Jason Antony wrote: > Margaret Clark wrote: > > I find this attitude stupid. Here you guys are... using an ILLEGAL > > product (or did you pay the legally required licensing fees?),
Roel posted an interesting message several months ago related to MP3 royalties and free utilities like LAME: http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/msg02967.html > LAME is not illegal. As others have pointed out, LAME is modified ISO code, > which was freely available at first, but later FHG began enforcing its > patents. Now all the original code has been replaced, and violates no > patents. The MPEG audio layer 3 patents do not expire until (very roughly) another decade. As far as I know, LAME itself is legit. However, distributing LAME under certain conditions may violate laws. > Do not forget most countries don't recognise software patents as valid and > legally enforceable. > Which countries do not? Unfortunately, many do recognize patents that can be owned by corporations. Monopolies may be forwarded without insuring that the inventor or team of inventors receive the power to profit and further innovate their successful ideas. Corporations are known for their ability to terminate underpaid employees who have spent many years advancing the corporation's cause, so that the corporations may preserve a profit. > > then bitching, because someone wants to remove the branding. I don't > > get it. Sounds like thieves complaining they got robbed. Theft removes an item from an owner's possession, although propaganda to forward the idea of IP (intellectual property) would have you believe that copyright violation is no different. Fortunately, the law (at least in the USA) distinguishes between copyright violation and theft. The LGPL doesn't mention anything about preserving credits in the output, just copyright notices in the program. Although a bit eccentric, if someone wants to try and mimic an FHg MP3 stream, they can. I am aware of no special LAME clause that says, "Thou must keepeth thine ancillary data as it hast been written." > > Your eloquence is charming :-) Personally, I regard open source developers > in higher esteem than most corporate entities, who solely exist for money, > money and more money. Moreover, your accusation that we are 'thieves' is > quite ironic when you read on... If money is the number of the beast, where does that put corporations? The way things go, I just don't know... > > BTW, no, I prefer the branding in the files, as it makes knowing what > > encoder used easier to detect when > > downloading from file sharing services. > ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ > > Unless you are working for the RIAA, I don't believe you're innocent of the > same. > I just downloaded a set of MP3 files direct from the web site of an artist that I recently heard on the radio. Sharing is a wonderful thing. However, many who seek first to maximize their profit learn that sharing is best left alone as a lesson for children (unless sharing provides a profitable marketing angle). Kind regards, - John _______________________________________________ mp3encoder mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://minnie.tuhs.org/mailman/listinfo/mp3encoder
