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Thomson: MP3 Licensing Same As It Ever Was

Posted by timothy on from the gosh-all-we-changed-was-some-words-and-stuff dept.

Thomson Multimedia is downplaying the recently reported change in the licensing of patented MP3 technology as nothing more than a trivial, semantic change. In a NewsForge report today, Robin ("roblimo") Miller quotes a spokesman who denies that any change in the licensing terms has taken place, "that Thomson laid down its licensing terms long ago, and that if Thomson's terms are not compatible with the GPL today, then they never were." The patent encumbrance of MP3 codecs has worried Free software enthusiasts for a long time; if the recent wording change represents no change in policy, it seems that they really have been right all along. (NewsForge, like Slashdot, is part of the sinister OSDN keiretsu.)

3 of 310 comments (clear)

  1. Oooh... by Mulletproof · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    You play with magnetic poetry, don't you?

    --
    You need a FREE iPod Nano
  2. Re:Troll! by streak · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    Thank god, /. removed the plagarized comment.

    Thanks guys.

  3. Re:What in sweet, slinky Jesus is keiretsu? by timothy · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    Interesting link re: that:
    http://www.rotman.utoronto.ca/~evans/teach3 63/keir etsu/keiretsu.htm

    It's like "Zaibatsu" (though surely someone who knows Japanese will correct me on how different the words really are; I have heard them used interchangeably, but only by Americans speaking English, and do not know Japanese). See also this game:
    (//www.angelfire.com/games3/errantknight/zaibats u/ )

    Or (Korean) like the giant industrial combines called Chaebol, which are based on Japanese industrial practices, thanks to Japan rudely visiting longer than was polite in the late 19th, early-mid 20th century. There are still some grudges being nursed.

    timothy

    --
    jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5