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

[Florian Cramer <paragram@gmx.net>]

Am Mon, 27.Aug.2001 um 14:19:44 +0200 schrieb Heiko Recktenwald:
 
> Hmm, they are free to sell their encoder for whatever price they want.
> They "own" the encoder.

No, they don't charge for the encoder (i.e. their own software product)
here, but also for encoders which contain zero lines of Fraunhofer code.
Their patents cover the mp3 technology as such, not the reference
encoder in particular. 

According to Richard Stallman, the Ogg Vorbis developers, who designed
their file format from scratch, had a hard time not to interfere with
Fraunhofer's patents and were threatened with a lawsuit nevertheless. 

> But once you own an encoder, you can do whatever you want.

Imagine, E-Mail wouldn't be an open standard, but a patented technology
for which the rights owner charges everyone who programs or distributes
an E-Mail server program (like sendmail) and everyone who uses E-Mail
for commercial/professional purposes (like journalists sending their
manuscripts to newspapers). 

The above is the factual status quo of mp3, and explains why truly
free/open alternatives like Ogg Vorbis are necessary and should be
put into wide use. 

> encoder with this limitation. I dont think I got mine with such a limit
> and there are freeware encoders. Illegal ??? 

Yes. From the release notes of bladeenc, a free mp3 encoder:

> Just a quick note to tell you guys that BladeEnc 0.92.0-stable is online
> (but only as source).
[...]
> I also have some bad news:
>
> I'm still having trouble with Fraunhofer/Thomson and will now have to
> remove the binaries from my homepage in order to avoid being sued.
> However, this is NOT the end of the project. I'll put all the details
> about this on my homepage in a few days...
>
> /Tord

Florian

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