-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Levi Ramsey wrote: | On Thu Aug 15 10:18 +1200, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: | |>Why?? Is the MP3 format licensed?? There are plenty of freeware programs |>for emcoding MP3's in Windows, do they pay license fees?? And there are |>Open Source MP3 encoders, what precludes their inclusion in ML? Why is |>RipperX included in the distro then?? Just to rip waves and encode OGG |>files?? I think it is legal to RIP one's own CD's to MP3 for use on |>one's own PC, so I'm sorry if I don't see the problem here. Please |>enlighten me and others who may also wonder... | | | An outfit in Germany (the Fraunhofer Institute) has patents on several | algorithms that are used in MP3 encoders. Essentially, binary | distribution of MP3 encoders that use these algorithms is highly | questionable in nations (such as the US and Japan) that have software | patents, unless one pays Fraunhofer. |
I'm joining in a bit late, but as far as I remember there were three (maybe more?) totally different algorithms in common use to get an mp3 as a result. I think these were ISO, Xing, and Fraunhofer based. If I recall, Fraunhofer was the fastest algorithm that gave the most lossy compression encoding, and ISO was the highest quality out there. I think BladeEnc and a few other open source codecs used the ISO algorithms. Do you mean to say that Fraunhofer owns the patents on several algorithms, and only markets the lossy version? I'm not joking, but am really curious about this one. I remember hearing about lawsuit threats about 5 years ago relating to this, but as far as I know it was determined that Fraunhofer didn't hold the pattents on the algorithms in question. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.0.6-2 (MingW32) Comment: For info see http://www.gnupg.org iEYEARECAAYFAj1bLXkACgkQUMkt1ZRwL1M/pACggb/Nf6k9LX1fLQZUNcq0omA5 IS0AoLKL23sm2irmCZLjpziIk8VspZPS =Ay8s -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
