OK. I checked out the license fees for the MPEG-4 AAC (http://www.vialicensing.com/products/mpeg4aac/license.terms.html). If we assume that we can get a 'consumer' license, it's not many dollars we're talking about. Would there be any reason to beleive that the other licenses would be substantially heftier?
So let's disable ripping AND burning. Nobody sued Sony for them selling Playstations that could be modded, did they? And just to clarify my point when it comes to free things and what one might get back from selling them; Freevo is free, as Redhat is free. The support, systems containing the free software and the automatic web-update/management service isn't. That's what makes this (in my eyes) a viable and interesting idea. /Peter -----Ursprungligt meddelande----- Fr�n: Aubin Paul Till: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Skickat: 2003-10-14 15:04 �mne: Re: SV: SV: [Freevo-devel] Internet update/plugin selection framework for Freevo ? On Tue, Oct 14, 2003 at 09:01:50AM +0200, Peter Svensson wrote: > OK. I think some of this might be solved. > 1. I'm out of my league here, but I wonder how Redhat, Mandrake et.al. pays > *their* license fees since the stuff can be installed from thos installs (At > least MPEG2). Anyone with more info on this? The problem is how the fees are collected. I've worked in some industries where this type of thing has to be dealt with and the problem is that the fees are twofold. First, there is an upfront license fee, (for the sake of argument, say it's $100,000) and then there is a per-unit fee (say $3) You'd at minimum need to raise that much money just to get going; and you'd need to do it for each encumbered codec. > 2. Most probably one would have to disable burning. It is still legal to > make personal copies of stuff you own,however isn't it? That's not how the law works, unfortunately. Thanks to laws in Europe and the USA, they can sue first and wait and see if you run out of money. > We could have different market propositions; Just an installed and > essentially unconfigured system for the lazy tweaker, Games system with USB > set up and tested with two (or more?) USB gamepads, Audio system with lots > of Webradio and tons of free content (Classical music, for instance) > pre-installed + good cables for 6+1 dolby and so on... It's possible, but very difficult, unless we have it download mplayer/xine/etc when it's first turned on, but even then... I don't know if that will be considered circumvention. > The main software is free (As is Redhat - again my prime example) but > install CD's are sold, and pre-installed system of diverse flavors are sold. > And no, it won't undercut its own market, since the customers different in > the respective cases. Well, being an Economics student, I can tell you this; what will happen (assuming there is some popularity) is that the company who can lower their per-unit costs the most will own the market. Because Freevo is free, this is a perfectly competitive market and in the long run the profit will be equal to a normal rate of return. :) ------------------------------------------------------- This SF.net email is sponsored by: SF.net Giveback Program. SourceForge.net hosts over 70,000 Open Source Projects. See the people who have HELPED US provide better services: Click here: http://sourceforge.net/supporters.php _______________________________________________ Freevo-devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freevo-devel ------------------------------------------------------- This SF.net email is sponsored by: SF.net Giveback Program. SourceForge.net hosts over 70,000 Open Source Projects. See the people who have HELPED US provide better services: Click here: http://sourceforge.net/supporters.php _______________________________________________ Freevo-devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freevo-devel
