[ANN] id3libv1.0.0

[Scott Kane]

> I have Sony Acid Pro and Sonar Producer.  Each of these required me to 
> purchase a license from the respective companies to work with MP3 files. 
> I asked Sony and Cakewalk about claims that I would need an additional 
> license to actually distribute these files (as claimed by an audio 
> technical group I'm a member of).  Both Sony and Cakewalk told me to 
> contact Thompson.

Sorry I hit send to accidentally!  <g>

Anyway Thompson informed me that yes I would need to purchase a separate 
license to distribute in this format.  I then asked, as a software 
developer, if that meant I could read and write to and from an MP3 file in 
my own software.  They stated that I could not and would need a separate 
license to do that.  I asked directly what that license allowed and they 
told me it included the right to write the audio data, tags and to read both 
back.  Like you I was surprised by this.  I enquired further about their 
ownership of that tags (as I had found the same information as you) and they 
told me that as I am writing and reading from their format *anything* not 
pertaining to performance rights (that the label or artist owns) is their 
property as specified by their patent.  As I said in my first post they are 
total creeps.  The entire series of emails was very curt and at times 
totally condescending.

Scott