MP3 Patents, was id3libv1.0.0

[Stephen Barncard]

The below "chilling effects" link was from 1998. Those guys wanted to 
charge a hefty per-song fee as well then. Yeah, right.

  That was a long time ago, and there are a lot more shareware out 
there still using MP3 encoding. What about LAME?

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.

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!).

http://www.all4mp3.com/





>From: "Richard Gaskin" <ambassador at fourthworld.com>
>
>>Patented, eh?  Does the patent holder explicitly allow third 
>>parties to read and write to that part of the proprietary MP3 file 
>>format, or can we expect them to pull a bait-and-switch down the 
>>road like CompuServe did with GIF?
>
>They are already pulling.  MS, Apple etc pay them royalties now and 
>anybody reading and writing to and from the file is expected to do 
>the same.  They have attempted to go after some of the freeware 
>tools and have gone after several smaller commercial developers.
>
>Take a look here:
>
>http://www.chillingeffects.org/patent/notice.cgi?NoticeID=464
>
>

-- 


stephen barncard
s a n  f r a n c i s c o
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