quote:
Originally posted by jaknine:
Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't the internal A5 support for mp3s rely on it's own decoding scheme? Cameron's dll calls on Windows built in decoder.

What that means is that using Cameron's dll, you wouldn't have to pay mp3 licensing fees, as the fee has already been paid by Microsoft. In other words, you're just calling on a function that's built in to Windows.

Conversely (assuming the A5 decoding calls on its own functions), a fee would have to be paid for licensing mp3 usage when using the built in A5 decoding ability without Cameron's dll.

Again, correct me if I'm wrong about how A5 supports mp3s.

Jak
When in doubt, go to the source: http://www.mp3licensing.com/

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

I'm no lawyer, but I read it as Thomson claims to own the patent on key parts of any content encoded with mp3 technology (i.e. the sound file itself). This is really hard to explain in words, just because you encode something in mp3 (or one of the many other formats that Thomson claims to own) doesn't mean that they own the original sound but they do own the encoded content.

The bottom line is, if you distribute mp3 files (by themselves or with a product) and make money off of it, Thomson wants their due. And it doesn't matter if you use a licensed decoder or not.

BTW: Internal A5 support of mp3's uses Windows Media Player's decoder. But you still have to pay for your mp3s.

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