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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.
No, mp3 has always been patent encumbered.
Real, all these operating systems are yours, except Linux. Do not attempt any loadings onto Linux.
There's a sizeable difference between being able to do it and being able to do it legally.
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.
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]
RTFA, it brings legal MP3 playback to Linux.
Have you metaroderated recently?
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
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
Only if you are in the USA and are encoding/decoding MP3s for certain commercial purposes (as Thomson explicitly let you do it for personal use) does this patent apply to you.
Even then, you are highly unlikely to be sued by Thomson and can claim ignorance of their stupid (and possibly invalid) patent claims.
Joe Llywelyn Griffith Blakesley
[This post is in the public domain (copyright-free) unless otherwise stated]
...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
Well, actually no. I installed the real player gold to be able to watch tagesschau.de streams and it works like a charm. Installation is a breeze and aside from the obligatory trouble with sound servers it works good aswell, it features a nice gtk+2 interface which is perfectly responsible in any means. If I would figure out how to play avi files etc. (it says that this is possible via plugins, however I didn't find any) it would be my favorite player.
Of course there are some features missing, for example choosing between different audio channels (multiple languages) in one file but for most users it would be perfectly suited.
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
In many years of exposure to Real Player under Linux, I've never seen a single ad from it. Apparently, it's been a problem on Windows, but it never has been under Linux. Indeed, Real Player 10 seems to be quite a reasonable product on Linux. No more proprietary GUI, it now just looks like any other application, it loads quickly, and runs well. Looks like the Helix community stuff might actually be paying dividends. Now if only they'd open up the Real codecs...
That said, nothing has really changed. There is still no legal way for distributions to include open source MP3 playback. It's not a major issue for me, since all of my music is in Ogg Vorbis and/or FLAC format, but it's annoying when I want to download a sampler from a band's website and have to go and grab a separate player before I can hear it.
"The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike." -- Delos B. McKown
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!
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.
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.
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?
... 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
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
Yes, and you can do it legally with a free decoder.
Thomson have licensed the MP3 codec universally to software developers providing it's not for profit. Though, strictly speaking, a patent only covers the commercial exploitability of a product or concept, so that kind gesture is a little empty.
Remember that guy who patented the "means of exercising a cat" using a laser pointer? Does that mean you can't tease a cat in your home? No. You can do that all you like. What you can't do is charge money for the service of exercising cats using laser pointers.
As an aside, the argument "people wouldn't pay for you to play with their cat" doesn't apply with MP3 players. That said, no-one in their right mind would pay for a software MP3 player...
Like car accidents, most hardware problems are due to driver error.
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.
Shit doesn't just happen. It comes from assholes.
Am I the only one who think the XMMS interface sucks? Maybe I'm missing something here, but whatever happened to media players that organized your various songs in different folders into one logical media library, as in Musicmatch? Anyone know of any plugins to make XMMS do this?
I suppose it appeals to those who cut their teeth on Winamp, and so are used to its ideosyncracies. However, some of the rest of us would like something that is less flashy and more functional.
How can we continue to believe in a just universe and freedom to eat crackers if we have no ale?
I haven't used them but I hear Kaffine, Amarok, and Juk are all very good players and more full-featured than XMMS.
LilMikey.com... I'll stop doing it when you sto
Does a word processing program have a picture of a typewriter that you have to click on in order to type characters? So why the fuck does an MP3 player have to look like a stereo deck?
Only if you are in the USA and are encoding/decoding MP3s for certain commercial purposes (as Thomson explicitly let you do it for personal use) does this patent apply to you.
Sure, their site says that end users don't need a license, but does using an unlicensed decoder expose you as well? Or is there also an exemption for people who develop decoders for their own personal use?
For someone who doesn't want to participate in patent civil disobedience, isn't it just as unethical to use an unlicensed decoder as it is to release your own decoder and ignore the licensing?
I agree about the likelihood of a lawsuit from Thomson, but I think the availability of a legal alternative makes Linux a more attractive solution for those who want to live on the right side of the law.
WeRelate.org - wiki-based genealogy
Computers don't have an image of a typewriter, but they DO have a keyboard, which is designed in the same manner as a typewriter, slow key placement and all...
There is a lot to be said for designing things based on user expectations of utility. Having buttons that reflect buttons that users have experienced on previous audio equipment is not a dumb idea at all.
Certainly you can improve upon and modify the interface to reflect it's new environment (the Ipod for portable mp3 players, for example), but users like to be able to pick up something and have it work. In order for that to happen, there needs to be some familiarity.------ What's sadder than realizing you've filtered out your own comments?
Documentation on using the gtk helix widget
Info on our awesome mp3 decoder
mp3 codec source (fixed and floating point)
For the real scoop on licensing, contact the public mailing list open-licensing@helixcommunity.org. The parent post is largely incorrect.
Check out Helix Player
We work with the xiph guys. Helix Player is a great GPL-only player that plays back ogg theora and vorbis, and excludes binary only components like RA/RV. http://xiph.helixcommunity.org
Check out Helix Player
The player doesn't claim the rpm extension. It does claim audio/x-pn-realaudio-plugin mime type, which traditionally has an rpm extension. Some webservers serve redhat rpm packages as audio/x-pn-realaudio-plugin instead of application/binary (or application/x-redhat-package-manager or whatever). Because of this, rpm's will go to RealPlayer.
Check out Helix Player