Slashdot Mirror
Real Pays For Legal MP3 Playback On Linux
kforeman (aka Kevin Foreman, GM of Helix RealNetworks, Inc.) writes "As part of the free RealPlayer 10 for Linux, Real has paid Thomson for a legal MP3 playback license and then includes it at no cost as part of the newly released RealPlayer 10. As I speak to people, many are under the false impression that MP3 playback patent and royalty rights are free, since there are open source implementations of MP3 playback available. Not true. Nonetheless, we are glad to do our part of making the Linux desktop a first class citizen by legally providing MP3 playback to users via our new RealPlayer."
Will this introduce spyware into Linux?
I notice the page signature reads "Shit Happens"
hmm...
"making the Linux desktop a first class citizen"
Shouldn't that last bit read "corporate whore?"
Linux-based jukebox, anyone?
Well, reading the standard, then implementing one's own decoder would be legal - naah, quite a dreamworld. Would be good if it were so, it even would be logical to quite an extent, unless you like waking up by smelling patent litigation papers.
I am putting myself to the fullest possible use, which is all I can think that any conscious entity can ever hope to do.
I wonder if Real are positioning themselves to get their client distributed with distributions. We might finally see Fedora (et al) with an mp3 player.
I wonder what the license says about redistributing the client? Would Fedora et al be able to distribute it?
In the meantime, I'll stick to Gentoo since they are happy to provide source code for all sorts of mp3 players.
When you think about it, how can anyone really license the playback for a specific format? Even if someone really tried to enforce it, somebody even smarter would figure out a way to play it back and post such findings on the net anyway.
huh? hasnt mp3 always been free?
Real has always been Crippleware. "Pay us and get uncrippled version".
Real, all these operating systems are yours, except Linux. Do not attempt any loadings onto Linux.
Other than live streaming media, it doesn't bring anything new to Linux..
Noble of them.. however we prefer to use non-proprietary stuff though.. So, ogg-vorbis is the way.. Now if Real were to use ogg in their commercial products so (and maybe challenge the ipod with ogg player hooked up to their online music store???) we wouldn't need proprietary licenses then we would all bow down and hail the penguin lova!
-if at first you don't succeed, stay the heck away from paragliding.
While what you say is true, this is great because it is a clean legal way to do it. If Linux is going to ever REALLY become successful on the desktop more things like this need to happen.
In the long run open formats would definately be the goal, but in the mean time this is a good move to encourage acceptance.
The preceding message was based on actual events. Only the names, locations and events have been changed.
Real are supposed to be evil! And it turns out they read slashdot! [eyes crossing. blackout]
I have a SB Live! card that has hardware mp3 decoding built-in, but the linux drivers support it. I assume I paid for a license as part of the purchase price of the card. I feel no qualms about using LAME, etc. and in fact they are doing a great service to those of us who already paid but are unable to use that capablility on our OS of choice...
A house divided against itself cannot stand.
The patent holder for the mp3 codic has never gone after distributors of "free" mp3 players, so long as they were not being used in a for profit product. So download the source and build it for yourself..no worries. (Not true with mp3 ENCODERS, however you can still download bladeenc or lame sources). However because this limits your freedom you won't find an MP3 player in Debain main. Since Real won't give you the source, it isn't 'free' either, again Debain won't distribute it, even if Real says they can.
Also, does anyone know were the patent on decoding is so we can check whether it is valid (in the USA--it is obviously invalid in the free (i.e.: non-US) world)?
And, if you don't want to be sued, use a free and better lossy format (e.g.: Ogg Vorbis for music or Ogg Speex for speech).
Joe Llywelyn Griffith Blakesley
[This post is in the public domain (copyright-free) unless otherwise stated]
...The linux drivers -don't- support it...
A house divided against itself cannot stand.
"Ogg Vorbis is a completely open, patent-free, professional audio encoding and streaming technology with all the benefits of Open Source." w00t for plagiarism.
This still doesn't make Real Player a good choice for media playback.
And yet the slashbots will still find a way to make them appear evil. After all, they're competing with apple.
I am trolling
and I bet nobody give a rats ass about that.
lame and other rippers, and the tons of players that you can download as well as the "illegal" players for windows....
to hell with the company that "owns" mp3. I can see paying a royalty to create content, fuck em if they want to charge per player.
typical of a pompous german company.
8. If the distribution and/or use of the Program is restricted in
certain countries either by patents or by copyrighted interfaces, the
original copyright holder who places the Program under this License
may add an explicit geographical distribution limitation excluding
those countries, so that distribution is permitted only in or among
countries not thus excluded. In such case, this License incorporates
the limitation as if written in the body of this License.
It was time! Up until now, you fired an mp3 player and you could hear all your MP3s with no problems whatsoever! Now, for the first time in Linux, you`ll be able to load an mp3 player (among other things) and, guess what, you'll be able to hear all your MP3s with no problems whatsoever! Ain`t it great? ...err....or something...
I can hear outrage from RMS already! Licensing proprietary technology for use with GNU/Linux? Next people will start using the Flash plugin too! It's a slippery sloap.
MFG: "The system supports both the LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP) and WIMP (Windows, IIS, MySQL, PHP) platforms."
The MP3 "license" is of course for a software patent, and hence only enforceable in USA and Japan at the moment. Check out the previous news "EU Software Patents Delayed Again". If your are a developer living in EU, this doesn't apply to you.
Yours sincerely,
shurdeek
It's nice, except that (compared with MP3), few files are found in this format, and few digital music players play it.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
Does Real f#ck up Linux systems in the same way it f#cks up Windows systems?!
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
What's this talk of Real Player on Linux? I thought Linux didn't suffer from adware!
...that it's legal to play the MP3's I've downloaded from KAZAA as long as I use Real?
Christ, this one doesn't even pretend to be some reader sending in an interesting article. Since when are spam messages news?
"Nonetheless, we are glad to do our part of making the Linux desktop a first class citizen by legally providing MP3 playback to users via our new RealPlayer."
Im my blessed country, were the rivers are of milk and honey (sort of), the MP3 playback was ALWAYS legal (the mathematical ideas are not patentable = No SW patents!)
...but there's nary a software package I despise nore than Real. Those clowns continually teeter so close the edge of being ad/spy/malware it isn't even funny. They don't play nice with others, and they definately qualify as bloatware as far as I am concerned...
(Stolen sig) Remember: it's a "Microsoft virus", not an "email virus", a "Microsoft worm", not a "computer worm
Speaking of open source decoders, is there a good decoder that's LGPL or BSD licensed? I found both smpeg and mpglib unable to playback correctly certain mp3 files that play just in Winamp or iTunes.
- Andreas
Sounds like Kevin Foreman would be a fun choice for a new /. interview.
Less Talk, More Beer.
does realplayer 10 play fair and allow the users other programs to access the codecs? or can we only use this codec with their player.
Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
It has Ogg vorbis support and a digital out, so you can use your high-end amp with the player as just another jukebox.
If your car stereo takes an Aux jack or digital feed, you're sorted.
Ogg is a container format, while Vorbis is the actual codec.
A quick-and-dirty analogy: think of Vorbis as toothpaste, and Ogg as the tube it's stored inside.
Use ISO 8601 dates [YYYY-MM-DD]
Despite desperate attempts to change the EU's policy, software patents aren't recognised in the EU. Still, I use Vorbis anyway, so I don't care.
According to Wikipedia:
Thomson SA, formerly known as Thomson Multimedia is a multinational electronics manufacturer and media services provider headquartered in Boulogne, France.
Thomson is named after the electrical engineer Elihu Thomson who was born in Manchester, England, on March 26, 1853. Thomson moved to Philadelphia at the age of 5, with his family.
For more information, please see the Wikipedia article.
The corporation's home page is available here
I think that its high time for Apple to release a version of iTunes in binary form for linux. They did it on Windows and they are making money from ITMS they could do the same on linux for sure.
411 Y0UR 8453 4R3 8310NG 70 U5!! -NSA
Sorry about this being off topic. But does anyone know of any hardware Ogg players. My searches yield plenty of software Ogg players. But I'm looking for a player I can put in my pocket. And I don't mean load an Ogg player onto my PocketPC/Palm/Tungsten/etc.
No im serious, who really gives a damn at this point if its 'licensed' or not.
Not including some big corporation of course, I'm taking users here.
I bet you can count them on one hand.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
A company officially supports linux and adds mp3 support to its package... ...and of course, the slashdot crowd STILL bitches. What is wrong with you people?
The Neuros supports Ogg/Vorbis. They've also supported Linux users for years. Yeah, it's not the sleekest/smallest player available, but it works fine, and sounds better than many. No one said that supporting free software would be cheap!
OGG may not be the answer for everyone, but it certainly is the answer for a lot of us.
...Real doesn't care what perpetual malcontents think of them. Don't like Real? Use something else.
I have no idea what kind of linux users Real is trying to appeal to. Is there anyone out here remotely interested in running Real software on their Linux distro?
Sample this!
Cat got your tongue? (something important seems to be missing from your comment ... like the body or the subject!)
i'm amaz....buffering...ed that Real is still pum...buffering...ping out products. i don't kn...buffering...ow a single person that has used a Real pro...buffering...duct for longer than it took to view that o...buffering...n...buffering...e file they downloaded and found out it was in realplayer for...buffering...mat aftewards.
I've managed to go without using real at all for many years now. I don't feel like I'm missing out on anything.
Now others need to follow suit like Apple's Quicktime with MPEG4 and H.264 licencing for Linux. Then we'll be happy.
- Just my $0.02, take with a grain of salt, your mileage may vary.
Altruism, from Real? Like
"buffering..." under Linux
I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it.
are there any mp3 to ogg conveters?
_ In Egypt Networks: Network Solutions with a Twist
With Real track record as it is, yes, definetly.
And can you imagine your parents using computer without at least any kind of spyware? It's unnatural. So - Real comes to help again.
Excerpted from the URL above:
II.a) Software DECODERS
*****
Q. I wish to distribute a FREE MPEG Layer-3 software decoder on my WEB-site. Do I have to pay royalties?
A. For the FREE distribution of decoders we do not charge a royalty. At the Fraunhofer IIS and OPTICOM web-sites you can find the players we have developed and which may be downloaded for FREE also. Fraunhofer IIS and OPTICOM do not give any technical support for the free players. Emails complaining about bugs in free software will not be answered!
More in general, as long as desktop software decoders are distributed free-of-charge for personal use, no license fee is expected. However, in all cases we expect that MPEG Layer-3 products reference the licensors, like "MPEG Layer-3 audio compression technology licensed by Fraunhofer IIS and THOMSON multimedia".
*****
Q. And what if I sell the software decoder?
A. In this case, the royalty per decoder is US $ 1,00. We just remark that we have not asserted our patents against decoders of which less than 10 000 units have been sold.
I encode all my CDs in ogg, and there is approximately one song in my collection that is still mp3 format. When I need to transfer stuff to my stupid non-ogg supporting MP3 player, I wrote a script. It's not like I will be able to hear the difference between a 192-bit ogg and a 128-bit mp3 any more than I could hear the difference between two different bitrate mp3s, on my crappy headphones and crappy MP3 palyer. It's not hard to avoid mp3s, people, *unless* you frequent filesharing networks... (I've stopped. I now get all of my music from allofmp3.com, which, despite the name, supports ogg, and is considered to be legal, i.e. reasonable doubt written all over it).
Where's quicktime for linux?
Secondly, there is a big difference between a simple MP3 or Ogg Vorbis capable client and an actual stream player. Playing your MP3s and movies off your hard drive is not the end all of streaming...in fact, its not really streaming at all, but rather decoding and/or progressive downloading. How about live streaming from an actual broadcast? For that, you need an actual stream client: Windows Media Player, Real Player, Quick Time, and Flash with its content server.
Besides Real Helix, what other live network stream clients with actual stream servers are there for Linux? Unless we can name a couple of decent live streaming alternatives, perhaps we shouldn't be so quick to slam everything Real does?
of course the rest of the world isnt so stupid as to patent mathmatics, thats not to say they dont want to but at the moment any patent in software doesnt apply unless you want to sell in the US market (which is less important thesedays as china's market is more appetizing than the heavily restricted patent minefield of USA)
Real has always supported Linux.
Unlike Apple and Microsoft.
Your bias is pro-apple.
Linux folks remember Real for supporting Linux.
Real is #1 on our lists.
Microsoft and Apple are the harsh, menacing, sleezy creeps that refuse to supoort Linux.
Muhahahahahaha!!!
If I wasnt lazy, Id do one of those 1,2.3...profit thingy but you are the funniest dude.
I can see the Apple Scientologist braintrust with dollar signs in their eyes from all that potential Linux bling-bling.
zeke
Software-patents aren't enforceable in Europe, moron.
I'll gladly make an exception to that rule for HalfLife 2. I also recall there being a ./ article that proves a great deal of linux wannabes who follow my sentiments, but I'm too lazy to go find it.
+5, Truth
I only buy my CD's used, to make sure that the moneygrubbing artist and record company gets $0. Then I rip to OGG. Then, I turn around and sell the CD. It is a win-win situation. It is all legal.
nobody knows what it is, wants to use it or even cares, you give it away for free and still nobody wants it
yep sounds like a benefit to me
dont call him a moron , he's American have pity on him
Glazer is still a sleazy fuck.
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
They didn't have to publish it at all if they didn't want to.
But, they did.
What will happen with Real's rpm streams? With mime type handeling you might start up Real player the next time you download a RPM software package.
We are the people our parents warned us about.
I recommend you read literature related to nazism on a nazi website. Hopefully you'll be persuaded to turn yourself in for cleansing.
Yeah, your little proprietary media player helps out the cause SO much.
Proprietary drivers in the kernel have somehow become acceptable, now we fall all over ourselves when simple desktop apps go proprietary. In 5 years the whole f(#*$#@ OS is going to be proprietary, clueless retards who Don't Get It cheering the whole way along.
One day we'll wake up and Linux will be just as huge a pile of worthless trash as Windows and wonder what went wrong.
If being a "first class citizen" means destroying everything that Linux is about in the first place, I'll take second class status thanks.
I'm quite happy with my iRiver H-series player. And what good is an Audiotron if you can't upgrade it to play new formats anyway? If I can't hack it to play module files natively, it ain't worth the money.
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
Trying to reduce the discussion of freedom to namecalling is unproductive. Trying to water down the acceptance of freedom to pragmatism (use the best tool for the job) misses the point which motivates some to choose nothing but free software. Giving GNU not even a share of the credit for the OS (or, conversely, giving the Linux kernel project all the credit) misunderstands history and any sense of fairness, particularly noticed because you're apparently trying to dissuade people from freedom talk (despite how you claim to respect people's freedom to choose, which is not what software freedom is about either).
Digital Citizen
... that many MP3 players (including the iPod) have dedicated MPEG audio frame-decoding hardware. They can't easily decode MP3s in software either. There have been single chip solutions for MP3 decoding since like before the year 2000. Vorbis decoding will be more difficult to implement on a chip, and the standard was only finalized recently, so a) no lead-time for chipmakers to develop the hardware b) not enough market to justify the R&D. This is why you don't see it in many portables (and then in only the most powerful ones CPU-wise).
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
Blame the company CPMI or whatever it was called for the name. It was probably never going to marketed to end-users anyway. At least they didn't go changing it three times like firebird/phoenix/monkeyshit/firefox.
And OGG is a nice 3-letter extension that stands out from the rest of the crowded extension namespace. AAC is another good one (but that's too close to AC3 for my comfort, and it's confusing when you also see it as M4A)
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
If Real paid the US$60,000 one-time MP3 license fee and added the MP3 decoder to HelixPlayer, would HelixPlayer's MP3 decoder constitute a legal free software MP3 player for users in software patent-burdened countries like the US?
As it is, I don't see how this story is any more interesting than running Windows Media Player or WinAMP via WINE on an i386-based GNU/Linux system.
Digital Citizen
They have always put out their product on linux, it usually worked more consistently than a flash plugin, and IIRC it was always declawed (because they knew how picky we are about that sort of thing, and that'd we'd notice).
Not that I used it all that much what with mplayer and all, but it was nice to think they weren't complete jerks.
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
Seems pretty clear that the patent-holder does not want to go after end-users using MP3 for non-commercial uses.
Not problem here, software patent don't exist in my wonderfull land :-)
TOLD YOU SO!
Temptation to install strong... must resist... Real evil... must resist embracing them as friend...
I'll clarify that. It takes a lot of money to get such an invention into a working state; it is fiddly to get it going. This is why patents were invented. Wheras an algorithm just requires thinking (which may take a long time) until you discover an appropriate one (and an algorithm could even be discovered by a computer).
Why do you think that (non trivial) algorithms are any different to inventing any other system? A lot of patented devices would have been produced by trial and error until a working one is "discovered".
Or are you saying a computer could just test algorithms until it found an appropriate one? Goodness me. Let's say you can code an MP3 decoder in 1KByte. That would mean the computer would only have to try ~10^8000 programs before it "discoverd" it. It might be finished before the heat death of the universe but I doubt it.
you mean if you do not want to use your portable devices anymore use OGG.
... the devices are available and work very well.
Nonsense. Buy a sensible portable player and it will support ogg perfectly. My Rio Karma plays oggs beautifully, for fifteen hours at a time. It's great to take up in the airplane for those long cross-country flights.
I love ogg, but it is worthless to 90% of us that use mp3.
Only because you didn't do your research, or made a flawed decision when choosing your portable device. That is hardly the fault of the format
The imperfection is yours.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
This website explains about the three related patents in mp3. The website mentioned that the patents relate to encoding and not decoding (playback.)
MP3 The Definitive Guide (O'Reilly)
History of MP3. Qouted from this website: "In 1998, Winamp became a free MP3 music player boosting the success of MP3. No licensing fees are required to use an MP3 player."
Real is bullshitting about mp3 playback fees!
Shit doesn't just happen. It comes from assholes.
Is one of the reasons I like Linux.
...and you can -only- use these media players to play some content.
...and why do we have to put up with it? "To protect our intellectual property and patents!", "Licensing costs!"
[apt-get | urpmi | yum | emerge] media-player
[apt-get | urpmi | yum | emerge] silly-proprietary-codecs
Done. Simple. One media player, one browser plugin, one set of file associations. Granted, this only works on x86, and doesn't cover everything, but I'll try to keep from going on any tangents here...
In Windows, it seems like you need to download a different player just to play everything. WMP, Quicktime, Real...The worst part is that they all suck ass.
They all have bloated, useless skins (especially RealOne (and yes, I have used Realplayer in Linux, I know it's "native" gtk and doesn't suck as bad. What could be expected, Linux users don't need that crap)).
They all seem to have stupid "Media Guides" which are nothing more than advertising, "Just $ a month for EXCLUSIVE, exciting "Real-Only" (tm) content! (Yes, there was audio advertising the first time I started RealOne. Disgusting)"
They all try to 'manage' your media for you.
They all hijack your associations, becuase they all think they're the most important players (or they're trying to get more advertising/mindshare out, and think being co-admins of people's computers is an OK way to do it)
Most of them have stupid 'agents', either invisible or in the system tray, that only server 2 or 3 purposes;
* Mindshare (a little logo there all the time reminding you and anyone in the world to see your computer or a screenshot that you have super duper media player 2005 installed)
* To sit there and hijack your associations if any other company's evil media player tries to take them.
* Check for updates (maybe the only legitimate reason, but I'd like for it to only update when it's run, not check every time I log in (...by default!))
They all require a fecal sample and lab tests just to install.
They all try to do too much...how many programs that can burn an audio cd do I need?
Guess what...
I.
Don't.
Give.
A.
Flying.
Fuck.
I just want to be able to play the content. Yes, I do feel guilty about 'stealing' the proprietary codecs and using them in mplayer or whatever, but not because I respect their IP, it's because I feel like I'm perpetuating the idea that all this proprietary nonsense is OK. Unfortunately, saying to my friends, "Oh, no, I can't see that movie because I use Linux." gives Linux a bad image, "What, you mean you can't even watch movies in Linux!?"
When will Real, Apple, et al become enlightened and release open source codecs for everything that can be used in any media player? I'd guess never...
Until then, "Legal MP3 playback on Linux!" will be a news story. *sigh* Fuck the World.
Nyntändo-Schock!
Well, it seems to be an offering in good will, but can I trust Real to provide a (relatively) quality player without jacking up the rest of my system? I managed to clean it up in Windows after a lot of tweaking to just be a nice, no web browsing, file type hijacking, no nonsense just play the damn Real formats player. Can I do the same under linux?
Same thing for MPEG-2 and MPEG-4. MPEG-4 is actually somewhat worse, as there's fees on the media too per disc and per stream per hour for streaming).
As a practical matter, none of them care that much about home, non-commercial users. In the case of MP3, home non-commercial users are specificly exempted from needing a license. I'm not aware of any explicit MPEG exemption, but again they don't really seem to care about non-profit use.
First of all the pattent on mp3 is valid mostly only in the US and the couple other countries in the world that actually the US manages to controll like puppets on strings. Also I highly doubt the fact that mp3 as as an encoding technique is protected and you have to pay royalties to some company if you use it. The only thing that RealOne has done is that they paid for the *official* commercial and also closed source codec. Big deal!!! Oh yeah and just so I get that CEO's story straight it's not mp3 that you have to pay for but mp3pro and they are quite different. So do I care about Real Prayer 10? Heck no not especially since it is a 1 to 1 coppy of helix player which is open source product with some minor adjustments.
...
Brag on RealOne it might save you from going under the way that changing your name did not
I don't know, the OSX version is pretty light and crap-free at least compared to the Windows version. If it's spying on me it is doing it very stealthily. At least there are no annoying popups.
If Real really wants to get on the Linux desktop, they need to make an iTunes clone, especially one that actually played iTunes purchased songs using that whole reverse-engineering thing they were being sued for.
Honestly, I don't install RealPlayer unless I absolutely need it for something, which is rare. I'm still pissed and annoyed at them for putting ads in their product and for installing links to the program in 90 different places when I installed it on windows years ago. AFAIK, the linux version is not like that at all, but still, I'm annoyed.
Need Free Juniper/NetScreen Support? JuniperForum
The people who don't care about MP3 patents deserve all the Brittany Spears they get. Bend over for Fraunhofer Institute and Thomson Multimedia, ignoranuses.
I am very new to video encoding, but was very happy to see that the h.264 codec is freely available for both noncommercial and commercial use, according to the licensing agreement. Took me a second to find the page again, but here it is: https://helixcommunity.org/2002/intro/commercial-l icense/client
Research & Development Use License
RPSL: No cost
RCSL: No cost
Commercial Use License
RPSL: No cost
RCSL:
h.264 kicks ass.
Si la vida me da palo, yo la voy a soportar Si la vida me da palo, yo la voy a espabilar
or Rio Karma
I hate to like, interrupt the "Up Vorbis, Down Real!" vibe we have going here, but if you look on the Vorbis homepage You'll notice that the Xiph.org foundation has recieved a big chunk of money from Real to keep doing their excellent work.
I don't really love the Real player either, but unlike many a software company, they are trying to support open formats. I think that should be the cause of praise, not derision
Disclaimer: MINAA (Mummy! I'm Not An Animal!)
Speaking of the OSX version, is there any way to discover the version number that real.com is offering? I've downloaded the linux version to my linux box, and I wonder whether it's worth the time to download the OSX version to my PowerBook. But nowhere on the site can I find any clue as to whether the OSX version of RealPlayer 10 is different from the one that I already have.
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
http://mail.gnome.org/archives/gnome-multimedia/20 03-December/msg00088.html/
is that mean, I can legaly build software that play MP3s?
"Steve Jobs invented the world" -- Bill W. GATES
But nowhere on the site can I find any clue as to whether the OSX version of RealPlayer 10 is different from the one that I already have.
I clicked on a link the other day that required RealPlayer on OS X. I got a message saying that there was a newer version and it wouldn't go on and play the stream- I had to upgrade the player to the newer version to listen to the stream. Chances are, if you already have the player on your PowerBook and it isn't the latest, it will force you to upgrade.
this still puts MS win xp in the shade as it is software you PAY for tat sells in its htousands
who wont put buyilt in Mpeg2 playback codec into it.
its just nasty . its not as if the yare scared of anti trust or monopoly accusations.
after spending £160 on XP you cant even play a dvd!
without either WAREZing or paying anpother 20 quid!
disgusting.
You are confusing trademarks and patents.
True, "use it or lose it" applies most strongly to trademarks, but laches does still apply to copyrights and patents. Google "laches" to learn more.
Gogo mp3 encoder. Fastest mp3 encoder I've ever run across. The main problem with gogo is that it encodes so fast that you sit around waiting for tracks to get ripped off the CD a lot.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
pool/main/m/mp3c/mp3c_0.29-2_i386.deb
A lot of people seem to have believed the semi-true story that Real's CEO pitched in order toadvertize the 6 month old Real Player 10 that has barely any following in the Linux community. After all it was Real Player 8 for linux that was breaking way too many things and serious or othe goof-offs on Real's side that won them the not so good reputation in that same community. But that's totaly different story. Mpeg development is somewhat done by a large community of people and not just one company as Real and Fraunhofer/Thomson Multimedia want you to believe. As such Fraunhofer/Thomson Multimedia does not own all the pattents and there are certain things that they cannot pattent because of the nature of the development process. However in the last 10 years Fraunhofer/Thomson Multimedia has focused on the audio side of mpeg development and they do own the pattent on ISO mp3 which means that you cannot use the ISO algorithms without paying for them. It is also uncertain how many other companies own patents regarding mp3 but no one other than Fraunhofer/Thomson Multimedia has ever asked for licence fees on mp3. The thing that Real is overlooking is that you can still have a legal decoded and encoder for mp3 as long as you do not use the code that was ISOed and also included in the patent. Hence there are GPL decoders like mpg321, MAD, and other that let you listen to mp3s for free without breaking laws. The problem with all these is that some patent may emerge in the future that kills all of them but that is the nasty nature of the stupid patents idea anyway so don't complain. What Real did is they chose to pay Fraunhofer/Thomson Multimedia for their codec and the rights to never be on the defendant's chair as long as they pay their fees. Real could have just as easily chosen to use gstreamer or MAD or mpg321 but they wanted the kind of security that you pay for because it was the kind of bussines that they have always done. So don't believe everything you hear from a CEO and go check it out. A good place to get info about mp3 would be http://www.mp3-tech.org/ --> general site http://www.mp3licensing.com/ --> Fraunhofer/Thomson Multimedia
As far as I can tell, the algorithm isn't patented. The application of the algorithm to an audio signal is what's patented.
Real stepping onto the turf is an unequivocal sign that I should stop using MP3's entirely.
Helixplayer, Shmeelixplayer. I'll support the other guys on this one.
How about this player
That's not a player; that's a decoder chip design. Tell me when that chip design has been incorporated into a consumer product.
I've noticed a lot of people saying it'd be better to go with OGG. Well, rtfa because right on the the linked page states:
"Play popular datatypes RealPlayer@ 10 supports RealAudio, RealVideo 10, MP3, Ogg Vorbis and Theora, H263, AAC and more. Get ready for accelerated video, full screen playback, and a lot more to play."
Well, I think that these players should have a background MP3 to OGG convertor that runs whenever you listen to an MP3 music file.
It would be selectable on/off of course.
When you open a song and listen to it, it also creates an OGG file of the song in the same directory. Then you can delete the MP3 file, again selectable for background operation.
This would facilitate the conversion from corporate controlled MP3 to open-source formats. MP3 is a dead-end because anyone who writes an MP3 program exposes themselves to legal harassment.
Fortunately we have a set of good MP3 players and rippers already. But with most of the world's music recordings being converted into digital format at this time, it would be best to get them into a format that isn't subject to legal harassment.
No one is going to convert their MP3 collections to OGG just to avoid possible distant legal patent issues, so this process should be done by code in the MP3 program itself in the background as the song is playing.
Plus the manufacturers of portable digital music players should incorporate OGG playback into their devices. What is it, maybe a thousand bytes of code extra in a firmware chip?
Maybe we should do open-source manufacturing. We do an open-source design of a ASIC that will play compressed digital, put up some funds to get it fabricated, put it into a little box with an audio headphone amp and some flash memory, and sell them ourselves to each other. How about an online Slashdot store that sells fully open-source electronics?
What about a genetic algorithm that designs a new, highly efficient gasoline engine, then manufactures it with a CAD/CAM interface? The engine is an invention, though produced by "AI". I agree that algorithms/formulae/software are not patentable; that's like patenting "take Highway 101 South to Oxnard, bear right onto Route 5" as "car software". At best, copyright covers a unique expression of those instructions, like Jack Kerouac's hitchhiking descriptions from _On the Road_. But not beacuse they're not "inventions", creations. Because they're not devices, but rather unique applications of devices.
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make install -not war
Speaking of open source decoders, is there a good decoder that's LGPL or BSD licensed?
Yes, and it's called popen(). Take a GPL decoder such as MAD and tell it to output through a pipe. FSF's official position is that communication through a pipe constitutes "mere aggregation" rather than combining modules into one work. Or are you working on a battery-powered device whose sliver of an operating system doesn't have pipes?
If you really care about bands getting your money, go and see them play live.
And get turned away from venues that do not admit minors.
To elaborate on the problem that we're trying to solve here, take a look at this post about GPL and MP3.
Real is solving this problem by licensing MP3 to the community under the RPSL (which is OSI certified), and paying for an MP3 license. It's not a perfect solution (we would like to include it in the GPL'd code), but it's better than not having MP3 playback.
I suppose many Linux users who are used to compiling and installing their own software will find this a yawner, since there's plenty of grey market software out there. However, companies that want to make a business distributing Linux-based products should really find this good news.
Rob Lanphier
Development Support Manager
RealNetworks
There's no spyware in the Linux version. It's basically the open-source Helix player with Real's codecs thrown in. It's actually a very nice clean GTK2+ app with a Mozilla plugin. You don't even need to register to download it.
WeRelate.org - wiki-based genealogy
It might be worthwhile to review Bruce Perens' take on RN's dogoodism from their original open source releases in mid-2002.
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make install -not war
"Non-commercial software developers can license a CDDB/mp3PRO decoding/mp3-encoding package on a royalty-free basis, and commercial applications will have access to royalty-free mp3PRO decoding. Links"
http://www.mp3licensing.com/mp3/mp3pro.html
It always bugged me that everyone got all weird about the licensing thing. Did anyone take the time to ask the licensor? Or at least read all the fine print on the website? Mp3Pro is their big gun right now, its mp3 compatible and it clearly states on the licensors website that non-commercial developers can get a royalty-free CDDB/mp3PRO decoding/mp3-encoding license.
Can we stop with the disinformation now?
Quack, quack.
You confuse something being done with it being legal to do. XviD actually is legal as it stands, because source only distributions are protected as academic works, and require no licenses. However, if you want to actually compile and use it, you need to obtain a license legally. As a practical matter they won't no or care if you do it for private home use. If, however, you use it in a commercial environment, you'd better pay up or they WILL come after you.
Well, seeing as the whole PC looks a bit like a typewriter, the word processor doesn't need a picture of one. It's not uncommon knowledge that people are happier (and more productive, although that doesn't really hold for a music player) in an environment they are familiar with, even if it's just constructed to look like something they're familiar with.
Would you rather have a music player that required you to type "play" and "stop"? Buttons are the obvious interface, and a "stereo player"-ish layout means the buttons are in obvious places, and don't require you to get used to an unfamiliar interface, at very little extra cost.
No trumpets, no drums.
A lot of small-time hardware developers (and even many employees of large hardware developers) are very naive when it comes to codec licensing. They often believe they can download any old open source MP3 application and have a free and legal way of playing MP3s on their device. If they want to sell their device in the U.S. (they often do), they've got a problem.
Rob
I use it almost exclusively now for my music-playing needs. It has an iTunes-like interface for music management, it can use MusicBrainz to generate info for your songs, it organizes them based on whatever criteria (author, album, track number, etc.) you like, and it's got dcop interfaces for everything, which means you can script anything you like. I like it more than any of the other players I've tried.
I use it with (shameless plug) Media-Detect and LinEAK to control it with my multimedia keyboard.
That page says nothing about H.264. And RealNetworks doesn't own H.264 (these guys do), so Real can't give it to you for free.
It is called the Eliza effect
Great, just what we needed...now we get to listen to our MP3s on Linux AND have Real Networks spamming us to death with advertisements...just what I always wanted! NOT! All sarcasm aside, I don't see this being a big hit with Linux users, except for the novices that stick to runlevel 5 and never see a character prompt.
The above is wrong - software patents aren't in New Zealand (yet).
Only for a limited time. Patents are temporary.
If the Supreme Court has given Congress carte blanche to "harmonize" the copyright term with that of other countries (Eldred v. Ashcroft), what's to keep Congress from "harmonizing" the patent term (currently 20 years from filing) with the copyright term (currently 70 years from the end of the year in which the last surviving author dies)? Even if not, do you find it just that the Free world should have to stay 20 years behind the state of the art?
I think what you mean to say is that [a BIOS that requires every compiled program to have been signed by the hardware vendor] would prevent such tasks, if it existed. At present it does not.
Wanna bet?
But if somebody creates one, should he not be allowed to sell it on the open market?
Should companies be allowed to sell computers that are incompatible by design with publicly available development tools to the exclusion of affordable computers that do work with publicly available development tools? No. Otherwise, what you will likely get is a de facto SSSCA/CBDTPA, where the entertainment industry is permitted to dictate what software gets published.
Don't give me that "I released it under a license" bullshit. Just release the work into the public domain.
The only practical differences between permissive licensing of a work and dedication to the public domain are that the author gets credited and more importantly that the author is able to disclaim implied warranties.
Would be great if there was a free, but legal, DVD player too.
Not being open to DRMs means its harder to use modern music and other services on Linux and that's going to impede further growth in the residential market.
Convince enough people, and revolt! That is the normal progression for governments. They last until enough don't want them anymore. Then new and sometimes different ones automagically come into existance.
There are current systems in place that some people appreciate so much that they are willing to sacrifice their lives in order to maintain them. It might take an equivalent sacrifice on your part. Go for it! While you're at it, be sure to submit a patent on your new system of gov so no one else can use it.
Good Luck!
Good judgement comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgement.
- W. Wriston, former Citibank CEO
Cowon iAudio M3 and M3L. They play OGG Vorbis, come in 20 and 40 GB versions, and the M3L has the best battery life you're likely to see anytime soon.
If OGG Vorbis is your preferred format, it's simply a matter of doing the research.
Cheers, Nick.
That's demonstrably false, though.
Point of terminology: The Free Software Foundation uses "permissive license" to refer to things like the BSD license, the so-called MIT license, or the zlib license. The GNU GPL belongs to another category of free software license, the "copyleft license". GNU LGPL and friends make an intermediate category, the "weak copyleft license".
[If I use a GPL library in my work,] I am not free to sell my program without also giving away my program's computer code.
What is the rest of your business model such that you have to restrict access to your program's source code? And how does such a business model support the freedom of end users to (hire a consultant to) improve and redistribute the software in at least some lawful manner? This is what copyleft is about. Besides, for each copylefted library, either it can be wrapped in a pipe (turning linking into "mere aggregation") or there's usually some sort of competing library available for licensing, whether permissive or proprietary. In fact, many GPL libraries such as LZO and MAD are available under both copyleft and proprietary licenses.
Now i can finally use linux to hear MP3!
I was listening strictly to ogg vorbis for some years now, with my licensed SCO/linux
Now all linux lacks is a nice browser with a license for MShtml
Because the part about mandatory code signing got long, I split it off into a different subthread.
What part of "limited time" is unclear?
I'm having trouble determining how the current terms for copyrights and software patents "promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts".
You're supposed to come up with something first.
I wasn't born first. How can I patent something before I was born?
Are you bemoaning the fact that you, yourself, have never invented anything?
You are correct that I am female-dogging about how I haven't invented anything because even with a four-year degree in computer science, I still don't feel confident trying to invent anything that doesn't infringe one of the millions of subsisting patents, most of which were applied for before I even became old enough to vote.
An invention, by definition, is not obvious. It may appear to be obvious in retrospect
OK, I'll stop using the "non-obvious" requirement and shift gears to using the "novel" requirement. The USPTO routinely grants patents on inventions taught by the prior art, and it grants these patents because it can't hire enough examiners, and it can't hire enough examiners because Congress siphons away so much of the USPTO's patent and trademark application filing fee revenue for the general use of the United States Government.
Nobody owns [a public domain program]. There's nobody to sue.
They won't sue the owner of copyright in a public domain work because there is no such owner. However this doesn't mean they won't sue the person who first published it.
The Xbox was released, what, a couple of years ago? Since that day, the number of general-purpose computers sold each year has gone up at a rate approaching 30% per year. That's way above the red line for expected industry growth.
The Xbox isn't the only example of such an appliance. Other appliances that masquerade as computers but run only signed software have been mentioned on Slashdot; I'm just too busy with other work to dig them out right now.
At any time, anybody in the group can make a suggestion. The group then talk about the suggestion for a while before deciding whether it sounds like a good idea or not.
However, each member of the group has commercial interests in his or her home state to protect, and some of these commercial interests are so strong that in practice, they override the general welfare of the people in the collective mind of the group.
If it does, the suggestion becomes a law which the President can either sign or not.
Both the Bono Act and the DMCA had enough support in both houses to override any presidential veto.
But if the consensus of the group is that the idea's not good enough, it just disappears, as if it had never happened.
Not exactly. If a bill makes it from committee to the floor, and it disappears on the floor, that bill (or something like it) is likely to return from that committee to the floor every single year.
Fact three: It's good when serious problems go away.
Not if the means used to eliminate one serious problem create even more serious problems. For instance, had all computers been subject to mandatory code signing in the 1970s and 1980s, there would have been no BSD, and without BSD, there would be no Internet as we know it today. I'll even bring in the anthropic principle: Without general-purpose computers, there would be no GNU and no Linux, and without GNU/Linux, there would be no Slashdot. It's very bad form to let the end justify the means when Congress cannot tell if the proposed cure is worse than the disease.
Congress' mandate, in part, is to promote the general welfare.
I wouldn't forbid debate, but Congress has had a recent history of getting things wrong. I'm not sure how the details of bills like the DMCA (which is law) and the CBDTPA (which isn't law but which comes back in some form to the Senate floor every year) promote the welfare of the general American public.
The notion of having a legal mandate requiring every person to do business with every customer who acts in good faith has been tried and struck down repeatedly over the years.
If you refuse to fix defects in your product, then watch your customers migrate to competing products. If your customers cannot migrate to a competing product, then you have an antitrust problem.
Kevin Foreman will be speaking at SCALE about the Helix Initiative at Real Networks. His keynote "Open Source Multimedia" will discuss the state of open source multimedia today and what needs to be done to ensure that the future of open source development remains bright. SCALE 3x will be held at the LA Convention Center on Feb 12th and 13th, 2005. For a discounted full access pass use the promotional code "NEWSP".
im sure you only need a license for encoders (which is why lame is "lame aint an mp3 encoder" or something like that)
playback of mp3's is already legal, encoding them is dubious.
Well, that's good to know. What in the world did I download from RealNetworks?
Si la vida me da palo, yo la voy a soportar Si la vida me da palo, yo la voy a espabilar
Here's the best listing of the crimes of Real Networks that I've seen...o bnoxious
http://jogin.com/weblog/archives/2004/02/29/real_
Mark of the Coder fades from you. You perform Opening on World of Warcraft. Warcraft crits GPA for 4. GPA dies.