Weblog of Wesley Fryer

Wesley,
If I understand it correctly, Fraunhofer owns the patent to the MP3 algorithm itself.  Use of an MP3 encoder in a product requires licensing by them.  My guess, NCH doesn’t want to get sued. 

Have a look at the about page on the LAME website (http://lame.sourceforge.net/about.php)… noting that

“Using the LAME encoding engine (or other mp3 encoding technology) in your software may require a patent license in some countries. ”

I’m not sure how this plays out with individual users… I know that AP tests for languages require the use of the MP3 format – and suggest using Audacity (which uses LAME).

Someone let me know if my understanding is wrong.

Have a great day,
Kent

Thanks to you both, Kent and Jason. Interesting… I did some research Googling for “Fraunhofer LAME” and found http://www.mp3licensing.com – The FAQs on the site explain licensing for private, non-commercial uses is NOT required but if you’re a software developer (like NCH) you DO have to pay:

http://www.mp3licensing.com/help/index.html

The royalty schedule includes PC software for the CODEC at $2.50 to $5 per unit:

http://www.mp3licensing.com/royalty/

That’s where the $2.50 added charge for the commercial version of Switch comes in, I’m betting. Not sure why it’s $2.50 instead of the higher $5… I’m certainly not complaining!

I need to test this but last fall when I was teaching at UNT in Denton, Texas, I used the free version of Switch to encode my recorded audio lecturecasts on Windows 7. I am pretty sure the Windows version permitted compression with the free version of Switch down to 16 kbps. I need to test this and confirm/verify.

Since schools are using Audacity and LAME non-commercially, it doesn’t sound like the licensing / royalty requirements would kick in / be needed.

I wonder why Switch can convert ANY bitrate mp3 without the licensing fees being paid? The NCH site indicates it’s only required for low bitrate encoding, but I don’t see anything about licensing just required for low bitrate situations on the http://www.mp3licensing.com website.

It’s interesting to note that if you are making revenue with your use of mp3 files, according to the royalty website you must provide 2% or 3% of your total revenue to Fraunhofer. I’m not sure what the difference between mp3 and mp3PRO is, but they have different applicable royalty rates.

I wonder if commercial podcasts/netcasts like TwIT pay licensing fees?

It seems like this company used a dirty (yet far too common) trick: Wait until your user is most of the way through the purchase and then spring some fees on them.  That way, they don’t have to include the licensing costs in their overall cost-of-goods-sold like they should.

Unfortunately, most people are pretty committed to the purchase by the time they see a screen like that. And while I personally try to not do business with people who do things like that, I admit that I sometimes go through with the purchase anyway. I wonder if the sense of betrayal it causes in their customers is worth the money they save?

But it’s not the worst I’ve seen: A colleague came to me one time with a question about a new piece of software she had purchased for doing some audio manipulation. The program had an uncanny resemblance to Audacity and sure enough, when I went into the documentation, it said something to the effect of “based on the freely available program Audacity” hidden away in a corner. They charged her $30 for what was basically Audacity with a simple plugin included.