[Nettime-bold] Re: <nettime> Why artists should be using Ogg Vorbis (instead of mp3)

[Florian Cramer <paragram@gmx.net>]

Am Sat, 25.Aug.2001 um 19:09:37 +0200 schrieb Heiko Recktenwald:
 
> On Fri, 24 Aug 2001, Florian Cramer forwarded:
> 
> > As an artist, the royalties on MP3 mean that you'll have to pay a
> > flat fee on every single track of your own music that's downloaded.
> 
> I would doubt that very much. They dont "own" every mp3 sofar.
> 
> Wishfull thinking..

...partly: yes. In 1998, Fraunhofer Institute - the owner of the mp3
patents - sent out a letter I attach below. While this letter mainly
speaks about encoders, please note the sentence "Pay-audio licenses
against a royalty of $ 0,01 per song or 1 % of the selling price".

Fraunhofer/Thomson operate a web site on mp3 licensing under the URL
http://www.mp3licensing.com. In the FAQ, it lists the following license
fees for distributing and streaming mp3 files:

Electronic Music Distribution / Broadcasting / Streaming
mp3 · 2.0 % of related revenue
mp3PRO · 3.0 % of related revenue

On another page (http://mp3licensing.com/royalty/emd.html), it is
clarified that "No license is needed for private, non-commercial
activities (e.g., home-entertainment, receiving broadcasts and creating
a personal music library), not generating revenue or other consideration
of any kind or for entities with an annual gross revenue less than US$
100 000.00." 

While this seems to put independent artists and entities who distribute
mp3 files on the safe side, the whole construction could become
questionable as soon as, say, a work becomes part of a commercially
distributed CD-ROM by a museum or media institution or a CD-ROM-add-on
to book like the Nettime reader or if an independent net radio is hosted
within a larger art institution or sponsoring company whose "revenue" is
above $100 000. 

It is precisely because of such cases that Free Software/Open Source
does not even restrict commercial distribution of code licensed under
its terms. Neither mp3 encoders, nor mp3 files proper therefore is - or
could be - a part of a Free Software operating system (such as Debian
GNU/Linux or RedHat Linux GPL edition). 

Florian


Quoted from http://www.mp3.com/news/095.html :

>   Dear Ladies and Gentlemen,
>
>   As you may know, both the Fraunhofer Institute and THOMSON have done
>   important work to develop MPEG Layer-3 audio compression (before and
>   after it became part of the MPEG standards). This work has resulted
>   in many inventions and several patents, covering the MPEG Layer-3
>   standard.
>
>   From your publications and your web-site we learn that you
>   distribute and/or sell decoders and/or encoders that use the MPEG
>   Layer-3 standard.
>
>   Our files do not show that you have a valid license agreement with
>   us. This means that the products infringe the patent rights of
>   Fraunhofer and THOMSON.
>
>   To make, sell and/or distribute products using the standard and thus
>   our patents, you need to obtain a license under these patents from
>   us.
>
>   In the past, we have licensed several companies under different
>   models for different products, e.g.: - Software encoder licenses
>   against a per unit royalty starting at $ 25,00 and decreasing for
>   high volumes; and - Pay-audio licenses against a royalty of $ 0,01
>   per song or 1 % of the selling price.
>
>   At least the Software encoder license seems to apply to your
>   products and we would appreciate if you could send us some more
>   details about your activities, in order to discuss what would be the
>   right royalty structure for your company.
>
>   In view of the above, we urge you to contact Henri
>   Linde (mailto:lindeh@thmulti.com) and Martin Sieler
>   (mailto:sir@iis.fhg.de) in order to start the discussion of the
>   license or licenses needed.
>
>   We look forward to hearing from you soon.
>
>   Best regards,
>   - Martin
>   
>   ---
>   Martin Sieler
>   Fraunhofer IIS-A, Audio & Multimedia
>   email: sir@iis.fhg.de
>   phone: +49 9131 776-610
>   fax: +49 9131 776-699
>   www: http://www.iis.fhg.de/amm/
>-- 
http://userpage.fu-berlin.de/~cantsin/homepage/
http://www.complit.fu-berlin.de/institut/lehrpersonal/cramer.html
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