On Monday 15 November 2004 14:09, Kyrre Ness Sjobak wrote: >man, 15.11.2004 kl. 19.10 skrev Michael A. Peters: >> On 11/15/2004 07:12:46 AM, Kyrre Ness Sjobak wrote: >> > Now M$ is including mp3 >> >> Apple has included mp3 for a long time. >> I have to wonder if iTunes is why MS suddenly felt they needed to >> ... > >Windows Media player has included mp3 for longer than iTunes have >existed. I think so, but one never can know if Bill paid faunhofer(sp) the 5 figure license fee to do so. I mean WTF, its coffee money for redmond. It could be that Bill is too big for faunhofer(sp) to sue. I also found it a bit hilarious that the so called demo windows media files included in the windows distros have been found to have been processed by a pirate copy of soundforge? and carry the crackers signatures. See the /. story a few days ago to clarify those details. Around 5 years ago, some friends of mine wanted to put up a free music server featureing local talent (and there are indeed a few that bear listening to), and got rather disappointed when faunhofer initially wanted $25k for the license to just have mp3's encoded from any mp3 workalike source available from their server. It didn't make any difference to them if it wasn't encoded with one of their licensed encoders or not. Several months of negotiations got it down a ways, but not enough to justify the startup to have anything but oggs on their listings. It ran for a couple of years with rather mediocre success. By mediocre, I don't think it ever paid for the hardware to do it. I don't recall how much the typical cut would charge your card, but it wasn't much as it wasn't designed to be a gold mine, but to advertise local talent. This is strike number one in the arguments about software patents. IMO, ANY and yes I'm yelling, ANY file format that intends to be a standard should be absolutely free and clear of any patent or copyright riders. mp3 fails that test in any sane court on the planet. -- Cheers, Gene "There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order." -Ed Howdershelt (Author) 99.29% setiathome rank, not too shabby for a WV hillbilly Yahoo.com attorneys please note, additions to this message by Gene Heskett are: Copyright 2004 by Maurice Eugene Heskett, all rights reserved.