Send email regarding Audacity vsv libmad Rgds, Dan O'Brien, dmobrien_2001@xxxxxxxxx Phone: 614-783-4859 ----- Forwarded Message ---- From: Richard Ash <richard@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> To: David Avery <daa@xxxxxxxxxxx>; Dan O'Brien <dmobrien_2001@xxxxxxxxx> Cc: audacity-help@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx; audacity-devel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Sent: Sunday, July 2, 2006 2:17:59 PM Subject: Re: [Audacity-devel] [Audacity-help] Fedora Core Audacity w/o MP3 "support" David Avery wrote: > see: http://www.mp3licensing.com/royalty/software.html > > MP3 requires minimum payment of US$ 15000.00 / year for software > encoders or decoders. decoders are US$0.75 / unit or US$50,000.00 > onetime. encoders are US$2.50 per unit. and they will not allow > redistribution. > fedora is therefore unable to ship _any_ MP3 encoding or decoding software The decoder licensing is not enforecable in most parts of the world, and I don't know of a single program paying it. The original patents granted were for encoders, and those are the only ones that have been actively enforced. No-one actually knows what patent number (presumably US patent) the decoder license is for, as none of the ones usally cited cover any decoding of ISO compliant material. The last debate of this on the libmad development list came to no conclusion in 2002, as far as I can see from the archives. Richard Ash -- fedora-extras-list mailing list fedora-extras-list@xxxxxxxxxx https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-extras-list
