It seems that Thompson & Fraunhofer IIS-A have changed the MP3 technology licensing fees. They are now charging $0.75 per decoder or $5.00 per codec. It will be interesting to see how this will affect the numerous freeware applications that utilize MP3 technology. There are already rumours that RedHat has removed all MP3 components from their upcoming Linux distro release.
On the other hand, this just might give OGG Vorbis the push it needed?
UPDATE:Quick browsing around the internet revealed that this might not be a real change in MP3 licensing policy. Yes, the website has changed, but there has been no official announcement or press release by Fraunhofer or Thompson. Wait and see.
mp3licensing.com
Written by: Lasse Penttinen @ 27 Aug 2002 14:18
New MP3 license terms: $0.75 per decoder?
- Previous article
-
NEC and Toshiba introduce another blue-laser DVD technology
- Next article
-
An open Thank-You letter from OGG Vorbis developers to Thompson Multimedia
Advertisement - News comments available below the ad
- 6 comments
-
Ghostdog
Is this for real? Does this mean we will be paying for things like Lame?
28.8.2002 04:22 #1
-
seanbyrne
Both Redhat & Mandrake have full OGG Vorbis support. I checked Mandrake 9.0 beta 2 and it's got OGG support in both the console and XMMS. In the console, OGGEnc is the command line encoder (lastest 1.0 release) and OGG123 is the player. Press ALT + CTRL + F1 to access the console and ALT + CTRL + F7 to return to the GUI mode. They still have MP3 playback support in XMMS and MPG123 (console player), but they don't provide an encoder.
Finally both OGG vorbis and MP3 seems to sound much better in Mandrake Linux than in Windows, especially with the Sound Blaster Audigy.28.8.2002 04:32 #2
-
Ghostdog
Even though OGG might provide better quality/size-ratio, you can´t just snap your fingers and get all the people using mp3 to switch. This is going to take time.
My understanding is that ogg is still without alot of support from end-users.28.8.2002 08:25 #3
-
tunetree
I think the more troubling part would be the $15,000 annual minimum (listed on that page)
WilliamTuneTree / "jam band SHNs"
---anonymous login---
http://music.ibiblio.org/pub/multimedia/tunetree
or ftp://music.ibiblio.org/pub/multimedia/tunetree29.8.2002 17:49 #4
-
A_Klingon
You're right Ghostdog, it's going to take a lot of time methinks; mp3 is just too entrenched into the public's psyche.
I'm glad mp3 is still around though, because I find it *so* much nicer to be able to play my downloaded tracks on my Sony dvd player, than sitting at my computer doing something else at the same time. Playing oggs thru Winamp is not always a good idea when you're using your computer to do other cpu-intensive tasks.
It's coming though. (Inexpensive ogg hardware support).
-- Mike --1.9.2002 01:23 #5
-
Ghostdog
I´ll probably switch to ogg, when the time is right. but I´m not willing to jump on a new technology that, what?, 0,6% of the "internet-music" users support.
1.9.2002 03:30 #6
