Icecast - Aug 2004 - Re: mp3pro and the mp3 streaming license]

At 13:52 6/9/2001 -0600, you wrote:
>So uh, you think it's worth more for mp3, than the actual music
>involved?
>
>Come on.
Hmm.. so what you're saying is that for under $2K I can get an unlimited 
distribution license from the recording industry?  To burn, distribute, 
sell and market as much of their material as I like?  Wow.  Sign me up.
>You think it would be nice if Netscape charged 2% of all website
>royalties for HTML, etc?
Netscape didn't invent HTML.
>I think it's fine that fraunhofer charges money for their code, but this
>is different.
>
>They charge you for the tools they provide.
It's called "selling software."  MS (yeah I know everyone hates
them too)
charges for licenses based on "client connections." which is very 
similar.  If you want a website, fine.. if you want it to handle X users 
simultaneously though, well then you'd better pay up for an X user license.
>You have to pay for tool makers to pay royalties for tools Fraunhofer
>DOESN'T make.
I think a lot of -commercial- products do use the frauhofer codec.. so do a 
lot of hardware manufacturers.. but that isn't the point, the payment
isn't
for tools, the payment is for a technology license.. it works the same for 
every other patent.  Rambus works in exactly the same way, although they're 
losing big time; They don't make memory, they don't make chips, they
don't
fab anything.. they are paid for a license to use a technology/patent.  If 
you think Rambus or Frauhnhofer are bad, take a look at the genetics 
companies.. patenting genes they find in people that may prove useful for 
gene therapy, so anyone else who wants to use it to say fight cancer or 
aids, has to pay them.  It's an ugly business to be sure, but there are 
some actual criminals against humanity out there.

If you don't like that, that's your choice.. but it isn't like
Fraunhofer
is doing anything new here.. everyone in the patent market does exactly the 
same thing.
>You ahve to pay to stream the content you already created with a tool
>you already paid for.
>
>How many times do you think they should get paid?  it's not like they
>wrote any of the streaming media servers.  It's not like any of the
>content that's encoded is theirs.  And hell, they didn't even write
most
I don't know.  How many times should I have to pay $6 to go across a bridge 
along with the millions of other people that go over that same bridge every 
day?  That particular rate just went up from $3.50.  I guess $40 million 
(being very conservative) a day just wasn't enough to keep that bridge
running!

You may pick up on a common point.  Fraunhofer isn't the first or worst at 
this game, from any angle.  If you use products free of revenue generation, 
in an application that itself is free of revenue, then you don't have to 
pay.  If some part along the flow wants to generate revenue with their 
product, then they have to pay.

Take winamp for example.  Winamp has a non-free version.  To sell that 
version, I'm sure they have to pay this new fee.  However, if you buy it 
and use it in a free environment, then you yourself don't have to 
pay.  They want to get paid each time their technology is used to generate 
income, and while that may be greedy, unless you're a subscriber to some of 
the religious doctrines out there, it is not evil.

It would be a "wonderful" world if everyone that came up with some
sort of
new technology or idea always gave it away for free, but that isn't the 
world we're in.

Pardon me for playing devils advocate, but IMHO there are a lot of better 
things to get bent about, if you want to get bent over something.

As for joint stereo patent, I agree, there are tons of stupid patents 
awarded every year.  Many of them far stupider than this one, with charges 
for usage a lot higher.

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> >So uh, you think it's worth more for mp3, than the actual music
> >involved?
> >
> >Come on.
> 
> Hmm.. so what you're saying is that for under $2K I can get an
unlimited
> distribution license from the recording industry?  To burn, distribute, 
> sell and market as much of their material as I like?  Wow.  Sign me up.
Streaming music is $250 minimum, with, I believe, less than 2%
royalties.  For $500 a year you can stream all the music in the world
pretty much, prefectly legally.  If you make a profit, it's a royalty.
But MP3's royalty here is higher than the royalty for the actual music.
That is out of whack.  Especially in an age where we are diligently
search for new ways to compensate artists.
> >You think it would be nice if Netscape charged 2% of all website
> >royalties for HTML, etc?
> 
> Netscape didn't invent HTML.
Fraunhofer didn't invent parts of mp3.  Netscape certainly had their hands
in the spec.  Microsoft too.
> >I think it's fine that fraunhofer charges money for their code, but
this
> >is different.
> >
> >They charge you for the tools they provide.
> 
> It's called "selling software."  
Yes, this is fine.  I don't have a problem with this.
> >You have to pay for tool makers to pay royalties for tools Fraunhofer
> >DOESN'T make.
> 
> I think a lot of -commercial- products do use the frauhofer codec.. 
Sure they do.  They pay for that code.  Then they pay extra for teh
technology patents.  Look at the licensing fees.  They double when you
use FhG's code.

LAME uses 0 FhG code, and it still has to pay.

Yes, these are normal patents, and this is how patents work.  But the
patent system is also fucked.  And the FhG patents are a good instance
of why.
> >You ahve to pay to stream the content you already created with a tool
> >you already paid for.
>
> I don't know.  How many times should I have to pay $6 to go across a
bridge
> along with the millions of other people that go over that same bridge every
> day?  That particular rate just went up from $3.50.  I guess $40 million 
> (being very conservative) a day just wasn't enough to keep that bridge
running!
This isn't analogous.  FhG here is charging for a result of the content
that you made.  It's like buying a toaster that also charges you for
every piece of toast you make.

Or, to do it the way FhG did, sell you a toaster for X dollars, and then
later charge you y dollars per slice after you bought it, because they
can.
> You may pick up on a common point.  Fraunhofer isn't the first or worst
at
> this game, from any angle.  If you use products free of revenue generation,
> in an application that itself is free of revenue, then you don't have
to
> pay.  If some part along the flow wants to generate revenue with their 
> product, then they have to pay.
This isn't true.  Only SOME of the time do you not have to pay.  The
rest of the time you do.  For instance, encoders are _never_ free.
> Take winamp for example.  Winamp has a non-free version.  
Since when?  Winamp was always donation ware, and I bleieve now it's
just free to use.  Where's a pay for version of winamp?
> To sell that 
> version, I'm sure they have to pay this new fee.  
The fee is outrageous, even for large companies, for encoders.  For
decoders, genereally you can do it for free, or for very little,
depending on your negotiating skills, mostly because the decoder patents
are very weak.
> However, if you buy it 
> and use it in a free environment, then you yourself don't have to 
> pay.  They want to get paid each time their technology is used to generate 
> income, and while that may be greedy, unless you're a subscriber to
some of
> the religious doctrines out there, it is not evil.
That's all well and good.  I agree here.  But, what if I recorded
winamp's audio output on tapes.  Do I owe them a royalty if I play the
tape for someone else?

This isn't a question of fraunhofer charging money for something they
should be.  They are charging you money to send bits from poitn a to
poitn b, if those bits are in a certain pattern.  There's no decoding or
encoding going on here.  Just data transfer.
> It would be a "wonderful" world if everyone that came up with
some sort of
> new technology or idea always gave it away for free, but that isn't the
> world we're in.
We're in a world were intellectual property law has gotten out of hand.
Copyrights no longer seem to expire, patents are overly general and
broud, and litigation is increasing.  Huge companies are getting bigger,
exerting more influence over government and our daily lives, etc.

The current state of affairs is probably not was what was envisioned
when the provisions for copyright and patent law were written into the
constitution.
> Pardon me for playing devils advocate, but IMHO there are a lot of better 
> things to get bent about, if you want to get bent over something.
Devil's advocate is fine.  I think intellectual proper in media is a
perfectly legimate thing to get bent on, and by no means am I only bent
on this one instance of Fraunhofer's greed.  I'm bent on it all.

I tell you, it's quite depressing.

jack.

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> I agree with that much of it, but that doesn't seem to me like such a
"bad"
> deal.  I applaud the vorbis effort, don't get me wrong, but I don't
think
> it's evil for Frauhofer/IIS to charge people who want to use their 
> technology if they're using it for profit.  It may be ugly and
unsavory,
> but it's nothing to get terribly upset over.  I think it'd be far
more
> outrageous if they did decide to charge those of us that just stream for 
> free, totally out of pocket.
So uh, you think it's worth more for mp3, than the actual music
involved?

Come on.

You think it would be nice if Netscape charged 2% of all website
royalties for HTML, etc?

I think it's fine that fraunhofer charges money for their code, but this
is different.

They charge you for the tools they provide.

You have to pay for tool makers to pay royalties for tools Fraunhofer
DOESN'T make.

You ahve to pay to stream the content you already created with a tool
you already paid for.

How many times do you think they should get paid?  it's not like they
wrote any of the streaming media servers.  It's not like any of the
content that's encoded is theirs.  And hell, they didn't even write most
of the mp3 code people are using.

They just happened to be the first to submit a patent application, even
though most of their ideas are aren't that notable.  (See their patent
on joint stereo, which is try both ways, see which is better...  come
one, any 5 year old has that logic already mastered).

jack.

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