support Ogg Vorbis natively in their newest incarnations. Lowers the bar for getting content creators to use it substantially; Sound Forge is the defacto standard in sound editing.
WWJD? JWRTFM!!!
Yabbut a guy in that situation is much better served by just making the songs downloadable, not streaming them.
Who are these people that could pay for the bandwidth needed for streaming audio of any quality -- with banner ads? 24 concurrent connections at 64k would choke a T1 to start. These must be awesome banners! Pop-ups, that's fer sure!
And $2000 is $167 a month. I'll tell you what, there are these two guys in Brooklyn that have been streaming audio to the world for ages, cheaper than that. It's They Might Be Giants, and they've had a "dial-a-song" answering machine up for over a decade.
Now the POTS is a little noisy and a little lossy, but if your audio is SO compelling that you absolutely must STREAM it, that's the cheap way to do it. (And hey, the bandwidth is even paid for - with aggregated micropayments!)
Thomson developed a licensing scheme that would only charge for companies that "monetize" the codec. Users can now stream mp3 for free as long as they don't charge, and small-time users only pay $2000. Larger streaming companies, such as broadcasters, pay 2% of their revenue from streaming. Therefore, if you don't charge, you don't pay; if you make money on it, you give some back to the developers.
OK: I can now stream mp3 at will, for FREE -- unless I charge for it! But if I'm a big broadcaster, and I make $1Million from streaming, I have to pay them $20,000. Well that sounds like a damn sensible approach!
Now, the bulk of the Tech Review story is not about their licensing scheme, but Thomson's announcement that MP3Pro is going to debut next week. This codec will lead to file sizes half that of mp3 while remaining backwardly compatible - as in, MP3Pro can be played with any current mp3 player, albeit with a predictable loss in quality. In return they are asking for 50% more (free for non-monetized, $3000 minimum or 3% of revenue) to stream MP3Pro.
This matters. If it's the first case, it will prop up OMDs that allow free indie music downloading and streaming to consumers, and will punish those that want to change to pay-per-download or micropayments. I actually like that. If it's the second sense, they will only let you stream if you're _not_ the artist, and if you're the artist and sell your own CDs, they'll nail you! That's messed up.
Worse yet- they may not have decided which one they mean- or they may refuse to specify except on a case-by-case basis. That's a recipe for massive abuses.
For instance, if you run a lumber company and wish to have a mp3 of your president talking about things, freely downloadable by prospective customers, does that not count as free because you're trying to sell them lumber and using the mp3 as a tool to do that?
I'm not even going to get into the 'musician selling CDs' angle, that's even more ominous...
I think they will refuse to define what they mean- and that's dangerous. Very dangerous.
It means they can chill speech and discussion about formats by holding the threat of legal action above _anyone_ involved with mp3 streaming. Very bad.
Does anybody know of a personal player (Like the Rio 300) that will play .ogg files?
I think you mean it uses "cheap lossy" compression, not "cheap lossless".
the real at&t mix
TCP is more overhead than you care about for streaming a lossy compressed audio stream. So what if you drop a few packets, the audio will skip, and you'll pick up where the packets start returning again. Not adequate for mission critical data, but streaming audio hardly qualifies.
How's my programming? Call 1-800-DEV-NULL
Er... Ogg works pretty well already. I'm listening to VBR ogg-encoded ~128k audio at the moment. It sounds better than MP3, even with my shoddy equipment.
--
Pretend that something especially witty is here. Thanks.
Actually, it sounds pretty generous, if I'm reading it right. Assuming the only licensing charges for the MP3 codec will apply to people profiting from MP3 streaming, I imagine most of the slashdot community will be free to use it as they wish without paying a dime.
Only on slashdot can a posting be rated "Score -1, Insightful".
UDP will do none of those things for you.2 C3AF4F2snlbxq'|dc
--
echo '[q]sa[ln0=aln80~Psnlbx]16isb15CB32EF3AF9C0E5D727
echo '[q]sa[ln0=aln80~Psnlbx]16isb572CCB9AE9DB03273snlbxq' |dc
wget http://server.com/somefile.mp3 &
dd if=somefile.mp3 | mpg123 -
Instant streaming, and downloading at the same time, and assuming the connection is fast enough, you can start playing the file as soon as you start downloading it, and play the whole thing.
(Yes, I'm sure there's some way to get wget to pipe to tee and mpg123, and whatnot, but this is actually easy to type. ;) )
-David T. C.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
At some point, we really need (-1: Wrong) moderation added. Although we'd have to make it clear it's not for opinions you disagree with, but with posts that just have all their facts 100% wrong. Like this post.
-David T. C.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
Hey Thompson, see if you can get your superior wavelet mathematicians and marketting statisticians to tell you what 2% of ZERO is!
Thomson may get the last laugh on you, though.
From the article you apparently didn't read:
That's right, it doesn't matter how little you rake in, they want $2000 a year for streaming MP3. Better hope you stay under their radar, or start making plans to move to Ogg-Vorbis sometime soon...
Jay (=
Do we have that in writing? ;-)
--
Life's a bitch but somebody's gotta do it.
So you are saying the fact that the people who put lots of time and money into developing mp3 shouldn't get any compensation for their efforts?
-matt
But Philips spent money developing the technology. The band didn't spend a single penny, but they're going to use it to make money. How is it unfair for the band to have to pay something, too? They don't have to if they don't want to. They could use a free format — will having a lot of people unable to listen to this other format be worth saving $2000? — or they could invent their own streaming technology — think they could do this for under $2000?
Sounds like a simple free market question to me. Is it worth the money to have everybody and their sisters be able to listen to your broadcast without installing additional software? If it isn't, just use one of the alternatives that you can afford.
Cheers,
The Thompson patent claims are about the (a?) MP3 encoding method. That means that if you don't license from them, you can't encode MP3. Then it doesn't matter whether or not you're streaming or downloading, becuase you are not allowed to create the MP3 file to begin with.
Yes, I'd say Thompson is pulling a Rambus on us. It should never have made it into the ISO standard.
--- Hindsight is 20/20, but walking backwards is not the answer.
"If MP3 is used for free distribution on the Internet, we will not charge royalties," he says. But "if people monetize, the inventors should have their fair share," he adds.
So, as I read that, shoutcast servers wouldn't have problems, but if there were a pay-for-play mp3 based radio station, they want a cut. At least they're not being 100% evil...
Certainly the encoding and decoding of MPEG audio is covered by patents, and is thus licenseable. (And obviously the content of some MPEG audio files is protected by copyright.) But once you already have encoded MPEG audio data, to stream this data requires only unencumbered, open standard protocols (TCP, or RTP (RFC2250 or RFC3119)).
It's hard to see how any restriction on the streaming of pre-encoded, non-copyrighted audio could have any legal weight. In fact, such a restriction might even be seen as a violation of free speech rights...
does streaming have to do with encoding or decoding?
THey hold patents on the encoder and the decoder, no? So if the data is already encoded..... how can they enforce this?
Just like.... Unisys charging people for using GIF's.. they can only control making them and displaying them, not using them...
Unless you can show otherwise?
'their' vessles, not 'there' vessles.
'ransom' not 'ransome'
There is no similarity. These people are enforcing legal patents they were granted, not simply blocking a trade 'because they can'.
By your logic, the person collecting tickets at the entrance to a concert is a pirate who is preventing you from seeing the concert?
They want fees from people who accept money (directly or indirectly) for streaming, not just people who turn a profit. The fee schedule starts at $2,000.
Or do I have a different definition of "revenue" than the rest of the posters here?
*sigh*
Kid-proof tablet..
>Thompson sure as fsck can't patent that.
Be careful with that axe, Eugene. Them's fightin' words.
I now -expect- to see a patent filed for just such a thing, but generalized away from mp3. I can't think of any prior art, and besides, it wouldn't matter given the present state of the USPTO.
Kid-proof tablet..
I read it somewhat differently.
From the anecdotes in the article, the only way to avoid paying Thomson is to eliminate all money from the picture. They want a peice of all stream-related revenue. Which is to say, that if you sell t-shirts to promote the stream, subsidize bandwidth, or equipment, or studio space, they want $2k/year (minimum), and 2% after that. This is from the revenue stream, not profit-after-expenses.
If you sell advertising, they offer a plan where you pay 3% of advertising revenue, with a $3k annual minimum. This, presumably, would also include income from any banner ads on the stream's web page.
It doesn't matter if you're making money hand over fist, or if you're just trying to gather support to keep the thing alive while working elsewhere full-time and running at a loss, just for a fun thing to do. They want a cut.
This will, should it come to pass, probably damage live365's already shaky business model to the point of complete failure.
It will mean that the low-budget streams will need to move to zero-budget, or find a source of income to cover the $2k annual minimum.
It, like so many other things, punishes the little guy. Selling a $10 hat with a inkjet-printed logo costs the seller ~$2k. I'll let the reader figure out how many $10 hats it takes annually to cover the licensing cost of the bloody ISO standard codec.
All conspiracy theories aside, I don't know that they'd be able to introduce this retroactively. I got my licensed-and-legit Fraunhoffer MP3 codec with Microsoft's Netshow. I didn't agree to pay them shit, and I'm never going to. *thumbs nose at Thomson Multimedia*
It makes sense, then, that it would only apply to the "new" MP3Pro codec.
MP3Pro, by the way, is absolutely fucking worthless - it compensates for high-frequency loss by introducing harmonic distortion and high-frequency noise. So, low-bitrate stuff sounds just as "bright" as it did before encoding. This "brightness" is entirely artificial, and entirely inaccurate with respect to the original recording.
Its only honest claim to fame, is that really-low-bitrate stuff might become tolerable (think 8-16Kbps) for voice work, and that it is backward-compatible with existing mp3 players (for the naysayers who will pop up claiming that mp3pro is god's gift to all mankind: it is this backward compatibility which requires its broken hack of a design.)
Incidentally, this works right now: Make a low-bitrate mp3 (the article says 80Kbps is good, so start there), and a high-bitrate (>224Kbps) mp3 of the same material. Grab a plugin for xmms, winamp, wmp, or whatever, that claims to boost (or "recreate" or "reproduce" or "restore") high-frequency sound. Play your low-bitrate mp3 through the plugin, for a demonstration of what MP3Pro can do. Play your high-bitrate mp3 without it, for enlightenment.
Kid-proof tablet..
The plugins work well for content on disk, but for streaming, they are very sketchy. The XMMS plugins won't work at all, and the winamp plugin works sometimes. Too bad really, because it's very likely that Icecast will have 2.0 out before decent plugins are available. It's going to be hard to get users for it if it doesn't Just Work. Keep in mind that probably 90% or more of the people who listen to streams are windows users and don't have the first clue or the patience to dick around with something until it works. Last I heard, CVS versions of the plugins were getting much better, but I haven't played with them for a month or so.
Need Free Juniper/NetScreen Support? JuniperForum
That's amusing, but it's not what we were talking about. You start downloading a full-length radio program. A second or two later, you point your mp3 player at it. It starts playing, and it will continue playing unless the download isn't fast enough to keep pace.
Voila, you now have most of the benefits of streaming without, technically, streaming.
the only licensing charges for the MP3 codec will apply to people profiting from MP3 streaming, I imagine most of the slashdot community will be free to use it as they wish without paying a dime
Until you realize that what Thompson considers "profit" and what you consider "profit" are two entirely separate things.
When Thompson tried enforcing the patent licenses on encoding software, they went after quite a few free (as in beer) programmers - their logic was "You are making money from your software because you have banner ads on the download site." (this is how LAME came about.)
So I wouldn't put it past them to say "Hey, you're streaming MP3's, and you have a banner ad there - so therefore you're making a profit."
This will come to pass.. just watch and see.
What hardware manufacturers are dedicated to making Vorbis players?
Interactive Objects, for one. They're the ones who designed the OS for the Hip Zip, among other things.
I think the MP3 patents are widely understood to be so broad that it'd be impossible to implement the standard in ANY way that didn't infringe.
I can't remember the specifcs, but I remember reading on the xiph.com site that Ogg is already suported in a number of commercial products - they seem to be doing a good job of gathering support, and Thompson starting to enforce as predicted can only help their cause.
have you *tried* it? i think they are just being conservative about quality, not saying its a stable release version until they are satisfied. it already sounds better at 128k than any mp3 codec ive tried (recent lame and all flavors of fraunhofer included).
Java: the COBOL of the new millenium.
So what does this mean for shoutcast?
... should make their own napster like program that doesn't have a central server
Nothing. They don't charge any money.
Of course, distributed live broadcasting would be best accomplished through the deployment of multicast on the Internet. Any application level solutions would be hacks comparitively.
Is there a dumb ideas hall of fame anywhere? - sort of like fuckedcompany.com but just dumb ideas such as CPRM, DVD, SDMI, Thompson's smart cards in pc's, 3G etc...
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
convert? why would you convert one lossy format to another and loose more signal? unless you mean convert from cd...
i find it amazing that the record companies are still making cds.. all that free uncompressed quality with no copy-protection? i wonder how that managed to get out.
Its true that mp3 is standard. Ogg Vorbis will never rule unless they re-name it... - you can always tell if somethings going to be sucessful by the name.
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
"Although not all artists realize it, MP3 is what is known as a "lossy" format. Thus, much of the sound data is removed when MP3 files are created. This results in a file with inferior sound quality to a CD. Vorbis is also a "lossy" format..."
who has a head made of bone? huh, huh!?
lol
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
They did look at how MP3 works and took "ideas" out of it. Ogg Vorbis uses a lot of concept pioneered by the MPEG audio codecs (MPEG Layer 3 and the ancestors Layer 1 & 2).
YES!!
------
Vorbis is already in WinAmp, AFAIK.
------
The man who invented copyright didn't expect it to last for 150 years. It was just so publishers couldn't rip off authors.
------
That's like the MPAA saying "we think software is never speech." Paying a patent lawyer to look into it would be more reliable than Thompson's biased opinion.
------
Gnutella is just barely practical, and I would say impossible for the dialup user.
------
Vorbis will succeed, because it's already supported in tons of apps. AFAIK, even WinAmp supports it, or will soon.
------
Ogg Tarkin is a barely-started video codec. The only thing available is a mailing list, but I encourage anyone with the time and knowledge to join the list
------
Good point.
If I run a streaming radio station, it looks like I owe Thompson $BIGNUM bucks. Clearly, I need to stop running a streaming radio station.
So I'll say "Click here to download the first segment. Please wait 5 minutes", and it spends 5 minutes downloading in full the first 10 minutes of my show, and then calls WinAMP to play back the complete file, stored locally on my hard drive called "1200-1209h.mp3"...
What about streaming in Ogg Vorbis format?
Streaming is an important component of Vorbis. The format has been designed from the ground-up to be easily streamable. The designers of Vorbis are working alongside the creators of Icecast streaming media software to make Icecast Vorbis-compatible. We are also working on player support for streaming Ogg files. Streaming Ogg files from the web will be supported by the player plugins at the 1.0 Vorbis release.
What unique features does Ogg Vorbis have?
Vorbis has a well defined comment header that is easy to use and extensible and obviates the need for clunky hacks like ID3 tags. Vorbis has bitrate scaling - a feature that lets you adjust the bitrate of a Vorbis file or stream without reencoding; just chop the packets up in the sizes you want them. Vorbis files can be sliced and edited with sample granularity. Vorbis has support for many channels, not just 1 or 2. Vorbis files can be logically chained together.
From: http://www.vorbis.com/faq.html#stream
--Robert
MP3 isn't exactly like One-click-shopping. There's a real basis of years-long research and development behind it, and it was certainly a non-obvious invention.
Then why were RMS and his gang able to come up with a free replacement (ogg) in their basement?
Could it be that the matter of psychoacoustic compression has been talked over many times in a large number of scientific paper and that recreating one is really a matter of recreating empirical data ? It's not easy, just easier.
MP3 is just a shorthand way of saying MPEG-1 Layer 3, so it's not a trademark. Why not call Ogg Vorbis MP5? This makes it sound like an obvious upgrade.
Phillip.
Property for sale in Nice, France
Oggenc is significantly slower than gogo, but gogo probably represents a HUGE investment in time to tweak it to its levels of performance.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
If a tree falls in the woods, does it make a sound capable of putting into mp3 format and streaming it? What if there isnt anyone/any recording device there to hear it?
Buying a Dell computer is equivalent to dropping the soap in a prison shower.
I'd hope the Ogg people would wait until they have a solid, proven project before calling it out of beta. It's what Mozilla is doing and it certainly looks like the result is going to be worth the wait.
Hopefully (altough admittedly a bit too hopeful), people will flock to Mozilla when it's done; hopefully, too, they will flock to vorbis when it's done.
Why must Ogg Vorbis be used by the popular group?
Because that's what the people running these streams are trying to support. They're not going to stream in OGG if less than 5% of the population can actually hear it. It's a waste of their resources. That's why I'm saying this is bad, because when content providers have to choose between OGG and WMA (since MP3 is encumbered), they won't give OGG a thought at all.
A compelling reason to move to Ogg Vorbis for those who have been holding out?
Unfortunately, apart from in some OSS circles, *nobody* knows about OGG. Apart from the fact that the name (whilst cool to us geeks) is confusing and bizarre to most people, it gets no publicity in the eyes of the people we should be encouraging to use it, and there is next to no audio available in OGG format.
All the companies who have been streaming MP3 (which has been relatively friendly to *nix) will just switch to WMA (Windows Media Audio) since AFAIK, Microsoft gives away the encoding tools for free (beer), and most people actually know about it and can play it with no fuss. This is *bad news* for free audio, not good.
They state that they want to collect money from people profiting by mp3 streaming! Does this mean any commercial site which embeds an mp3 into its site that plays before fully downloaded? Sound like fun!
Never underestimate the dark side of the Source
Ever since I first saw this name I have always had the same disturbing vision of the offsping of Nanny Ogg and Inquisitor Vorbis. It really doesn't bear thinking about. Where did these guys come up with it (can it be a coincidence or is Terry Pratchett going to get them to change their name!).
Never underestimate the dark side of the Source
Good think I'm using ANSI 'encoded' text on my BBS - I can keep my checkbook in my pocket ;-)
Davis Ray Sickmon, Jr - looking for something to read? Check out my three free novels at MidnightRyder.org
They want fees from people who accept money (directly or indirectly) for streaming
If you stream, you must pay royalties to RIAA, ASCAP, and BMI. If you pay royalties, you must recoup those expenses somehow. If you recoup expenses, you are collecting money and must pay Thomson. (Did my logic miss a step?)
Or you could stream Ogg Vorbis instead.
Will I retire or break 10K?
MP3s real success is its placement in the market i.e. its widespread adoption--they were there with the right tools at the right time, and allowed people to use it gratis. They probably aren't the best format out there, but they were good enough and fraunhoffer played the right cards at the right time. Plus they secured their dominant position when Napster chose to use mp3 as its sole file-trading format. (not that there was much of a choice at the time.)
That being said, its dominance may even come to an end when Windows XP gets adopted widely and Napster and Thomson start charging--I already know people who have switched all of their music over to the wmf format. But for now, the market has made it the standard--last time I searched for .ogg files on gnutella there were about 3 hits.
Apparently, this is the hidden hurdle that open alternatives face. The only entities that can invest enough money into something to make it a market-place standard are those who hope to make a ton of money off of wide-spread adoption.
The official site for MP3 licensing details is here. As the article said, they're not actually going to release details until the 14th.
i'm not sure if the parent is a flame, or what, but it's the most logical, level-headed and probably true comment i've seen all day about this topic
moox. for a new generation.
Will OGG ever be finished? I've been following it's development for almost a full year now. The latest news on their site is 4 months old, and it's still in Beta.
Mod this however you want, but I detect a distinct Mozilla-like odor here. Another project that will go on and on and on and on ad infinitum until nobody cares anymore. Get the software OUT OF BETA and then more people will be attracted to it.
What hardware manufacturers are dedicated to making Vorbis players? I really hope you're right, but I don't know. Getting out of beta by the end of the year might be too late. Mozilla, in it's latest release, may very well be approaching a standard of usability that will overcome the bad experiences people have had with it so far, but it's already too late. It will be extremely difficult for it to get any significant mindshare beyond us - the few, the proud, the geeks.
Once Thompson starts charging the commercial vendors licensing fees, they will want to consider alternatives, like Vorbis, but Vorbis will not be ready and then they will jump on the M$ media player bandwagon. Game Over.
Vorbis will then be relegated to cult status. Also, as long as MP3 technology continues to be free for non-monetarized use, there will be no incentive for freeware authors to switch away from MP3, further relegating Vorbis into the land of the obscure. Nothing will prevent Thompson to do an about-face on this and some day start charging licensing fees for everything including freeware implementations.
A rather prolific family in the Ramtop mountains.
I've an almost updated MP3 HOWTO and even though I've an OggVorbis section in it I'm going to rewrite it with as much coverage.
Boy's and Girls..... if you are using any OggVorbis apps, or know of any tools being developed, let me know.
I'll change the HOWTO's name to MP3 & OggVorbis HOWTO.
Thanks
Phil
If I had a large station that made alot of profit, I absolutly would not be willing to spend 2%. That is a hell of alot of money! I am frankly rather shocked at the huge percentage amount being demanded.
So unisys wanted royalties for GIF and XOR, did
they get anywhere? No. Thugs are thugs no matter
what veil they wear, such thing will go this way:
1. everyone will tell them to fuck off.
- they will be boycotted by everyone
- they will be hacked and cracked to
no end. Crackers would be really
offended when they can't listen to
their trance while cracking servers.
2. It is damage so internet will route around it.
- many alike formats will flourish, coverters will be made, that is if threat is serious.
- company will be viewed as a thug practicing questinable tactics, as such it will be discounted in favor of more sensible competition.
You missed the point. the licensing is about SERVING streaming mp3's, not about listening to mp3's that are served streaming.
Something like this is too good for the RIAA to just ignore. I am sure some media company if not the RIAA will snatch it.
Oh, also Microsoft is for a way to have its own proprietary format to compete agaisn't mp3's. Look here for more information on some of Microsofts tactics.
If Microsoft bought the patent or the company they can also sue everyone company in existance who offers mp3 file streaming. But, if you use WMA under a MS platform, you can stream it for free. Just only use NT as the server and the client because its illegal to reverse engineer it and port it to other platforms under the DMCA act. I guess we can get all those product activation cards ready or pay $25 for a cd.
http://saveie6.com/
A patent on this type of thing is ludicrous, and I hope there are plenty of people around to challenge it. Apathy is the enemy of freedom.
They have not patented the idea of MP3 streaming. They do hold a bunch of patents for the algorithms used in MP3 encoders and decoders, however, and, thus, can dictate the license conditions at which they are gonna let you use it.
A little bit of history:
MP3 (Audio MPEG Layer 3) was originally developed back in the early 90s (I believe it was 1992, but I'm not sure) by the Fraunhoeffer Institute in Germany, which they patented. At first, I believe they allowed everyone to write encoders/decoders based on the codec for free, but later decided to charge 50 cents per each unit sold (if you don't sell your end product, you don't pay anything)with a minimum fee of $15000 per year.
At some point, Fraunhoeffer let Thomson Multimedia handle the licensing of mp3 and that's where we are at today.
This is more appropriate than you think. The US originally settled with the Bey of Tripoli for a lot of cash -- we paid a set price up front for them to leave us alone, just like we currently pay the RIAA. It was signed before Washington and read to the senate by Adams before ratification (this is also the treaty where we declare that the US is not a Christian nation).
Move to the modern parallel, in 1800 the Bey got greedy and wanted more. We said no and he got mad. Jefferson sent some frigates in 1800 to protect our ships and then many more in 1801 plus the Marines to kick ass and end it.
Now the RIAA is getting greedy, wanting more than their status-quo share. Time to send in the Marines.
They _did_ or they _do_ continue to? Since all the web sites switched to png (hehe) I haven't heard much about that story. I remember hearing that Atari used to to the same thing, claiming they had a patent for bitmapped graphics.
Actually, I'm kind of amused by this story. The best tools for making and playing mp3s are all freeware, and I've never been to keen on these "fence" outfits that make money off people who trade in stolen goods. People, I think, will manage to trade stolen music in any format just fine without the help of moneyed interests. Let them have their cut of Napster. Then they can take on The 3l33t MP3z Crue and see where that gets them. "Aww go pass another law, ya bum...". So let Big Money slug it out amongst themselves. Technologies like mp3 make them less and less relevant every day. I guess that's hanging them with the rope they weave.
Kill, Tux, kill!
All it takes is a few big players to adopt an open unecumbered standard to make it so ...
Of course to the extent they recognize the legitimacy of streaming Internet content at all the music industry is in bed with Thompson - even though pushing for an open patent free standard would save the industry's partners wads of money and cost the industry nothing (except maybe a court case or two with Thompson about OGG being an MP3 infringement which Thompson would lose).
Of course Thompson would not lose quickly and would use the occasion to FUD the heck out of OGG or any other format.
Why does someone always think that just because something is popular, everybody is willing to pay for it? :-)
A margin of 2% of all revenues sure would make one choose another format.
Maybe the wizards of the IT industry thinks that everyone makes huge profits from their products. They should try running a local radiostation and work at finding the money to keep it on the air and then the money to stream it on the net.
Even if they broadcast ads, when they get to the "2% of all revenues" part, the whole deal will end with a "oh, never mind then".
--------
They (the ogg vorbis guys) only *say* they're not infringing. That does not mean that they're not. In fact, given the broadness of the mp3 patents, they most like *are* infringing. And Thompson thinks so too, as you can read in this article. Quoting Thompson's vice president of new business: "We doubt very much that they are not using Fraunhofer and Thomson intellectual property".
- The mp3 patents are overly broad, anyone with half a brain can see that for themselves. This makes it very hard to not infringe on them when doing any kind of audio compression.
- Thompson has a shitload of money, and could sue Ogg Vorbis into oblivion even if Ogg Vorbis did not infringe.
There is no doubt in my mind that as soon as Ogg Vorbis gains mainstream acceptance, Thompson will try everything in the book to subdue it. Whether or not they have a solid legal case for patent infringement (which I think they do, given the broadness of their patents) is hardly relevant.A patent on this type of thing is ludicrous, and I hope there are plenty of people around to challenge it. Apathy is the enemy of freedom.
"Ancillary does not mean you get to rule the world." --U.S. Circuit Judge Harry Edwards, speaking to the FCC's lawyer
I've said this before, but it bears repeating:
Vorbis needs a new name.
Ogg Vorbis is not catchy.
I recommend xph. It's a TLA, it's roughly
a derivitave of the people who make vorbis, it has the trendy "X" in it, and sounds cool.
--
Libertarianism is rich wolves and poor sheep playing gambler's ruin for dinner.
Nice and comfortable?
Lets go back approximately 200 years to when the USA was a fledgling nation.
Back then the US wanted to trade with the nation in the 'Med. But there was one slight problem...
Pirates! "Legalised" pirates, "they barricaded" the Meditteranean with there vessels. These people had a name: Barbaryt Pirates!
What these Pirates would do is come alongside a ship, peacefully, and demand a tribute. If none was forthcoming they would simply capture the ship and crew and hold them ransome.
Unfortuantly the USA was poor at the time and could hardly afford a tribute, but trade was very important. So...To cut this short the US Navy was born as were the US Marines, they destroyed the Pirates in an act of Free Trade.
Forward to the present day:
To listen to music gennerally you have to pay a "toll", not to the artist but to some group that wants to "blockade" access to the music until you pay them a tribute. We do not call them Pirates, although really that is what they are as the similarities between them and the Barbary pirates is close...We call them the RIAA/MPAA.
Yep, they are the real pirates here, if only Jefferson were alive today...
StarTux
It's informative posts like the above one that keep me coming back to slashdot.
So what does this mean for shoutcast? The guys at nullsoft who did winamp and shoutcast should make their own napster like program that doesn't have a central server. That would totally screw over those music industries guys. :)
oh yea, Gnutella
I think this is a remarkably fair scheme, especially considering how onerous MSFT or RIAA will likely be when they start charging for online music delivery. The fact that they are only planning to charge people who make a profit strikes me as being rather enlightened.
this is getting old and so are you
blog
On a similar note, isn't the LZW (Unisys, GIF) patent almost dead by now? I recall that one goes back until the mid eighties. .GIF itself, a user of LZW which was already in widespread use at GIF's birth, goes back to '87, and I believe that the Unix "compress" program is even older.
Anyone know what the liberation dates for these algorithms are?
--
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
Yeah, but are you paying ANSI a license, or are you using "illegal circumvention devices"? You could go to jail!
Yes, but nobody's charging me a royalty everytime I link a program with libc or another royalty every time I distribute something linked with libc.
Because when companies start streaming and selling music in Vorbis format, you won't be able to listen if you don't get some sort of Vorbis player. Hopefully by then player manufacturers will start adding Vorbis support to their devices. Computers already make excellent Ogg Vorbis players. It's only a matter of time until hardware Ogg Vorbis players become available.
Don't convert mp3's to oggs unless the original is lost and you absolutely MUST sell/stream it for a profit. If all those conditions are met, there are various mp3 to Vorbis converters on freshmeat.net, but it's not possible to convert from MP3 to Vorbis without losing quality, so don't do it unless you absolutely have to.
Let me rephrase that: Vorbis-supporting hardware will be available soon after Vorbis becomes 1.0, which will happen before the end of the year.
I remember a while back that Monty said he was going to try to get Ogg Vorbis 1.0 out towards the end of this year. Features are still being added, by the way. Vorbis won't be 1.0 until bitrate peeling and channel coupling are done. Once 1.0 comes out (which it will, fairly soon) expect to see a plethora of software and devices with Ogg Vorbis capabilities (The next version of Winamp will have a Vorbis player, various hardware manufacturers are already dedicated to making Vorbis-playing hardware, etc.)
And what of bands trying to make a buck or two with their music on their own websites? I'm sorry, but Thompson is going to run up against a problem in court when precidence becomes the defense. It's too late, you can't start charging for technology that was once free. HOW-TO: Commit Corporate Suicide
"Your Mouse has moved... Windows must be restarted for the changes to take effect."
Just because Joe Average didn't pay (directly) out of his pocket doesn't mean they didn't rake in some serious money.
I've never had a problem with the MP3 patent..Sure, its nice to have freely available alternatives like Vorbis, but MP3 isn't exactly like One-click-shopping. There's a real basis of years-long research and development behind it, and it was certainly a non-obvious invention.
I work for a COllege station. We make nothing.
Hey Thompson, see if you can get your superior wavelet mathematicians and marketting statisticians to tell you what 2% of ZERO is!
dM
Hey freaks: now you're ju
Odds are, they'll get less money than Unisys did with that whole demanded cash for .gif thing
-henry
"Useless organic meatbag" -HK-47
MP3 will never rule unless they rename it -- you can always tell if something's going to be successful by the name.
--
Rot-13 my address to e-mail me.
"So I hurry back to little earth / For another life another birth"
Rot-13 my address to e-mail me.
"So I hurry back to little earth / For another life another birth"
There is, but MP3 is accepted as a de-facto standard.
It would take time (and money) to switch formats.
--
Two witches watch two watches.
--
Two witches watched two watches.
Which witch watched which watch?
>>What if the RIAA buys the patent off Thomas Multimedia and then uses it to kill of any mp3 file sharing illegal or not. If anyone took and overtly controlled MP3, another format would take off. As for Microsoft, do you honestly think they'd do that?
Now the RIAA is going to go after each and every web site streaming ogg or any other non-MP3 files, on the grounds that they are obviously trying to avoid the royalties for distributing copywritten works. A pox on the man who invented the copyright, and may Richard Stallman's death be delayed a thousand years!
I'm the stranger...posting to
Does anyone know where I can get a look at the actual specifics of the license?
Can't find anything anywhere..
Maybe they are embarrased by their stupidity?
-- Meow!Thump!Meow!Thump!Meow!Thump! "You're right! There isn't enough room to swing a cat in here!" --