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SanDisk MP3 Players Seized in MP3 Licence Dispute
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?"
I suppose they don't have their own novel algorithm for decoding MP3. Such a thing, if it existed (which it probably cannot), would clearly dodge any patent fee claims.
"Oppression and harassment is a small price to pay to live in the land of the free." -- Montgomery Burns.
It's not the file format that's patented.
The problem is that the patents are for the actual compression and decompression algorithms. These can and often are patented - MP3 is not an isolated case. Here's a list of the patents involved.
The whole thing's actually quite a mess, with several different companies claiming patents on bits and pieces of the codec. This is one of the reasons why you don't usually see MP3 codecs in the free Linux distributions as standard.
The problem for SanDisk is that they're a US-based company, and the US allows software patents. Sisvel would struggle to be able to pull this on an EU-based company.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MP3
The BBC report states, "Italian patents company Sisvel alleges that SanDisk refuses to pay licensing fees it needs to playback MP3 files." In other words, the Slashdot article starting this discussion is poorly worded. The issue is, in fact, the patent for the algorithm (that decodes the format, thus enabling playback), not the format itself.
Still, the cost of licensing the patent should not be a concern for the consumer -- i.e., you and me. If the licensing cost ever became too high and impacted sales of the product, then the industry would just switch to another decoding algorithm (and accompanying format). Think RAMBUS DRAM versus DDR2 SDRAM.
Der Post ist hiermit beschlagnahmt. Melden Sie sich unverzüglich bei der nächsten Gestapo-Geschäftsstelle.
Then go and make another codec that can compete with the commercial versions that prevail on the open market and give it away for free.
kind of like this?
http://www.vorbis.com/
Tharkban (It is a signature after all)
"I suppose they don't have their own novel algorithm for decoding MP3. Such a thing, if it existed (which it probably cannot), would clearly dodge any patent fee claims."
If you RTA, you'll find that in fact, they claim to have both a novel method for decoding and playing the file as well as verificaiton of this fact.
I'm actually really glad I purchased a SanDisk MP3 player now!
Did you ever notice that *nix doesn't even cover Linux?
IFA Show? IFA is the world's largest Consumer Electronics trade fair, the most important international exhibition for electronic entertainment, communications and ...
From the article:
SanDisk's IFA stall was left almost empty ... Giustino de Sanctis, head of Sisvel's US-based subsidiary Audio MPEG, SanDisk's refusal to purchase an MP3 licence leaves them out of step with some 600 other manufacturers and software developers. ... "We have 600 licensees and we have to protect their rights, and the rights of the patent holders,"
Protect their "right" to pay you for an audio compression algorithm by embarrassing a competitor at the show? That's some kind of protection alright.
Just use ogg.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
That's OGG and while OGG has it's place, we're talking MP3 codec.
SanDisk and others in the music player market need MP3 codecs to even consider a media player release.
OGG codec is a nice to have.
So I'm not getting your point. Or were you somehow trying to say "we should all ditch MP3 for OGG because OGG is license free"?
If that's the case, then stop mumbling and just come out and say it, then we could all have a laugh at your expense and be friends.
dude, rtfa.
"An expert opinion from one of the founders of MP3 digital audio compression substantiates SanDisk's position. SanDisk is not infringing any patent in the pending litigation."
I think you're a little confused about capitalism. Cartels (the essential problem behind proprietary format adoption) are inimical to capitalism. They are the opposite of competition. When a proprietary format becomes the de facto standard due not to its superiority, but due to its selection by the established companies, it's not a success of capitalism.
I've noticed a lot of pseudo-capitalists like to bandy out the insult of "communism" when they want to endorse anticompetitive systems. It's actually the opposite, though; these people are far closer to practical "communists" (desiring centralized control by whoever already has the money or power) than those they attack.
Why should they have to be paid in order for us to get to content we already own? I couldn't care less about what few megabytes were shaved of the size of a song, if it means that the software needed to decode them can't be distributed freely. They should not be payed because paying them is the only way to get to your music, but for getting the music down to a small size at little loss of content.
How much are proprietary format licensing fees pushing up the cost of consumer goods?
In this case, 75 cents per hardware MP3 decoder, with a minumum of $15,000 per year. Personally, I'm more worried about royalty payments' inherent incompatability with free software, seeing as you can't keep track of who's copied it to who by its very nature.
And a farkin licensing fee or royalty compensation is A-O-Fuggin-K in my book.
The problem is when formats that we use to communicate are encumbered by patents.
It's not enough just to make something better. We've already done that: it's called Vorbis. The inventors of MP3 are now profiting not on the merit of their technology, but the sheer inertia that you get when one format is a dominant standard.
It's just like GIF: PNG is better than GIF is nearly every way, and yet the computing world was stuck paying Unisys for years for their inferior technology, simply because GIF was entrenched.
That's why we "communist buddies" insist on unencumbered standards when it comes to the protocols and formats we use to communicate. We're not interested in writing checks indefinitely for the privilege of sending data to other people, or putting it on devices. It would be one thing if these technologies competed on merit alone, and if you could quickly drop one when a better one became available, but it doesn't work that way.
--
Arizona Web Design
You've just explained why technology is moving so slowly nowadays.
Did you know perpendicular recording for hard disks was developed in 1976 but is only now being implemented? It's because patent law has caused hard drive makers to sit on the technology and wait for the patent to expire before researching its implementation - which, just so you know, is long before the production phase.
Many patent holders are now stuck waiting for someone to implement their ideas, while industrialists are waiting for their patents to expire. The patent holders get no money and the technology they came up with, never makes it to market for over 20 years.
The makers of the mp3 patent, thus, took advantage of something called submarine patents. They let the technology fall into the wild, where people use their technology for a while, and then they nail them with the mp3 patent when the product goes commercial and is heavily entrenched. Also see: Unisys and GIF.
Now you have companies like Intellectual Ventures which amass zillions of patents intending to ensnare anyone who blunders into their mine field.
BTW a great deal of our economy is now engulfed in patent litigation. Fear of patent litigation is slowing a lot of innovation because practically any business model based on cutting edge work is vulnerable to a lawsuit over an infringement of an obscure or broad brushing patent.
Let me put it this way for your Conservative mind:
If Frauhoff (sp?) had enforced their patent from day one, you would not be seeing mp3's in existence now, or at any time until after the patent ran out.
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
There should be mod points for +1/2 "Funny but no one will understand it"
"How much are proprietary format licensing fees pushing up the cost of consumer goods?"
14 dollars.
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.
It's fine on a desktop with a high powered general purpose processor, but less so in a hardware implementation.
Hope this is a good lesson for all stupids blindly embracing and promoting low quality MP3 is the way to listen quality music. The MP3 is a marketing hype, it is the armature's music format. SanDisk, take revenge! Just say sorry and switch to Ogg and FLAC.
c odecs.
This is again reminds all about the advantages of open formats. Open formats are patents free, royalty free and best of the best quality. MP3 max sample rate: 48 kHz, FLAC max sample rate: 1048.57 kHz, MP3 max bit rate: 320 kbit/s, FLAC max bit rate: Infinity, as same as original.
See this comparison: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_audio_
The article summary asks, "How much are proprietary format licensing fees pushing up the cost of consumer goods?".
Proprietary format licensing fees are not "pushing up" the cost of consumer goods. Consumer goods will use proprietary formats when the value to the consumer (and thus ultimately to the manufacturer) justifies paying the license fee. Without MP3 support would SanDisk be able to target such a large market? Probably not. They would save $0.75 in licensing and lose millions of dollars in sales overall.
At the end of the day it is not a "proprietary format" raising the price, it is market demand.
I think the reason that so many people have little respect for licence fees, royalties etc is that so few people individuals receive them.
Most folks' employment is of the form "i get a flat rate and any beneficial thing i come up with benefits only my employer, if i don't come up with beneficial things i get fired". The employer gets to make as much money as it can prise out of the marketplace for the employees ideas/labour etc. Since business is obliged to seek the lowest bidding supplier unless they are forced to do otherwise, ordinary wage slaves feel justified in seeking the lowest cost supplier, such as P2P.
They whose government reduces their essential liberties for temporary security, receive neither liberty nor security.
It's [ogg] fine on a desktop with a high powered general purpose processor, but less so in a hardware implementation.
I've heard that before, but not seen it. What exactly is the trade off? How do people like this do it? How does ogg compare to AAC or AAC with unFairPlay? How is it that my dinky ARM Zaurus plays ogg without a problem, just like the 233 MHz PII it's roughly equivalent to? Why don't I see the difference between ogg and mp3 on any of the devices I use besides the one cheap player I own that won't play ogg? It has a reasonable battery life, but this ogg player goes for 25 hours.
Most importantly, is the performance trade off something worth paying licensing fees and putting up with extortion threats?
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
How much would we expect to pay for a car if we had to pay intellectual property fees to the inventors of everything back to the wheel?
Come to think of it... would technology have been able to advance as quickly as it has if we were forced to pay these taxes on the wheel for the last 10,000 years?
Does it go on forever?
I was merely making the point that someone HAS made a free codec and given it away for free. (hence why I quoted that passage)
and btw, I wouldn't buy an "mp3" player that doesn't support ogg. What good is a portable media player that can't play my music collection? I got sick of dealing with mp3's a long time ago. You can start laughing now.
Tharkban (It is a signature after all)
If you just check which players are supported by the rockbox firmware, and then choose a player according to your budget, you won't be disappointed.
I own an iriver H320, which supported OGG out of the box (which was the reason I bought it). It was nice enough as it was, but now that I installed rockbox, I never want to go back to the original firmware.
But if you don't want to risk bricking your mp3 player (although the risk was almost non-existant with my H320), Cowon is also a good brand for sanely priced OGG players.
Nobody believes the official spokesman, but everybody trusts an unidentified source. -- Ron Nesen
Software patent bill thrown out
Way to go to ignore the will of the elected representatives of the people!
So, if I'm getting this right, a bunch of MP3 players (made in the far East where the relevant patents are in all probability null and void) are seized at a trade show in Germany (where the relevant patents are null and void: Germany is a member of the EU where mathematical operations are specifically excluded from patentability) are seized on the orders of an IP firm based in Italy (where the relevant patents are null and void: Italy is a member of the EU where maths is not patentable) on the grounds that they are in violation of patents?
The fact that the patents in question are null and void will hardly escape the attention of the courts. I don't know whether to expect some good arse-on-plate-handing action, or just a swift "Ting! Next, please!"
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
Seems to me that I am paying for the same patent too many times - when I buy a mobile, an ipod, car stereo, audio system, OS......instead of all that, if I could just buy a license can I use it on all these devices. What I mean to say is that too many OEMs are buying the same license on my behalf for each of their devices. That seems like a bad deal.
Yes.
GLaDOS for President 2016! "Well here we are again. It's always such a pleasure." -- GLaDOS, 2011
Germany's courts and officials are noted for this kind of thing. Very easy there to get somebody's show booth shut down with scant allegations of trademark or copyright infringement.
So, license fee issues for the MP3 playback algorithm seem to the basis for Sisvel's aggressive legal actions against SanDisk. The strange thing in all this, while the issue is still in German court and hotly disputed by SanDisk, is that all SanDisk's MP3 players at the stand at IFA have already been seized by the German authorities. Earlier this year I attended the ANGA Cable (CATV) trade show in Cologne, Germany, and there the Stand of Hyunday Digital which is selling STB's was completely stripped from all STBs on display two days in a row. Allegedly because MPEG license fees had not been paid for those boxes by that company. It seems like we have a trend here to put some serious thumbscrews on manufacturers that exibit at trade shows in Germany.
This whole area is pretty hazy. In Europe, the MP3 patent shouldn't apply. In the US, if you look at the supposed MP3 patent it doesn't mention MP3 in the slightest. What it describes is a way of compressing a music file, which of course, has broad applications. The only reason why silly companies looking for some easy money choose to pick on MP3 is that the MP3 format is the most ubiquitous.
"this post is hereby seized. present yourself to the nearest Gestapo office" or somesuch. You know, this is Google (Altavista?) language tools era. Ninguém tem desculpa para não entender algo porque está em outro idioma.
It's better to be the foot on the boot than the face on the pavement. ~~ tkx Kadin2048
While many still use mp3's in 2010 lossless music is starting to really catch on. Everyone has connections with a good amount more bandwidth, so downloading the much larger files isn't that much of a hassle anymore. Apples' iTunes started the trend around 2008 by heavily promoting its lossless codec and making the majority of its tracks available in it. It will even transcode from lossless to mp3 for your iPod. I have a feeling in a few more years mp3 is going to feel like tapes in respect to CD's.
Oh, and if anyone is curious about me, I work in law enforcement. I was sent back on the case of one of the most wanted time-criminals of 2010, John Titor.
Big apple, new Yorik, undig it, something's unrotting in Edenmark.
I've used Sandisk players now for several years and they are the most versatile player for the best price on the market. I just bought their new 8 gig flash memory model that plays video for myself and my daughter. They rock and I don't have to treat them like eggs when I ride my bike. I have had it with the misinterpretation of intellectual property killing innovation. It's time for more people to ignore stupid applications of IP. And NO COPYRIGHT OR PATENT AFTER THE INNOVATOR DIES. Period.
You are welcome on my lawn.
I'd be happy to introduce you to one: my sister.
Although autism is generally more prevalent in males (and there seems to be a biological reason for this) females can develop it - and typically when the do, it's BAD.
My sister's case is quite bad.
Oh - and not all autistic people are savants, either; most are completely without function.
novel algorithm for decoding MP3. Such a thing, if it existed (which it probably cannot)
Actually, novel algorithms exist for both encoding and decoding. It's then believable that Sandisk built their MP3 players without any Frauenhoffer code.
This is more like the .GIF debacle - where a company claims responsibility for all code that creates or reads the format they designed. It's obviously bullshit, but apparently Frauenhoffer don't take US victories for free-and-open use as precedent.
110100 1101000 1101000 1100110 0 1101111 1101000 1100011 1
If you find any one of these things to be true, maybe take a moment to analyze your stance? If you find your first reaction to positive comments on Ogg to be one of anger, maybe do that analysis?
If there's anyone out there who dislikes Ogg and who isn't attached to MP3, it would be good to get your perspective. Please speak out.
It doesn't help that advocates of Ogg often have strong opinions about the values of using Ogg. But don't let another person's attitude deflect you from really thinking through Ogg's value for yourself. Having a chip-on-your-shoulder reaction is the essence of fanboyism.
The quality is comparable. The hardware/processing footprint is comparable. There are no technical downsides. (Don't correct me to tell me how Ogg is much better -- I'm understating the point for a reason.) Ogg detractors often get these points wrong. Unapologetically unresearched inaccuracy is another sign of fanboyism.
Adding Ogg to your hardware is easy enough -- there are over 100 models of portable player listed on just this page. So if you want to use Ogg, either as a manufacturer or a consumer, there's no problem. (If you want to keep using your old MP3s -- go ahead. Just file your new Ogg files alongside them.)
Unlike MP3, however, Ogg is public domain.
So, all things even, Ogg beats out MP3. So, even if Ogg weren't quite as good as MP3, it should be supported for the (lack of) licensing. You won't get shenanigans like what this article's about. You can implement your own software. You can build your own hardware without incrementing its cost by the royalties + insurance against litigation. (Well, likely you'll still be paying those for the other formats your player supports.) You can improve the format. You can distribute, sell, or stream Ogg files without liability.
The manufacturers support it and there are many communities using it. There is no reason to encode another MP3.
Ogg: highly recommended.
(Disclaimer: I personally don't use Ogg Vorbis much. My music's all lossless.)