Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

SanDisk MP3 Players Seized in MP3 Licence Dispute

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the lawyers-on-speed-dial dept.

MrSteveSD writes "According to the BBC, German officials have seized Sandisk's MP3 players at the IFA show in Berlin. The Italian company Sisvel claims that Sandisk has refused to pay license fees for the MP3 codec. Sisvel President Roberto Dini has said that Sandisk could get an edge over competitors by not paying the fees. How much are proprietary format licensing fees pushing up the cost of consumer goods?"

1 of 299 comments (clear)

  1. Dear OGG/FLAC fanboi: by MrNaz · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Given the ubiquity of MP3, moving to OGG is probably not going to happen. 4 years is nowhere near as long as it would take an entire technogeneration to migrate away from MP3, and as MP3 becomes public domain in 4 years, just wait until then and MP3 will be just as or more "free" than OGG (public domain is "more free" than GPL, sort of).

    MP3 quality is fine, and with flash memory prices in freefall, squeezing an extra 13.8% off the track size at a given quality level is going to be moot very soon, if it is not already.

    Yours sincerely,
    Mr. Reality Check.

    --
    I hate printers.