Just read this on ./ Could be the best thing ever for Ogg?

http://slashdot.org/articles/02/08/27/1626...1.shtml?tid=155

http://www.mp3licensing.com/royalty/software.html

LOL. These slashdotters must be going mad (no surprises here). That page always listed decoder licensing prices.

It's already been stated by FhG aeons ago: free decodes don't have to pay license fees. Commercial decoders must pay the prices mentioned in that page.

Blah!

Regards;

Roberto

The news is supposed to be that the exception for free decoders are now gone, or so they say. You know different?

I'd rather first wait for actual action from Thomson (like enforcement on free players)

I don't think it's healthy to start wildly guessing (like the Slashdotters seem to like soo much to do) just because they removed the text from their page.

A follow-up on the Vorbis site:

http://www.xiph.org/ogg/vorbis/openletter.html

I laughed, and laughed, and laughed a lot after reading that OpenLetter

LOL
xDDDDDDDDDD
LMAO

yes it's true. It only helps vorbis!

I couldn't have written a better piece of literature about Vorbis like Emmett did myself.

I don't think this will change anything for the 'average' user: There always have been encoder fees, but who has paid for his copy of lame? The people will continue using Winamp, mpg123 or MAD and be happy with that, even if other decoders (hardware players) may become more expensive now.

dev0

I read a few of the Slashdot comments, and hell, I'd shoot myself for these comments, I feel bad about what the human species has produced (these /. kiddies). :/

I'm more worried about the people not able to differenciate between "one person" and "many different persons", personally.

Slashdot isn't a hive-mind. There are idiots everywhere, even here. You're saying noone has ever asked about transcoding his/hers collection of warezed 128Kbit xings here? :-\

Well, the idiocy amount on /. is pretty high, since it's a public "high-profile" site, and that spoils the fun. It's like that on a lot of public mid-to-large scale forums. Doesn't mean that all are that stupid, but a large part is sadly.

I'm happy that this ain't the problem here (yet?)

Well, let's try:

hOw Do I cOmPresS MiCro$oFt OfFiCE tO MP3? If YOu Dn't AnSweR, Then U R pRobaBlY a FucKinG AssHole.



Whow, it's quite hard to be that stupid...And it's awfully slow to type on the keyboard...

Oh well, sadly if it means greater adoption for Vorbis, you can no longer look at MP3 users and say "You newbie! Look I use OGG!"

No more sense of elitism ..

Switch to MPC . But then you might have patent-problems again some day...

dev0

Well I seriously doubt Thomson, will go after products that are offered for free, as there is genuine income stream for which these product derives their income from.

On the note of Vorbis, now isn't this the kick that it really needed It seems everything is falling towards Vorbis's way. Can't imagine MP3 being around for much longer if the encoder and decoder have prices that high around their heads.

/Sarcastic Tone

In the real business world one would see Vorbis as a threat. Thus introducing much more competitive pricing schemes to make MP3 more attractive, would be the only way to go. But it seems Thomson got it all wrong or some body from Xiph, has infiltrated Thomson and brainwashed them all to believe increasing prices is the only way to go to combat the threat of Vorbis.

/Sarcastic Tone

Laters
AgentMil

I think free decoders might be ok unless they go after high profile ones such as Winamp after all Nullsoft via AOL won't be short of money and it is provided as part of fee paying products.

I think any MP3 price increases will encourage not the free software brigade but the commercial audio software developers to take up Vorbis. Margins are usually tight enough and there is no real reason now as to why they should presist to support MP3 in their products beyond the needs of compatibility.

I think Vorbis needs a year of hard push by both free and commercial software developers so that it can dislodge a large portion of users away from MP3.

Nullsoft already payed the one-time fee.

That's why they use the FhG decoder, BTW.

Wow, I can be l33t by using MPC?

Whats a k3wl com-line? I donna wanna use anna --standard line!!!! Wut's the 4Real cool line? --InsaneInTheMembrane --Iq 20 --Lastofsynapses? Thassa a kewl line?


[Sorry, couldn't help it]

I seriously hate to interrupt your party... but...

"Statement from Thomson Multimedia, mp3 Licensing

In a posting appearing Tuesday August 27, 2002 on the Web site 'slashdot.org', an individual cited a change in the mp3 license fee structure of Thomson and Fraunhofer. The writer of the post apparently misread the mp3 licensing conditions, as Thomson's mp3 licensing policy has not experienced any change.

To clarify, since the beginning of our mp3 licensing program in 1995, Thomson has never charged a per unit royalty for freely distributed software decoders. For commercially sold decoders -- primarily hardware mp3 players -- the per-unit royalty has always been in place since the beginning of the program. Therefore, there is no change in our licensing policy and we continue to believe that the royalty fees of .75 cents per mp3 player (on average selling over $200 dollars) has no measurable impact on the consumer experience."

taken from http://www.heise.de/newsticker/data/vza-29.08.02-000/

I had a look on archive.org - and it seems they indeed didn´t change their fees for quite some time.

On this background Emmet´s open letter could seem odd to many people...

bye,

Maik Merten

P.S.: Don´t get me wrong - I love Vorbis!

lol.. what a surprise..
Seems that he falled to the same thing he has often critizized other people of.. (hearsay)

apparently (sc)heise.de missed this: http://web.archive.org/web/www.mp3licensin...y/software.html

mp3 Software Decoders/Players distributed free-of-charge via the Internet for personal use of end-users
No license fee is expected for desktop software mp3 decoders/players that are distributed free-of-charge via the Internet for personal use of end-users.
(which is no longer there)

[edited: i cant type]

I might be wrong, but I think it's all about the line that free players are royality-free - looks like it was there earlier but has been removed now..

"No license fee is expected " is not the same as "No license fee is required ".

TMM is (and was) just not going after free software players, but they never said that a license is not theorically required for free players.

In case of Winamp, I think that you already payed the fees while paying for the FhG decoder license, is it right?

we've already paid as we're licensing an FhG decoder

Yes, but this changed more than half-and-a-year ago. I always thought /. is considered to be fast...

A trick of light and not actually possible