On Sun, Jun 6, 2010 at 6:58 AM, Michael Smith <msmith at xiph.org> wrote: > Ultimately, anyone answering this with anything other than "consult > your attorney" is... being misleading, probably. > > However, in addition to that, I'll explain a bit: > > mp3parse: This is in -ugly because it's related to mp3, which has > known patent issues. I expect a qualified patent attorney would be > able to tell you that it's actually fine. > > asfdemux: Microsoft claims patents on aspects of the ASF format. I > have no idea if asfdemux infringes any of them; of the four plugins > you mention this is by far the most likely to be problematic. > > aacparse, amrparse: like mp3parse, these relate to processing formats > that have known patent issues. Again I'd expect that a detailed > analysis by a patent attorney would most likely end up telling you > that these are fine from that perspective. However, it's quite likely that you are going to use these with some decoders, for which you will pay the respective license for distribution. So, whatever patent the parsers "infringe", should be covered by the decoders' license. -- Felipe Contreras
