The below "chilling effects" link was from 1998. Those guys wanted to charge a hefty per-song fee as well then. Yeah, right.
Yup. They haven't been short on ideas for charging out fees.
That was a long time ago, and there are a lot more shareware out there still using MP3 encoding. What about LAME?
They took several swipes at LAME. They may yet take another.
Also if Fraunhoffer patented the process in the 80's or 90's, remember that patents granted before 1995 only have 17 years before expiring, which could be Real Soon Now.
2011 I believe.
Interestingly, Fraunhoffer are giving away music and CROSS PLATFORM (including LINUX) players for 5.1 SURROUND!! SDKs, too. Their encoding software is all command-line (therefore a possible Rev project!).
On one programming audio library site run by a small author it has been suggested that using licensed versions on the OS to call MP3 may negate the need to have a license. Dunno. But given that a huge majority of software (shareware) and hardware for the MP3 format is coming from countries who are not Berne signatories (though Patents are not covered by a Berne agreement I believe) makes it very hard for them to enforce and collect on those products. For example China is manufacturing MP3 players and pays zero for any patents. Here in Australia some MP3 player shipments from China have been seized at customs due to this - but I never heard anything about the eventual outcome of the seizure. Patent law really needs an overhaul, especially as it relates to software.
On another note. After looking at my doc's (licenses) today I can state categorically that Thompson supplied zero evidence to me within those doc's and licenses of an actual statement covering tags in MP3 files. There is stuff on file format and compression but nothing on tags *at all*. So from this I can only conclude that if you discuss an issue with their legal department they'll claim anything as theirs if they think they can get away with it.
Scott
_______________________________________________ use-revolution mailing list [email protected] Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your subscription preferences: http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-revolution
