QUOTE
Lame and free ISO AAC are not treated the same. Period.
I have been encoding FREEWARE ISO aac files for more than two years now. I still have some files encoded with the FREE MBSoft encoder at 128k which sound SURPRISINGLY good. If you want, I'll send you castanets.wav decoded from an MBSoft encoder at 128k. you'd be amazed by it. The fact of the matter is they exactly the same. Supposedly illegal (though never really tested in court) and definately available.