Regarding MP3 support

Maxim Eremeev maxim_eremeev at umail.ru
Fri Jan 28 22:19:53 UTC 2005


Aleksandar Milivojevic wrote:

> Temlakos wrote:
>
>>
>> If I might be so bold: the problem might be that he is /acquiring/ MP3
>> files from servers that won't release them as Ogg/Vorbis. It's all
>> very well for us to decide to rip our audio CD's to Ogg/Vorbis instead
>> of MP3. But that doesn't help the user who acquires MP3's that are
>> distributed by certain multimedia Webmasters who, AFAIK, are the
>> original owners or have themselves acquired full distribution rights.
>> An example would be the excellent recording of the Soviet Army Chorus
>> singing the Hymn to the Soviet Union, available on the Web site
>> dedicated to that song's history.
>
>
> Or he bought them from one of the online stores.  $1 per song.
>
>> That said, I solved the problem by downloading the RealOne Player for
>> Linux. It will play MP3's without a problem, and Real Media charges
>> nothing. Evidently they have a long-standing MP3 license, and their
>> business model allows them to distribute, free-of-charge, a player
>> that supports MP3, even on an open-source platform like Linux.
>
>
> More likely they simply paid flat fee of $50,000 - $60,000 for 
> unlimited decoder license for the base (free) version of Real player, 
> and are paying $2.50 - $5.00 for each copy of pro (or gold, or 
> whatever they call it now) version they sell.  While commercial 
> company can probably afford spending $50-60k for license for something 
> they are giving for free, most open source developers can't.  Wich 
> puts them in inferior position.  Something legislators hasn't 
> envisioned would happen.

Pretty sure they envisioned it all right ;)

> If they was, they probably wouldn't allow for software patents, or 
> there would be some limitations on their applicability (believe it or 
> not, patent law is about giving inscentive for research and 
> development of any kind, so that society as hole can benefit from it, 
> not about companies making big money).

And what is the lobbies for? ;))

> That's where the big fuss in Europe is about right know.  While 
> Americans had allowed software patents before it was clear that it was 
> mistake, Europeans are now in position to see that not having software 
> patents actually returns greater value to the society at the end 
> (well, except for pattent office, that probably only thinks about all 
> the money they can make on patent applications which are rather 
> expensive over there).
>
Basically, who cares about "the society"?




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