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New MP3 License Terms Demand $0.75 Per Decoder
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."
http://www.vorbis.com/
X(7): A program for managing terminal windows. See also screen(1).
i wonder how much money they're pulling in from mp3-related things? Anyone got a rough estimate?
.ogg? :)
And wouldn't this hurt the proliferation of mp3 encoders running around, thereby possibly limiting the amount of mp3s that are available to the general public? Maybe we just need to use
Lordfly
hookers and grits.
It seems like we have the cart leading the horse. Inventors are now embedding their ideas into standards, waiting until adoption, and then enforcing their monopoly.
This is dirty pool, and I hope it doesn't last.
"Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival."
--Dr.W.Edwards Deming
I wonder if distributions made on countries that do not accept software patents can still include MP3 decoders. That would, of course, mean the end of sales of this distributions on the US, or the development of US versions and "patent infringing" versions of the distributions, the same way there was a strong and weak crypto version of RH. I live in a country where (until the US forces us to change our laws) we do not believe that software or algorithmic ideas can be patented, and we have our own distros. I wouldnt like these distros to change just because of US laws and the US market.
This won't kill MP3. This has been in effect for years now, I have NO idea why /. thinks this is news, that page hasn't even changed. Research much? Anyway, Mp3 ius entrenched, and end users still aren't being hurt, unless they have to pay for their sw mp3 player, but there will always be a huge company like AOL (WinAmp) who is willing to foot the bill. FhG has had this rule in effect, they just haven't enforced it on tiny players.
You know, this is actually pretty cheap. I had no idea how inexpensive this was...I thought Fraunhaufer & Co were taking a percentage of your company's profits a la Unisys, or a per song cost. $.75 per player is nothing...I have a dozen players, hardware & software alike, and they all amount to under $10. Not bad, considering how great the technology behind MP3 is.
Sure, they're profiteering, but they're profiteering off of a format they helped produce and thought to patent. MP3 encoding isn't exactly no duh stuff like hyperlinks or LZW compression (which is essentially a really fast look up table). And sure, there's Ogg, but I don't like the sound as much and my consumer devices don't support it.
You can bitch and moan about how this will kill mp3, but I think it's obvious nothing will kill MP3 -- the technology is too widely supported. What it means, though, is that GPL'd and other free decoders are going to have to ammend the license to be sure Fraunhoffer gets its money. This is a perfect time to test whether or not the GPL can play nice in the IP pool.
Hey freaks: now you're ju
Of course, if you already have the plugin, no need to pay for it again -- and it could make use of the Windows Media Player MP3 codecs (paid for by your Windows XP license).
I'm rather certain they used to only demand royalties for encoders, not decoders.
You know, Microsoft's street address also says a lot about their mentality.
Since copyright means nothing to MP3 users, I doubt a silly technicality like this would really make any difference.
I continually am amazed at firms that do this. Does not even the lowly geek admin at this place realize this will eventually kill mp3 as a used format, thus killing their source of revenue?
If they don't charge they have zero revenue. Charging $0.75 a decoder or $50k to $60 one time fee isn't that big of a deal for commercial companies making decoders. The only ones this hurt is the open source and free decoders, and they aren't making money from those anyway.
I agree that charging fees after the format is underhanded, and possibly grounds for anti-trust violations, but giving it away for free isn't exactly a great business decision either.
Now, one could convincingly argue that software patents shouldn't be allowed in the first place, or that they should have shorter terms, or that the patent office doesn't do a competent job of checking for obviousness or prior art. I'd probably agree. But the fact remains that any damage done by patents is at worst a temporary setback to everyone else, not an irretrievable disaster.
At some point, MP3s will no longer be encumbered by patents.
Per unit. That means if somone distributes 100,000 downloads it will cost them $75,000 dollars.
Liberty in your lifetime
Rather, I meant that Kazaa comes with it's own player, not each mp3 with it's own player (although what a neat idea, a format that plays itself, but is small)...
Tibbon
tibbon.com
I know a lot of people are hoping that .ogg will prevail as a result of this but unfortunately I fear something much worse.
.wma format. On P2P systems and from friends. It brings back chilling memories of the not so long ago pre-decent-office-suite-4-linux days where I had to continually bitch and moan in vain that I'm not able to make use of a particular format.
.ogg will be there to save the day if it disappears. I have yet to see one single .ogg file EVER availble for download on a P2P system but I have seen the occasional .wma. So windows media is gradually gaining acceptance. If mp3s die out I highly doubt .ogg has a good chance to take it's place.
I'm already seeing a ton of songs in
Mp3 is still the most dominant format but I honestly don't think
--
Garett
Copyright is all about copying the work. Patents are about copying the idea.
That's part of what's inherently wrong with patenting software. They should treat patents in the same way they treat trademarks -- if its use becomes diluted and unchecked, it belongs to the public.
MP3, GIF and lots of other data formats are just out there everywhere and should belong to the public at large. It's not like the someone who invented LZ or MP3 formats woke up from a coma after 20 years of people using their work. The people have been using it for so long, it belongs to the people now.
People should be protesting and presuring for the release of these patents. People should be protesting against software patents in general. When it comes to historical and archival data, it's all about the format.
What would happen if MS patented EVERYTHING they did. Screw copyright -- just patented everything. We know their legal team would pose a deadly threat to everyone they came in contact with whether the claims had merit or not.
Software patents have a chilling effect on industrial and recreational software development. (Open source is largly recreational... and we should all be screaming for our rights to free expression and recreation.) They need to be officially disposed of. What political force is already supporting this view? I don't know... someone tell me. Whoever and whatever it is, they need to be backed by our support to make some change happen. Things have been out of control for far too long.
Or another lossless, free-as-in-speech format. When OGG 1.0 came out a couple months ago, I took the plunge and re-ripped all my CDs. (Lucky me, I only have about 80 CDs.)
Even if such a change as this (removing the exemption for personal-use decoders) wouldn't really affect me, there's such a thing as taking a stand against those who would abuse the rights they are granted.
If you can, switch to OGG. Rip all your new CDs in OGG. Encourage gaming companies to use the OGG format for the music in their games. And so on.
"Destroy science and religion. Science would re-emerge exactly the same; but not religion." - Penn Jillette, paraphrased
One of the little tragedies of the emerging legal climate is that your attitude is the only sane response. The 'content providers' - the Sonys, Disneys, Warners, RIAAs and MPAAs of the world - have pushed through a network of laws about 'intellectual property' that are all so counter-intuitive, so opposed to the normal day-to-day human individual and social practice, that it makes just about all of us criminals (or at least liable). I don't know how long this can stand - history shows that essentially unjust systems can last a long, long time, and slavery, for example, was far more unjust than this. But the only reasonable response, IMO, is just to do what we would otherwise do, because increasing, being scrupulous would be paralyzing.
Already have winamp or another mp3 player on your computer?
I don't see a reason to give that up and pay the decoder fees.
As long as you keep your older versions of the players, you should be fine.
Hell, you should even burn a cd with all the players you can think of on it just in case you feel like switching and want to aviod the fees.
Downmix - The Artscene News Source!
i wonder what prompted them to do this in the first place..
My guess: too many commercial companies were using the free license for free player to skirt licensing the patent. i.e. "Hey, you didn't buy any MP3 player.. you bought something else and we thru the MP3 player in for free".
call me a conspiracy theorist but i wouldn't be suprised if the RIAA is behind this somehow
Doubtful, since if you think about it MP3 (the patent and its owners) would be opposed to the RIAA. The RIAA want to stamp MP3s out and replace them with something they consider secure (and no doubt they own the intellectual property on as well). Thompson, et al stand to make more money with greater prolifieration of MP3s.
So basically, loopholes are being closed. I doubt very seriously that there will be a witch hunt for free player developers. If sell some service, appliance, or other software that includes some free implementation of an MP3 decoder (think a hardware MP3 player that uses a GPLed or BSD library for decoding) I'm sure you can expect a letter in the mail. The unfortunate side effect of this is that the likes of Red Hat have to remove all decoders since the new licensing scheme affects them as well.
It is more complicated, remember LAME aint an MP3 encoder!. Technically LAME is an encapsulation of and patch to specimen source from the Frauenhofer Lab. This code may not be sold (a problem for people selling dists) but it is certainly possible to make it available for free download.
Who in their right mind would build an expensive home (or any home, for that matter) on leased land?!
-Ryan, with the unoriginal sig
How is a $0.75 fee per decoder gonna impact MP3 players, exactly? Do you think that *anybody, manufacturer or buyer, is gonna notice $0.75 in a several hundred dollar product? Come on.
The user won't notice, most likely. However, if you notice, the minimum annual licensing is $15,000 US per year. So even if a manufacturer's product flops, they have to shell out 15 grand anyway. And if the product does well, say it ships 2 million units, that's $1.5 Million dollars in royalties.
When presented with those options, which one would you pick? Some people, especially much smaller companies, will go with the royalty-free solution.
do this experiment... Open a photo, save as a low-quality quality JPEG. Repeat 3 times. Look at photo. It gets worse every time.
DO NOT DISTURB THE SE
So, are you going to donate the $60K to SPI so that Debian can redistribute xmms? I'd guess not. This won't kill MP3, but it will kill MP3 with free software. Oh well...
Yes, the have the patent, and the right to license the patent as they choose. Their choice (make it free until it's widely used, then start charging money) makes them assholes. This is exactly what happens when you start relying on patented technology, and proves that the folks over at Xiph were right all along.
As far as $0.75/per unit being trivial, you should investigate the economics of consumer electronics. That $0.75 might well be half the profit on a low-end device.
1. This is an open standard. It's just patented. Patents expire. Nobody is trying to prevent you from writing decoders - they just want to get paid for (I hope) work that they did in developing the technology, which is pretty cool, and which I don't think I could have invented on my own. I am not fond of software patents, but a patent on MP3 is not the same as a patent on one-click or xor cursors.
Couple of points here: 1a. Patents expire in 20 years with an option to renew; in practical terms they don't expire especially when it comes to software. 1b. Patent on MP3 is the same as a patent on one-click in that they are both patents on software. They both claim patents on logic, algorithm, functions, whatever you want to call it.
2. The royalty is quite reasonable. If you had to pay $0.75 for your copy of WinAMP, would that really seem unfair to you? That's the price of a can of coke, for Pete's sake! It it really that unfair?
This is purely subjective. I'm sure if the patent license is enforced winamp will come up with a free version that's ad-bloated (plays an ad mp3 after each of your selected mp3s, popups, unders, etc), or paid subscription model like Real did awhile ago. Now, this may be completely reasonable to you, but others who have been playing their mp3s without having to pay for patent royalties or get annoyed by advertizers will not appreciate the change. So they will switch to Windows Media Player which will include the patent payment in the OS price (antitrust?), which will also force them to listen to and encode in WMA.
3. Like it or not, this is not going to kill MP3, because most MP3 players are commercial, licensed products, and there are a ton of them out there, and they don't support Vorbis. So you don't have to do anything to keep using your MP3s, but if you want to use Vorbis in protest, it's going to be very difficult.
I don't think it's going to be MP3 vs OGG, it's going to be MP3 vs WMA and good luck beating MS in this game. Just like I said above. Also, consider MS requiring you to use their DRM with WMAs when or as they get a hold of some market share. This will bring up so many issues it's a topic of several separate discussions.
4. I have a large library of audio files that need to get published on the net. They're free, noncommercial, non-revenue-generating. I'll publish them at least in MP3 format, and maybe Ogg if I can get a good encoder. I have a feeling that if I publish Ogg, it's not going to get downloaded very much, but it'll be interesting to see.
At least help advertize Ogg. Can't hurt. BTW what is wrong with the xiph.org's ogg encoder?
Call me when my Apex AD600A or my Rio Volt SP90 will start playing Ogg. Without hardware support, it'll go nowhere. (I'm not saying it couldn't happen, but it most definitely is not there yet.)
20 January 2017: the End of an Error.
It doesn't mean being nickel and dimed for everything, and it doesn't mean it's free now and you pay later.
Redhat 7.2 has 1,144 packages. If they were to charge $0.75 for each package, you would be charged $858.00 to use Redhat.
Yes, mostly. The FgH patents were issued in Germany in 1989, one year after ISO-11172 (mpeg1 standard) was published. In the USA, the patent was issued sometime in the mid-90's, 1996 I seem to recall.
PJRC: Electronic Projects, 8051 Microcontroller Tools
Expensive discs (per MB, compared to CD-R), expensive players (compared to MP3-capable CD players), proprietary format controlled by evil giant Sony, none of my friends have them, can't store them on my hard drive, can't download them off the 'net, can't burn to audio CD (without going to analog or using a pro CD burner which defeats SCMS), what's to like?
Hey kids, there's only 5 days left 'til Yak Shaving Day!
This won't kill -- or probably even hurt -- the MP3 format. It's too entrenched. What it will do is make it harder to release Free players that support MP3. And which players have the best support for OGG? That's right, the Free ones. So if this succeeds in making it harder to distribute Free players, it reduces the number of available OGG players.
Since no one will want a player that can't handle OGG, the only remaining players with significant market share will be those that have paid the fees. The organizations that can afford the fees mostly have a vested interest in restricting distribution.
Nope, no sig
what is most interesting about that licensing list is the absence of a few names:
IBM
SUN
Red Hat/Mandrake/SuSE
Imation
Maybe IBM could do the Linux community a favor and put 50K of their "X Billion dollars for Linux" into a perpetual MP3 license.
Although probably it's best for MP3 to die its death now. Long live OGG. If Imation's "RipGo!" Mini-CDR player had OGG, it would be in my possession right now.
MORTAR COMBAT!
Except that XMMS is not an MP3 player. It happens to have an MP3 decoder bundled with it as an input module -- and it happens that MP3s are what most people use it for -- but it can decode a *ton* of other formats, OGG included, and as a player it won't die. Just take the MP3 module out of the distribution.
V
I can hear the websites going down as we speak.
/. that say "this is not a lot to pay" - then you are a freaking moron.
/. bumming me out that i practically don't give a shit any more.
To all of you who have said "no big deal" "$.75 is not a lot of money" - you are mad.
I ran the numbers - and they are staggering.
The list of licensees guarantees them $2,295,000 PER YEAR for the MINIMUM licenseing fees. I notice that i DIDN'T notice a lot of the super-simple little Mac OS 9 mp3 players that were out there on the licensee list - so i guess that their days are now over.
And that is just the tip of the "ability to buy small governments and a few senators" pile of money.
As a Mac bigot, i see that Apple has had 100,000,000 downloads of Quicktime. If they had supported the MP3 format from the beginning (they haven't) that would be $75,000,000 from Apple, and $75,000,000 to Thompson Multimedia. But you get my point.
Fine - what about RealPlayer?
Their site claims that they have 285 million players out there! So much for Apple.. if these rules were in place, that would be a cool $213,750,000 from Real to Thompson. Their software has been shit up until recently, so i can't tell you how long they've supported mp3's. but if it was the beginning, then that's what it woulda cost them.
That's just crap. And that's just two of the licensees. I can't imagine how many bazillions they plan on making here in the near future.
This will and SHOULD kill mp3. I grow weary of saying it, but if I come up with a good idea, i shouldn't be able to live a thousand lifetimes off of it. There's just no justification. Hell, i don't plan on making money off the work i did today tomorrow - so why the hell do so many other people believe that just because they worked yesterday that they should be paid into perpituity?
IP is a bullshit idea.
For all of you dumbasses on
This is NOT cheap - and this WILL stifle creativity and future MP3 deployment. If you come up with a great piece of software that decodes mp3s, pray to God it doesn't become popular (if you're a little-guy developer).
What kills me is that instead of providing SOMETHING of value TODAY - they are going to kill off all the little guys who make mp3 players or force them to 123.
Whatever.. i'm so sick of
guns kill people like spoons make Rosie O'Donnell fat.
This was easy to see coming for several years. There was even historical precedent with the LZW/GIF thing. And unlike the situation in early 1995 where there was a couple of months between GIF LZW enforcement and PNG scrambling to get invented and become viable, Vorbis has been usable a couple of years before this happened. Fraunhofer has been easy on us.
Anyone who got caught with their pants down this time, deserved to lose. Pity?! Fuck 'em!
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
An extra 700 megs of storage for my Rio is less than $1.00. Thanks for playing, though...
20 January 2017: the End of an Error.
Creating a personal music library does not require a license, but the software you use to do it does need a license.
DAT is lossy. It loses all frequencies above 24 kHz (48 kHz sample rate + Nyquist-Shannon theorem [wikipedia.com]). It loses all signals below -120 dB due to the effective 20-bit performance of 16-bit dithered PCM. It loses the front-and-back dimension.
That's great and all, but I doubt you can hear all that dynamic response with the s/n on most consumer amps.Also, who can hear above 22KHz? I know I can't. I might hear an overtone or an intermod product from a tone being generated above 22KHz, but not the fundamental tone.
All my stupid accretions aside, the more information you can capture, the better. You may not be able to hear all of it on your $500 living room system.
--fatboy