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Episode: 590
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Title: HPR0590: QSK Episode 2: MP3 v. OGG
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Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr0590/hpr0590.mp3
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Transcribed: 2025-10-07 23:38:27
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---
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Welcome to Hacker Public Radio, the following presentation is a syndication of the QSK podcast
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used with kind permission of uswardmen. We are using this episode today because we do not
|
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have enough shows on our own. Please consider recording a show today.
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You may land me at Hacker Public Radio not on for more information.
|
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How will free change the world? Come find out at the Ohio Linux Fest 2010, Saturday, September
|
||||
11th and Sunday, September 12th, including a special early bird and medical tracks on Friday,
|
||||
the 10th. And of course, the ever popular OLFU is back. Attendance is a supporter for special
|
||||
collectors Ohio Linux Fest MT shirt and catered lunch or as a professional for the shirt, lunch
|
||||
and OLFU courses or simply attend as an enthusiast for free. Whether you're new to free software
|
||||
or a long time pro, register now at OhioLinux.org.
|
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This podcast is a proud member of the Fusion Podcast Network.
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Find us at Fusion Podcast Network dot com.
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Welcome to the Black Sparrow Media, the Internet Broadcast Network.
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All right, everybody. Thank you once again for stopping by the QSK Netcast and taking a listen
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to what I have to offer. Thankfully, I'm not going to have to talk entirely by myself this episode.
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We have the current world record holder for the most podcast attended in a one-year period,
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not claw to from the IRC. Thank you very much for stopping by.
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Thank you for having me.
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Not a problem. I know this is an issue you and I have discussed in the IRC chat several times.
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I know I said that when I set this up, there's going to be a point counterpoint kind of thing,
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but my intent here is not to try and convert you or to convert anyone else or anything like that,
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but sort of just to get the information out there. The particular topic we're speaking of tonight
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is the war that involves software patents and particularly about podcasting in general,
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where some podcasts will release in a variety of different formats and some
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podcasts like Clotus only come out in open source formats like Og or Speaks or something else.
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The basic title of this QSK Netcast is MP3 V-OG to put it in the kind of legal light.
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Before I start talking about all the notes that I've taken here,
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let me go ahead and get your impression of the battle itself and why you only release your
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podcasts and I guess I'll call it an August in non proprietary formats. Our patent free formats
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will go with for this topic of discussion. One of the big reasons that I release
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only in Og is because I really want to promote that as a format and I don't think that Og is going
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to become a viable format if no one uses it, so I like to use it. The other reason I do it
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is because I've just had, I'm a multi-media artist or whatever, so I've gone through way too many
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day-long headaches over different codecs that other proprietary systems don't want to
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deal away or you have some problem. I want there to be open formats and since MP3 and the
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impact in general isn't going in that direction at all, I like to support the ones that are
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going in that direction or are already there. That is a well-made point and I understand
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perfectly there's certainly something to be said for that but the implication there in
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is that Og is an unused format and I'm not sure that's necessarily the case. I see it out there
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in many different forms and when I listen to podcasts, particularly those dealing with open
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source which kind of makes sense. They talk about Og Vorbis and they talk about especially lately
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Og Fiora which is the video codec that uses the Og container quite a bit, so it's not like it's
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unheard of at this point but you think it still needs promotion beyond a small level, I take it.
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Yeah, I think that the more people adopting it, the more viable a format it is. The only reason
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MP3 is so popular is because it is ubiquitous. Well, it's true. It is a rather ubiquitous format
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and what is your impression of MP3 as a format and what do you know of the patent issues that surround
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it? My impression is that it's really, it's fine. It's great. I mean, I don't have a problem with
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MP3. I mean, I do notice sometimes the compression is a little bit drastic but I mean, that's not the,
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I don't think that's the codex fault. I think that's the compressor's fault. So,
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what do I know about the patent issues? I'm not a lawyer. I don't understand this stuff.
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I do know that, technically speaking, if you're going to make money off of it, I think you
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are supposed to pay a license and that's about all I really need to go for sure, I think.
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Okay, that's fair. And I think when it comes to legal use, it's pretty safe bet to say that
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almost nobody knows anything about the issues unless you are, in fact, a lawyer.
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And a patent lawyer at that. I mean, you have to be very specialized, I think, to understand
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this stuff. Very true. So, let me go ahead and run down what I have come across as far as software
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patents in general and then we'll get into the meat of the matter as regards AGV MP3.
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From what I understand in doing some quick research before the podcast, software patents are
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only valid in countries where patenting of software is enforceable and those countries are not
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that many as it turns out. The unfortunate thing is that the United States happens to be one of those
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countries. Other major players in the software patents are Japan, China, and India, all of which
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have had lawsuits which prove that patents on software can be enforced. There are software patents
|
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in places like the European Union and the United Kingdom, however, because of the way the laws
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on patents are written and because of the way the jurisdiction has come down on some of the
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legislation on software patents, they have pretty much proven that software patents in those places
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are unenforceable. Therefore, even though patents exist, they're really irrelevant. And of course,
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everywhere else patent issues are not issues. There simply just aren't patents. I mean, there are
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patents just not on software. As far as software patents are concerned, MP3 is a patent-encumbered
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format. Now, the reason it's patent-encumbered is because it was developed quite a while ago
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back in 1991 originally. It was released as a specification in 1993. It was developed by a group
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called the Moving Picture Experts Group, which is what MP3 stands for MPG. MP3 specifically
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refers to MP1, Audio Layer 3, or MP2, Audio Layer 3. And some of the people involved in developing
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MP2, Audio Layer 3 are folks from the Fraunhofer Society, the University of Hanover in Germany,
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AT&T Bell Labs, which should send up red flags to anybody at this point.
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Thomas Brandt, the CCETT, and others. And right now, there are only two entities who are claiming
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patent on MP3 and by claiming patent, I mean that there are two entities who are requesting
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payment royalties for use of the patents. And those two entities are the Fraunhofer Society
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and Thompson Multimedia. If you go to, there's a website out there called MP3licensing.com
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and they talk about all of the royalties that are associated with encoding in the MP3 format,
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and they list all of the patents that they claim on the MP3s. And I'm going to take a quick look
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at the list of patents here, and they are extensive. I'm not sure exactly how many patents
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there are here, but if you look at the list, it's a long one. Now, there's some interesting
|
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things about the way these patents work, specifically about MP3. One of the ways they work is that
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as far as a free and open source product decoding patent or decoding content in MP3,
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there is no royalty associated with that. And I was curious if you were aware of that.
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I assumed that that's the case because you can encode two MP3 using a lot of different software,
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so I'm not surprised to hear that. Well, depending on the software that you encode
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in MP3 in, the royalties may or may not have been paid to Thompson or Fraunhofer,
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depending on whether those pieces of software abide by the patent law.
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I was going to say like lame. Although lame, I guess it's an MP3 encoder, so that doesn't count.
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Well, I think there may be some debate about that.
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Yeah, and I didn't bring up lame because that was a can of worms. I didn't really want to get
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into on a short cast like this one. Sorry. No, that's not a problem. But you've brought it up,
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so great. But here's the interesting thing. If you look at MP3 licensing.com,
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and I'm going to have this link in the show notes, but there's a link. And it talks about
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what you and I do, which is network broadcasting, basically. It also involves streaming audio,
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regular music distribution, CDs, DVDs, things like that, and traditional broadcasting,
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on air, on demand, so on, so forth. And then at the bottom, there is some legalese that says
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no license is needed for private, non-commercial activities, not generating revenue, or other
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consideration of any kind, or for entities with associated annual gross revenue,
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less than $100,000 to US. Now, the way I read that, and I admit that my legalese is not that good,
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is that unless you make more than $100,000 doing something that involves a commercial
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transaction involving MP1 and MP2 audio layer 3, or you generate revenue in some other way
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that uses MPG, you are not required to pay royalties for doing that. So a free podcast,
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like this one, or yours, is not required to pay royalties on the patentable MP3 format.
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Very nice, then I still won't use it. And as I said originally, my point is not to get you to use it.
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I have no problem with taking a moral stand about an issue that you believe in.
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I just want to make it clear to people who use MP3, or who release a podcast in MP3,
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that unless they're doing it commercially for profit, you don't have to worry about the patent,
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you don't have to worry about patent infringement. It doesn't apply.
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Let me ask you really far out questions that I almost don't even want to ask, but I think it's worth
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those things. What if for some reason I started releasing an MP3, and then I got really,
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really famous, and I turn this around and turn it into a million dollar business. Then I'd have
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to start paying Addons. Is that how it works? My understanding, if that, the revenue is directly
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related to your release of information encoded as MP3, then yes, you would be required to pay
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the broadcast licensing royalty associated with the patents. Okay. Now, as I said, I'm not a lawyer.
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My legalese is bad to horrible at best, and that's just the way I read it.
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Okay. But it's pretty clear to me that if you're doing it for free, if you're doing anything for
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free and use MP3, you don't have to worry about it. And one of the things they specifically
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reference in here is ripping DVDs. If you rip your DVDs to MP3, that is perfectly acceptable.
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Wow. Yep, it's pretty neat, huh? That is really cool. That's very interesting.
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I will read that little bit just so people can make their own determination of that.
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But let's see, where did I see that exactly? It was in the thing I read before I skipped over the
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little parenthetical bit, which says, no licenses needed for private, non-commercial activities.
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For example, home entertainment, receiving broadcasts, and creating a personal music library.
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That is considered royalty free. And that's on front hoppers and Thompson's own website,
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MP3licencing.com. They're the ones who put this page out. So if you have an issue with that,
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I suggest you point them to their own literature. So like I said, I have no intention of
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trying to convert you to using an MP3 format. And I myself, even though I could, with a reasonable
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expectation of guilt freedom, I could release this podcast using MP3 since I'm not getting money
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forward. I'm not doing it commercially and understand that I could use that codec royalty free. However,
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I feel the same obligation that you do to try and release in the AUG format or the AUG Vorbus
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audio format specifically in order to promote the open source way of doing things.
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Well, I think especially for your intended audience and certainly for my little audience,
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I think a lot of people actually are fine with the AUG format because you can just,
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I mean like literally I'll have a system sometimes that I've installed
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GNU Linux onto. And by default, it will play AUG and it will not play in MP3.
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So it's just kind of almost, I think my audience is fine with that, really.
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Yeah, I think what you brought up originally is the real problem with the AUG Vorbus audio format.
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And that's that it has a lack of ubiquity. The problem is, you know, the MP3 format was
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perfected sometime in 1992. It's not that there isn't development, there still is, but the original
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concept and the original outlay of MP3 happened back in 1992. It was standardized in 1993.
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And it gained a very deep foothold. So now lots of companies use it. It's a well-known format.
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It's out there everywhere. And the royalties, well, you know, I think any royalty is kind of
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ridiculous when it comes to this kind of thing. They're not terribly steep for somebody who's
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putting out a game or creating software or something like that. Somebody who has some decent
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revenue paying the MP3 royalties is not going to break them. So they probably are not
|
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blocking too bad at it. The problem seems to me that when you have a format like AUG Vorbus,
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which you can release side by side with it, or create your devices or royalty and patent-free to
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play these formats also. Why don't they? I'm not sure I understand why, you know, it's sort of left
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by the wayside when it doesn't cost a thing. I imagine it's just because they don't know,
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or they don't think about it. There's not a big demand for AUG Vorbus yet. And so it's just
|
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that they don't consider doing that. I mean, no one would have done it before. I mean, like MP3
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is not the format that Apple use now. They, I mean, they support it, but I mean, they release
|
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in an impact for audio format. And I don't know that a lot of players were playing
|
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impact for until they started doing that. You know, it's just what people expect to have
|
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their players play. Well, that's true. And if you're talking about, are you talking about AAC or
|
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H.264? No, it's the AAC one that they use. Right, yeah. See the AAC format and see Microsoft
|
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did the same thing that Apple did. They both wanted to avoid the problems, if you will, with MP3.
|
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So Apple went ahead and developed AAC, which is a patent-free format that they could use. And
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Microsoft developed WMV or WMA. Again, a royalty and patent-free codec that they could use,
|
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so they could avoid problems with MP3. Now, those get into other problems with DRM,
|
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which we're definitely not going to touch on here. But they are patent-free. Again, H.264,
|
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which is another compression audio compression technique is patent-encumbered. And another thing
|
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we're not going to talk about. But I would like to get out a little information about the
|
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AAC format a little bit. The AAC format was started by Chris Montgomery back in 1994,
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and not actually all that long after MP3 came out, probably because of MP3. He probably said,
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well, look at all these patents surrounding MP3. I'm going to come out with something that is patent-free.
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So he got together the company originally ZIF offers, and which has now
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modified into ZIF.org, which does a lot of stuff involving the AAC format, and Vorbis and
|
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and a lot of other things, which can be encapsulated inside of AAC, including stuff like Speaks,
|
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which is a highly compressible speech codec. They also do FLAQ. A lot of people, I think,
|
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are becoming familiar with the FLAQ format because it's an AUG container, but it's a lossless format,
|
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which means it has the full dynamic range. Of course, it means larger files, but you have much
|
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better audio quality. And then, of course, there's AUG PCM out there as well, which is the equivalent
|
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of a WAVE file, but it's encapsulated inside of AUG instead of the WAVE container. And interestingly,
|
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one of the things I found out about PCM, or the WAVE format, is that it was originally created in
|
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1937. Yeah, totally predates computers and all that stuff, but it's basically the standard audio
|
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format that most computers use. It's called Pulse Code Modulation. It's what all audio CDs are
|
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encoded in. Standard WAVE playback, standard linear audio playback on your computers and everything,
|
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all done in Pulse Code Modulation, forms the basis for WAVE, and now can be encapsulated in AUG.
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So that's pretty cool. It's amazing what you can find out when you look on the internet for stuff.
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It is. Another thing that I found out is that, and I actually looked this up before, but I wanted
|
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to confirm it for myself, that depending on which patents you consider when talking about the
|
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MP3 format, and which patents you don't consider, it is expected that the MP3 format will be
|
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unencumbered by patents sometime between the years 2012 and 2017. So it is my understanding that
|
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as early as 2012 or as late as 2017, but no later, MP3 will be completely open and free of patents.
|
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Unless they change something, right? I mean, because in theory, all kinds of stuff was supposed to be,
|
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for instance, copyright free, but it keeps getting pushed back.
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It's, yeah, patent law is one of those weird things, and again, not a lawyer throwing my hands up,
|
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making the, you know, waving the white flag. And yeah, there's no saying that they might do something
|
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called like submarine patents, or I slip something in where they make, I guess there's some precedent
|
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for making minor changes to a certain codec, and then reestablishing a patent that while different
|
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is close enough to the original, that you still can't do whatever it is you couldn't do before.
|
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You know, something like that happens, then, you know, who knows what's going to go on.
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But honestly, by 2017, if AUG hasn't taken a foothold enough to make MP3 patent free,
|
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then I think there's a different problem. My feeling is that if like people like you and me
|
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are pushing the AUG format, and it's not just you and me, of course, there are lots of people who are
|
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doing it. If that push doesn't do something to the major players in the game, the Microsofts,
|
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the Googles, and those who use audio codecs more than any of the rest of us,
|
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can't see that having a patent-encumbered audio codec is ridiculous at that point because there's
|
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at least one, and probably lots more by the time 2017 rolls around, then why would anyone bother
|
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trying to repatent MP3 at that point? I mean, wouldn't it be time to give up, don't you think?
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I would hope so. I don't know. I think that these companies really like to have ownership over
|
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things. They really like that. Well, I guess that's true, but I mean, how do you explain companies
|
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like Microsoft and Apple, then releasing free formats like AAC and WMA? I guess WMA is
|
||||
technically a free format, but everything that gets released in it is DRM encoded.
|
||||
Lots of companies and big 800-pound guerrilla-type companies are releasing free things, particularly
|
||||
Google. There's lots of talk about the VP8 video codec and HTML5 for wiping out flash and all
|
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of these things. I would say the trend is away from patentable things like MP3, but then there's
|
||||
also scope. I don't know. I have to say to really warm too much of an opinion on these things,
|
||||
because I know that I live in my little free software bubble, and to me, everything's looking
|
||||
bright and sunny and everyone's seeing how great free software is, but I don't know if that's
|
||||
necessarily true all this time. Yeah, and it probably isn't. There's probably way more to the
|
||||
story that I can even begin to understand and something will happen. And then, you know, by 2015,
|
||||
all audio codecs will be patent-encumbered and royalty-required, and the whole world will just go
|
||||
straight down the shitter and, you know, who knows. But anyway, a few more bits of information
|
||||
about the Aug format. Every site that I looked up and talked about Aug format said it's allegedly
|
||||
patent-free, which means that ZIF.org and the developers claim that it's patent-free, but who knows,
|
||||
you know, there are the scotives. You might pop up someday and say, you know, these 36 lines of
|
||||
code are stolen directly from the Linux kernel or whatever, and, you know, they may be some patent
|
||||
associated with it. You never can tell how these things are going to go. Right, right. I guess the
|
||||
codec itself and the applications that use it are under the BSD license. Now, as we talk about
|
||||
open source a lot, we reference the GPL. But the GPL is only one of literally dozens or more
|
||||
open source licenses. There's the Apache license. There's, you know, there's all kinds of licenses.
|
||||
Interestingly, the BSD license, to my mind, is one of the most open licenses there is.
|
||||
There are a lot of restrictions in the GPL. There are basically no restrictions in the BSD license.
|
||||
I'm going to publish a copy of the BSD license in the show notes because it's so short, sweet,
|
||||
and to the point. But it basically says, as long as you include, you know, the source code for
|
||||
whatever it is you're doing, and you don't modify the copyright notice, like the year and copyright
|
||||
holder in the associated documentation, you can take the code and do any damn thing you like with it.
|
||||
Yeah. And you walk away and never talk to the developer again.
|
||||
Right. Exactly. I mean, this is the most free license that I'm aware of. Basically,
|
||||
says you can take this code, do anything you like, as long as you say where you got it from.
|
||||
Yeah. It's almost next to public domain. I mean, it's like, it's back. It's just like here,
|
||||
have it. Yeah. I mean, I've actually released some scripts that I've written up under the BSD
|
||||
license just because it's like, okay, I wrote this 37 line script that does this one specific
|
||||
thing. And you know, if somebody else wants to use this thing, hey, go for it. I mean, I don't see
|
||||
point of encountering it with a GPL. It's like, just take the code, do whatever the hell you want with it.
|
||||
Yeah. Well, some of the slack though that I've done and that are done for slackware,
|
||||
they tell you don't license this as GPL because you have to include the whole GPL.
|
||||
And sometimes the GPL text would be longer than your black build script, you know, so it just
|
||||
doesn't literally doesn't pay in terms of how many bytes you're downloaded to actually license
|
||||
this GPL. Right. Exactly. So anyway, if you're interested in that, go ahead and check out the show
|
||||
notes and look at the text of the BSD license for anybody who's interested in legal issues that
|
||||
might be something, you know, somewhat amusing. There's a couple of their notes I had written
|
||||
down here about this issue. They're probably a little out of order, but I should get them in
|
||||
anyway. According to my research, and as far as the United States are concerned, there are over
|
||||
150,000 applicable software patents. Oh, my God. So how anyone can navigate this
|
||||
minefield of patents is beyond me at this point. There are a couple of interesting phenomena
|
||||
that exist regarding patents. The first one is royalty-free patents, which we've already talked
|
||||
about. There are some software out there like the AAC format and some other stuff that have patents
|
||||
associated with them, but they are royalty-free. So essentially, it doesn't matter to the end user
|
||||
that they're patented because it doesn't require any money outlay to use them. They're just the
|
||||
original creators trying to retain their patent rights, but they're not enforcing monetary gain,
|
||||
which is, you know, that's an okay thing. I guess you have to take a particular stand on patents
|
||||
at that point to decide whether you want to use those technologies or not. You know, if a software
|
||||
is patentable, but it doesn't cost you anything to use it, is that's still okay. So let me ask you,
|
||||
is that still okay? Oh, man, you're way over my head at this point. I mean patents, I really don't
|
||||
understand. I don't know anything about them. I would probably... Well, let me put it this way.
|
||||
I'll bring it down for you. It's obviously not okay for you in terms of MP3. I mean, MP3 for
|
||||
non-commercial use is patented, but not... It has no royalties associated with it. And for you,
|
||||
that's not okay. But if it were something else that were similarly patented, but not royalty
|
||||
and comfort, would that be okay for you? I mean, it doesn't just depend on what it is or what?
|
||||
No, I think I probably would try to avoid whatever that was. I mean, I know that AAC has certain
|
||||
restrictions on whether you can develop it and stuff like that. I don't know if that's the patents
|
||||
that you're talking about or not. But I mean, I certainly don't release my August cast in AAC,
|
||||
and that's really one of the reasons, because it's not a completely open, free software
|
||||
codex. So, yeah, I guess it wouldn't be okay with me. Okay, so you're...
|
||||
Well, I reserve it right, so I completely contradict myself at a later time.
|
||||
Well, you may be unwittingly contradicting yourself if only because you just don't happen to know
|
||||
that a particular piece of something that you're using has a patent associated with it. And simply
|
||||
by virtue of the fact that it doesn't cost you any money to use it, whether or not there's a patent
|
||||
may be the furthest thing from your mind. And in a lot of cases, that may be something that
|
||||
trips people up, because those kinds of things can turn around in the future. It's like you're
|
||||
using something that's got a patent on it, but no one's been trying to enforce anything about it,
|
||||
but then all of a sudden they decide, ah, well, you know, we've got all these people hooked on
|
||||
X technology, and now X technology is going to cost everybody a thousand dollars to use.
|
||||
Well, that's, you know, go ahead. No, I was just agreeing with you. I mean, I think that's one
|
||||
of the latent fears that I have over all this stuff is that at some point I'm going to have,
|
||||
you know, all this data amassed in some format or something or dependent upon some technology
|
||||
and someone's going to come up and say, oh, we own that, by the way.
|
||||
Yeah, I think your stance is probably the best stance. It's kind of a purist stance,
|
||||
but it makes the most sense where ultimately if you're going to deal with patents,
|
||||
ultimately you shouldn't deal with patents, basically, because that that kind of thing can happen,
|
||||
because somebody has an ownership and explicit ownership of the piece of technology,
|
||||
if they happen to decide to want to enforce it, they can certainly do so at any time. So
|
||||
anybody who releases something that is ostensibly patent free, you never have to worry about that.
|
||||
Yeah, exactly.
|
||||
Okay, well, that makes a lot of sense, and then there's one last thing I wanted to just throw out
|
||||
there for people who might be interested in the legal ease of all of this.
|
||||
And that's the concept of the patent trolls. This is a few things. This is something I've heard,
|
||||
you know, from a few people and at various conferences and so on. The idea of a patent troll
|
||||
is basically companies that exist to do nothing but buy or create patents on technologies
|
||||
specifically for financial gain, so that at some point in the future when somebody discovers
|
||||
some technology that happens to infringe on one of their patents, they can
|
||||
they exist to basically sue that entity and recover revenue for the patents that they own.
|
||||
Got an evil. That is just ridiculous.
|
||||
Yeah, it is ridiculous. And interestingly enough, there's a company called Intellectual Ventures,
|
||||
which is one of these patent trolls. They do nothing except to, as I understand it, they do nothing
|
||||
but exist to buy and create patents on software. And they are not owned by, but funded by
|
||||
companies like Apple, Microsoft, and Google. Now, if I'm wrong about that, someone had best
|
||||
tell me because that's the way I've seen it written on the on the intertubes, you know.
|
||||
There's another company that's an independent company that does the same thing. They're called
|
||||
Acacia Technologies. Interestingly, there's another company out there called the Open Innovation
|
||||
Network. Are you familiar with them? I certainly am. Okay, well, the Open Innovation Network,
|
||||
as I understand it, is an anti-patent troll troll. Right, yeah. They do exactly what the patent
|
||||
trolls do. However, they do it with the idea that whatever patents they come across or whatever
|
||||
patents they obtain, whether they create them or buy them from somebody who owns them,
|
||||
their purpose is to open source them, open source those patents to basically remove those patent
|
||||
restrictions once they are in control of them. It's interestingly, it's a white hat way of doing
|
||||
exactly what the opposition does. Yeah, yeah, I really like that.
|
||||
I'm not sure how successful they're being, although they're still out there, and I know they're
|
||||
at just about every conference I've been to lately, and they talk about what they do a lot.
|
||||
So I kind of gather they're having some success. I don't know what patents they've acquired,
|
||||
but you're certainly welcome to go out and check out the Open Innovation Network and see what patents
|
||||
they've acquired. But basically, if they own a patent, it's a patent that you as an end user
|
||||
need not worry about because that's what their purpose is. They're trying to get the patents away
|
||||
from the black hat guys and put them out there so that we need not worry about software patents.
|
||||
Oh, and by the way, regardless of independent patents, if software patent issues come up,
|
||||
these things come up for a vote in your particular part of the world, whatever it is, vote them down.
|
||||
That's all I have to say. I mean, just, if in some way you can affect software patenting,
|
||||
the issue of software patents by saying no to it, please do so.
|
||||
I don't know what relationship Red Hat has with the Open Innovation Network, but I know that
|
||||
certainly Red Hat does, anytime they get a patent or create something or whatever,
|
||||
they do patent it and then they do a similar thing as Open Innovation Network. They hold onto
|
||||
that patent basically saying we're not going to ever enforce it or anything like that, but
|
||||
we have it and we're not going to let the bad guys have that patent.
|
||||
Well, that's a great thing to hear. I appreciate them for that. I know they do a lot of work in
|
||||
Open Source in general, and if anybody's been listening to podcasts recently and heard about
|
||||
the GNOME survey, there's been some interesting statistics come out about Red Hat and canonical
|
||||
and Open Source development. So you might want to check that out. I don't want to give away any
|
||||
spoilers here, but props to Red Hat for putting out patents or obtaining patents and keeping them
|
||||
away from the end user. We need more companies like that.
|
||||
Yeah, yeah. Okay, so I think I've gone through my whole list here and I think I've done a lot
|
||||
more talking than you have, so I kind of apologize for that. I probably didn't let you have your
|
||||
piece, but... No, no, no, not at all. It sounds like you did a lot of research. I found it very,
|
||||
very educational and very thought-provoking, so I actually liked it. All right, well, I appreciate
|
||||
as far as the debate goes, or as far as patents, non-patents, MP3, or auger, any of those other
|
||||
things go, do you have anything you'd like to conclude with? And if not, go ahead and give us,
|
||||
you know, any information about yourself and your podcast and so on that you'd like to pimp.
|
||||
Okay, yeah, so I haven't really had anything to say, like closing your marks. Like I said,
|
||||
I found your research very interesting and the talk very thought-provoking, and I hope a
|
||||
lot of the listeners did too. And it's funny how when you're not using free software, you really
|
||||
don't even ever think about this sort of thing. It's not until you delve into like the free stuff
|
||||
that you suddenly have to start thinking about this weird legal stuff, or you start to do anyway.
|
||||
So anyway, I can be found at thebadapples.info. That's where my auger cast is, and I release an
|
||||
aug and speaks, so check it out. All right, well, thank you very much,
|
||||
Claudio, for being here, and for being the world's most podcasted individual.
|
||||
And thank you to everybody for listening to the QSK Netcast Volume 2. I do appreciate everyone
|
||||
who tuned in. Please go ahead and let everyone know about us if you can. Our website is QSK
|
||||
net, our QSKcast.info. Lots of information over there. We happen to be a member of the augcast
|
||||
planet site, augcastplanet.org. Remember that network? We're a member of the BlackSparrow Media
|
||||
Network at blacksparrowmedia.com and also the Fusion Podcast Network. That's fusionpodcastnetwork.com
|
||||
slash WordPress, and that's fusion with a Z. So we're trying to get the word out there.
|
||||
Thanks everybody. If you have some commentary that you'd like to send me about the MP3 versus
|
||||
auger patent issues, go ahead and call our number at 417-200-4811. Leave a message there,
|
||||
or just send a message to info at qskcast.info. Thanks very much for listening. Thanks very
|
||||
much, Clotty, for stopping by and we'll catch you all next time.
|
||||
Thank you for listening to Hack with Public Radio.
|
||||
HPR is sponsored by tarrow.net so head on over to C-A-R-O-DOT-N-E-T for all of us in need.
|
||||
Reference in New Issue
Block a user