- Site menu:
- Latest Discussions
- Latest Newswire
- Archives
- Submit Story
- Story HOWTO
- Syndicate
- E-mail Alerts
Ubuntu 8.04 rant: Getting MP3s to play is too fundamental to be left up to geekery
|
|
|
Comments (46)
26 earlier comments in the full thread.
klhrevolution: While I like your idea, converting to ogg doesn't preserve all information and I'm not sure whether it's legal, because you still need to read the mp3's before converting them.
klhrevolution: You cannot convert to ogg without decoding the mp3.
Here's what I'd like to know:
Just who is paying these MP3 royalties? To whom? How much? How often?
Just who is paying these MP3 royalties? To whom? How much? How often?
> To whom?
Mostly Fraunhofer Institute and Thomson Multimedia, though I believe Alcatel may also be involved.
> How much? How often?
See http://www.mp3licensing.com/royalty/ for all the gory details.
Mostly Fraunhofer Institute and Thomson Multimedia, though I believe Alcatel may also be involved.
> How much? How often?
See http://www.mp3licensing.com/royalty/ for all the gory details.
Quoting:Just who is paying these MP3 royalties?
Anyone who believes the several patents owned by different holders are enforceable. At least Microsoft pays for any WMP - meaning for every Windows they sell. Probably this also goes for all portable devices able to play MP3; HD-recorders with that ability and so on. WP tells however, that the holders of those patents doesn't seek to enforce them against distributors of 'free software' decoders. That's why lots of Linux distributions ship with decoders and get away with it. I have no idea why Ubuntu doesn't. Ask them, I suggest. It seems the patent holders are not targeting end users however; nor are they targeting free software. Most patents expire in 2011 also by the way. PS: This is all stuff you can easily find out by reading Wikipedia.
Quoting:To whom?Thomson & Fraunhofer at least; probably Sisvel and Texas MP3 technology as well. Alcatel-Lucent also claimed patents; Microsoft nearly had to pay 1,5 billion but the judge prevented that. IIRC it was on LXer.
Quoting:How much? How often?
I'm lazy. Seek out for yourself: http://mp3licensing.com/royalty/ Looks like $0,75 per MP3-playing-enabled Ubuntu to me. However, for Gentoo & co it's free I guess, because Gentoo & co do not make profits while distributing their software and the patent holders don't target free decoders most of the time. Canonical however may make a profit - while shipping the very same software. It depends on what the patent holders decide here; if they have empathy with Ubuntu or not (and if they ever want free software to use their technologies again; No sane free software developer will ever develop FAT software again I guess).
@gus3 small problem with your argument. You have confused 2 issues, software patents and digital piracy. All the enforcements you brought up ... digital piracy. There are plenty of countries that do not recognize software patents. The media they are enforcing against is most definitively not the codec with which they were played.
Huh? Did you post to the wrong thread, az? This comment is the first time I've said anything here.
FWIW, the introductory tutorial that I'm (suppose to be) working on will use only Ogg Theora for its video. Sound will be stripped out, to reduce translation concerns.
FWIW, the introductory tutorial that I'm (suppose to be) working on will use only Ogg Theora for its video. Sound will be stripped out, to reduce translation concerns.
Just in replay to the question on Bob's link
In fact i have, i use WinXP everyday with Visual Studio 2008 and have tested both Windows 7 and Visual Studio 2010, I've also worked on Silverlight 2 Code.
First Windows 7: As a version of Windows it scores 10 (XP score 9, in my opinion), it's clearly better than Vista, in that it's actually like an improvement of Windows XP. But, it's obviously just Windows, in the long run it's merely XP with a new paint job, and a new set of wheels.
As an operating System, I'd score it at 6 or 7, as it still requires 3rd party security that is arguably not all that effective anyway, it doesn't have the useful functionality that i find improves my experience of using linux, it's clearly not significantly more stable than XP, it still requires multiple reboots, it is still a swapfile hog, even when you aren't doing anything much, NTFS is still just as prone to fragmentation, and it has the annoying pop up thing that informs you that you are doing what you set out to do and asks if you are sure, it's supposed to improve security, but you can easily turn it off, and if you set out to do something then of course you say proceed, even if it's installing a trojan that wasn't picked up by the add on security system.
Visual Studio 2010 doesn't give me anything I don't already have or find useful in Visual studio 2008, yes it has better integration with MS SQL Server, and Silverlight, but that doesn't make me more productive, and many of the "intelligent" bits just get in my way.
Silverlight it's just a different way of doing what can be done with Flash, yes it's integrated into Visual Studio, which means that if you choose the whole Silverlight Visual Studio thing you can right lots of media based applications trivially, at the expense of being less flexible in your approach to this sort of application. But it's not as if Microsoft has done something out of the ordinary and new.
Quoting:In the meantime, Microsoft isn't standing still. Have you tried Windows 7, Office 2010, Visual Studio 2010, Silverlight 3, etc...
In fact i have, i use WinXP everyday with Visual Studio 2008 and have tested both Windows 7 and Visual Studio 2010, I've also worked on Silverlight 2 Code.
First Windows 7: As a version of Windows it scores 10 (XP score 9, in my opinion), it's clearly better than Vista, in that it's actually like an improvement of Windows XP. But, it's obviously just Windows, in the long run it's merely XP with a new paint job, and a new set of wheels.
As an operating System, I'd score it at 6 or 7, as it still requires 3rd party security that is arguably not all that effective anyway, it doesn't have the useful functionality that i find improves my experience of using linux, it's clearly not significantly more stable than XP, it still requires multiple reboots, it is still a swapfile hog, even when you aren't doing anything much, NTFS is still just as prone to fragmentation, and it has the annoying pop up thing that informs you that you are doing what you set out to do and asks if you are sure, it's supposed to improve security, but you can easily turn it off, and if you set out to do something then of course you say proceed, even if it's installing a trojan that wasn't picked up by the add on security system.
Visual Studio 2010 doesn't give me anything I don't already have or find useful in Visual studio 2008, yes it has better integration with MS SQL Server, and Silverlight, but that doesn't make me more productive, and many of the "intelligent" bits just get in my way.
Silverlight it's just a different way of doing what can be done with Flash, yes it's integrated into Visual Studio, which means that if you choose the whole Silverlight Visual Studio thing you can right lots of media based applications trivially, at the expense of being less flexible in your approach to this sort of application. But it's not as if Microsoft has done something out of the ordinary and new.
*sheepish grin* sorry gus
should have been @hkwint
darn it gus, how come you cant just accept an invitation to argue again? nag dab it.
should have been @hkwint
darn it gus, how come you cant just accept an invitation to argue again? nag dab it.
@caitlyn: Yes I'm aware of those people. The reason I put in my comment was because everytime I demonstrate Linux to ordinary computer users, or get ordinary computer users to try Linux, they like it, and every time I read about people who claim to have tried Linux they are invariably someone with similar windows experience as I had/have, Windows power users. I wanted to change, usually the people who claim to have tried Linux and went back to Windows are looking for a freebie Windows.
@az:
The only time I rip something into MP3 is when I want to play it through my cell phone's music player. Otherwise, I go strictly with Ogg Vorbis (with the exception of a single FLAC file).
So, am I a pirate for using MP3 where convenient, and Ogg Vorbis everywhere else? Discuss.
The only time I rip something into MP3 is when I want to play it through my cell phone's music player. Otherwise, I go strictly with Ogg Vorbis (with the exception of a single FLAC file).
So, am I a pirate for using MP3 where convenient, and Ogg Vorbis everywhere else? Discuss.
I'd say no, gus, except for the eye patch and parrot.
The weird thing about MP3 is even though there are several companies claiming to be patent holders and therefore deserving of royalties, none of them seem to go after the maintainers of FOSS MP3 encoders, or anyone who distributes their works in MP3 format. At least not in the US. The LAME FAQ is a splendid demonstration of fancy verbal footwork:
http://lame.sourceforge.net/tech-FAQ.txt
The weird thing about MP3 is even though there are several companies claiming to be patent holders and therefore deserving of royalties, none of them seem to go after the maintainers of FOSS MP3 encoders, or anyone who distributes their works in MP3 format. At least not in the US. The LAME FAQ is a splendid demonstration of fancy verbal footwork:
http://lame.sourceforge.net/tech-FAQ.txt
Quoting: LAME, as the name says, is *not* an encoder. LAME is a development project which uses the open source model to improve MP3 technology. Many people believe that compiling this code and distributing an encoder which uses this code would violate some patents (in the US, Europe and Japan). However, *only* a patent lawyer is qualified to make this determination. The LAME project tries to avoid all these legal issues by only releasing source code, much like the ISO distributes MP3 "demonstration" source code. Source code is considered as speech, which may contain descriptions of patented technology. Descriptions of patents are in the public domain.
Several companies plan on releasing encoders based on LAME, and they intend to obtain all the appropriate patent licenses. At least one company is now shipping a fully licensed version of LAME with their portable MP3 player.
Note that under German Patent Law, ?11(1) a patent doesn't cover private acts with non-industrial purposes. Probably interesting for developers is that a patent doesn't cover acts with experimental purposes, that aim at the object of the patented invention (?11(2)).
Heck, I thought you were a pirate, Gus, because of the eyepatch and the skull and crossbones flag. I'm not confusing you with another Gus, am I?
Tuxchick beat me to it. OK, so I have the right Gus :) Nice parrot.
Seriously, you are probably infringing on a patent. However, if its a patent that the holder(s) have chosen not to enforce then I wouldn't worry about it unless it somehow violates your own sense of ethics and morals.
Now, if you then rip your collection of 75 Philip Glass CDs and put it up on The Pirate Bay I would think you'd be guilty of piracy.
Seriously, you are probably infringing on a patent. However, if its a patent that the holder(s) have chosen not to enforce then I wouldn't worry about it unless it somehow violates your own sense of ethics and morals.
Now, if you then rip your collection of 75 Philip Glass CDs and put it up on The Pirate Bay I would think you'd be guilty of piracy.
@az:
Doesn't matter, because WIPO doesn't make that difference. Digital piracy is copyright infringement (whether it's redistributing codecs without permission or movies on some torrent site), in the case of software patents there's patent infringement, together they are IP. Not making that distinction is where the IP in "WIPO" comes from. They love to confuse everyone.
And when Steve Ballmer threatened Asia it was definitely about patents, and not about piracy.
Quoting:You have confused 2 issues, software patents and digital piracy.
Doesn't matter, because WIPO doesn't make that difference. Digital piracy is copyright infringement (whether it's redistributing codecs without permission or movies on some torrent site), in the case of software patents there's patent infringement, together they are IP. Not making that distinction is where the IP in "WIPO" comes from. They love to confuse everyone.
And when Steve Ballmer threatened Asia it was definitely about patents, and not about piracy.
How long is it until the MP3 patents run out?
@softwarejanitor: The are multiple patents held by various companies. Some have already expired, some have not. The last one expires in 2017: http://www.tunequest.org/a-big-list-of-mp3-patents/20070226/
Thanks Sander... I also found this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MP3
which basically told me the same thing. Looks like most of the most serious ones run out by 2012, so the light at the end of the tunnel is starting to get a little closer. 2017 is still a ways away though, but those of us geezerly enough to remember the years prior to the RSA patents expiring know that it will come eventually.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MP3
which basically told me the same thing. Looks like most of the most serious ones run out by 2012, so the light at the end of the tunnel is starting to get a little closer. 2017 is still a ways away though, but those of us geezerly enough to remember the years prior to the RSA patents expiring know that it will come eventually.
Hmm, I guess MP3 has been a good cash cow for the patent holders; considered the amount of MP3 playing devices - such as telephones, iPods (they do play MP3's don't they?), car radio's and WMP-licenses have been sold. If we suggest the number of MP3-playing devices and products to be around 1 billion or so (probably conservative, as Windows users have to pay for XP, Vista and 7; meaning three times! And then again for their iPod and car radio), royalties have been around 750M. Not bad for technology of which a large part was invented around 1800 (for Fourier) and 1950 (for Huffman).
Post a comment
A free account is needed to post. Write your comment here first: your text is kept in this browser while you sign up or log in, and is waiting for you when you come back.
Your message:Markdown: **bold**, *italic*, [text](https://link), - lists, > quotes, $x^2$ for math. Formatting help
Sign up and post (it is free) or Log in and post
Or a dialog like: Converting.. will play momentarily or pay $$$ to play mp3..
Forget jurisdiction simply let the user click the darn file and convert it to ogg.. If he/she wines because it takes a second longer to play I'm sure that by then they will easily come to find out why (forums, docs, wiki, chat, etc..). And probably be grateful that they don't have to pony up $$$.