32 What Is This Rumor About Licensing Mp3 Software?
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This article is from the Anime Music FAQ, by Ru Igarashi with numerous contributions by others.
32 What Is This Rumor About Licensing Mp3 Software?
Well, encoding and playback software are also subject to intellectual property rights (patents), and in this case the rights holders of the MP3 format (Fraunhofer IIS-A and Thomson Multimedia) are going around to writers of MP3 software demanding a fee or royalty (of $0.75 US) for every unit of player software sold. That shouldn't impact anyone getting player or encoder software as part of a purchased package. If the playback software is distributed as freeware, it is also royalty free. However, for ALL encoders, a license is needed, and thus royalties must be paid (starting at $2.50 per encoder sold or given for free).
You also need a license to provide REVENUE GENERATING MP3 content on the internet. Fee's are based on gross income (including advertising and subscription), so with no income the license is free. This is on top of a copyright license for the music.
The 2001 version of the licensing pages at
http://www.mp3licensing.com
stirred up a bit of a fuss when it seemed to change the long standing freeware policy. It turns out to have been a wording error, and there were actually no changes since 1995.
As a result of these code copyrights though, there has been a movement to use the Ogg Vorbis audio file format, which is license- and royalty- free.
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