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[Docker]

I am writing educational software using Flash. As part of the material we are recording lots of speeches etc. We own full copyright on all this material and recordings. I was planning on converting all the speech to MP3 files, and then using Flash to play them at run-time from the CD/network/website. However, I have learnt that simply distributing MP3 files in a commercial product requires a licence. Flash is encouraging me to do this by making MP3 the only format that I can use for dynamic reading of audio files BUT it isn't telling me that if I use this feature without paying us$2,500 to Thomson per title I am in trouble. Have I got the wrong end of the stick, is this an expense that everyone else just figures as part of the cost or is this licence widely ignored?

[enemem]

is that really true though? I thought you would have to pay for the actual decoder. The decoder in this case is the Flash player, so Macromedia needs to pay in order to use mp3 technology in their plugins.

Wouldn't that be the correct interpretation?

(you can pay me 10% of the saved royalties as a thank you )

- n.

[enemem]

actually, my reply was probably a bit hasty. here's a url:

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

So it would seem that you are right, since the licensing covers broadcasting/distribution mp3 encoded material for commercial gain.

This really is pretty drastic. It would be interesting to hear Macromedia's stance on this (Mike Chambers, are you around?) and whether it applies to Flash content.

Anybody have any more info on this?

- n.
[Edited by enemem on 09-13-2002 at 11:04 AM]

[enemem]

right, quick update:

In case your business does not involve the manufacture of relevant products, but importation or purchase of such products from a third party manufacturer, you are advised to check whether the manufacturer is duly licensed by us, as the trade in unlicensed products may expose your company to liability for patent infringement. Accordingly, you are advised to obtain licensed products only.

and

However, no license is needed for private, non-commercial activities (e.g., home-entertainment, receiving broadcasts and creating a personal music library), not generating revenue or other consideration of any kind or for entities with an annual gross revenue less than US$ 100 000.00

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

So, to summarise: You don't have to obtain a license for the encoding/decoding process, since you aren't manufacturing those products, simply using them. However you do need to obtain a license if you are using mp3 encoded files commercially, unless your companies annual gross revenue is below US$ 100,000. (but check the website, I've just interpreted what I read there)

So all in all, you might be ok

- n.

[Enterfaze]

I don't pay Adobe for distributing PDF files or Microsoft for distributing DOC files.

Interestingly, as I recall CompuServe did at one point (in the early days of the Internet) try to charge royalties on the use of the GIF file format. Of course, this was an absolute failure. Because any graphic program could produce GIF, it was impossible to enforce.

In the same way, you can encode an MP3 without even touching a Thompson product. I work extensively with MP3 and had never HEARD of Thompson until this thread. I doubt they expect to see any royalties from us anytime soon.

[Docker]

Thanks for the comments. I had been looking at the same site as you enemem, but since our company does generate more than us$100,000 then I had figured that I am supposed to pay the licence. It is a blow to learn that a format that I had assumed was kind of 'open' like MP3 and was widely adopted can force you to pay distribution AS WELL as creation fees. We use CoolEdit sound software to turn our .wav files into .mp3 (and had to pay a special fee to buy this component - and the company that makes CoolEdit pay Thomson a fee to allow the encoding). Then we use Flash where Macromedia have paid Thomson a fee for the decoding. Yet simply putting the .mp3 files on CD or website renders us liable. I imagine that Enterfaze speaks for a lot of us by basically saying "the only way that Thomson will get royalties is to start suing us" - although most of us will be doing it through innocent ignorance.

[Docker]

Another thought - if I import a .wav file into Flash and publish it as a .swf, then as far as I understand, the audio has been compressed into .mp3. If I then distribute the .swf am I technically distributing an mp3 file?

[Enterfaze]

Originally posted by Docker
I imagine that Enterfaze speaks for a lot of us by basically saying "the only way that Thomson will get royalties is to start suing us"

What I AM saying is that there's no way we can be held to this, and not because they haven't sued us yet. It's because we can't pay anything we don't know we're supposed to pay. I mean, until they start billing me or sending notices, I don't see how I can be expected to know who they are. Example: I buy Windows XP, use its built-in features to rip some audio that I have purchased from my sound subcontractor on CD into MP3, and distribute the MP3 file.

When I installed Windows XP, it did not come with a warning that I needed to pay Thompson for any encoded MP3 file I distribute. Nor did such a warning come with any of the sound programs which I have legally purchased.

Until that happens, it's like me telling you "oh yeah, by the way, I charge $250,000 every time you say my name, because it's a trademark of my company. So pay up, Docker!"

[enemem]

Enterfaze - I guess you are right in a way, although of course we are now aware of the licensing requirements It turns out that this change was actually brought about in September 1998, four years ago! They held the patent all along but never enforced it. Quite interesting article. So in a way, Docker, Macromedia have been pushing this system for the last 4 years without offering any alternative

Finally, if you use an swf with mp3 encoded audio, then you would be liable to pay the licensing fees. After all, the actual mp3 technology is covered by that, not the way you distribute the end-result.

I haven't been able to find any kind of information on court cases but there is quite a bit of information available on who has licensed the technology (Nullsoft for example).

Of course you can't really tell us what you decide to do in the end but good luck with it anyway

- n.

[MikeChambers]

i cant comment on the mp3 licensing stuff (since it is not macromedia's license).

however, if there was another format that you could use with flash, what format would you prefer?

has anyone checked out Ogg Vorbis?

mike chambers

mesh@macromedia.com

[canuckster]

Just a thought:

If I import a WAV into Flash, then compress it to MP3 format for exporting to the SWF, am I, in fact, distributing an MP3?

I would submit that the only thing I am distributing is a SWF, and hence not in violation of anything. The only way to obtain the resulting MP3 would be for someone to extract it from the SWF with third-party software. It should be easy enough to include disclaimers of the "do not decompile or reverse engineer" variety with distributed SWFs, so wouldn't any ensuing licensing infringement be on the end user's (ie the person who extracted the MP3 from the SWF) part?

[theblue1]

That's not MY understanding. (And this seems consistent with my interpretation of the barebones information on Thomson's English language site):

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

I don't think they're charging for use of the format, per se. They're charging for inclusion of either their mp3 or mp3PRO codecs (or, as I understand it, any alternative mp3 encoder/decoder) in PC applications, hardware products, chips, games, and in multimedia servers. At least as I interpret it.

In other words -- any commercial application that encodes or decodes into/out of mp3 format would have to pay. So MusicMatch, Macromedia, WinAmp, etc, have to pay -- but MS, whose WMP only plays back mp3s, only has to pay the $.75/unit or, certainly, the $50-60K one time fee. As I understand it, MS balked at having to pay $2.50-5.00 a unit [with no alternative one time fee -- that was key] for the encoder -- since they would have then had to charge for WMP -- and the license fee pay-out would have amounted to about 10% of the selling price of Windows to system integrators -- obviously an untenable per-unit cost.

This discussion forum is the first and only place I've seen the interpretation of their royalty system in the posts above. Which is not to say that I can't be wrong in my interpretation -- but I'd be somewhat surprised in this case.



[Edited by theblue1 on 09-17-2002 at 11:36 PM]

[hp3]

I think this last post is more to the essence of the mp3 liscence.

Actually the issue is really about the encoder. The mpeg spec lays out the decoder, which I believe is open and free.

The encoder is the thing that Thompson/Frauhuafer wants to make money from.

With that said, what happens if I use LAME (Lam aint no mp3 encoder) to encode a file ending with .mp3 extension. The LAME encoder is an open source alternative to the Frh encoder. Frh and Thompson have as yet to challenge its existance. The LAME web site does state that you may have to pay a license to Thompson to use LAME in a commercial application.

Several audio editing software companies are getting around this whole issue by supporting LAME but not actually distributing it. So with Bias Peak, for example, you get the sofware which supports the LAME encoder but you download it separately and "install" it yourself.

This way Bias pays no license to distribute a commercial application that essentially encodes mp3.

[Docker]

Thomson are trying to make money in two ways (and let's not knock them for trying). Firstly through the codecs, so any software developer (such as Macromedia) who includes the ability to play an MP3 file in their application has to pay a fee. Secondly, they also charge you for a license if you simply distribute or stream MP3 files.
This is from the Thomson website:

Do I need a license to use mp3/mp3PRO in games?
Yes. Games using mp3/mp3PRO encoded content are licensed on a per-title basis.

However, No license fees are due if less than 5 000 copies of a particular game title are distributed.

So I think hp3 and theblue are missing this distribution side of things.

In reply to Mike - the Ogg Vorbis system would seem like a very good one for Macromedia to support thus giving us the choice of patented or open formats for compressed sound.

[gioclone]

I believe that Ogg Vorbis would be a great codec to be included on FLASH. As far as policing the MP3 developers, that could be a extremely might job to try to accomplish, but I would rather sleep better at night knowing that I am using technology that I dont have to be forking out money everytime i sneeze.

[enemem]

It is very clearly stated that using the mp3/mp3Pro format for distribution also requires a licence: Thomson page

From what I've read they've only really enforced the encoder licensing, although big players like mp3.com have taken out distribution licenses.

---
Ogg
Anyway, Mike, Ogg would seem like a great idea to include! I was going to mention that too.

I haven't used it personally but I've heard good things about it. + It seems they have fixed initial low-bitrate quality problems in the latest version (which would be important for Flash).

- n.

[Finchbirds]

I really don't understand all the fuss here. Thompsons is just asking to get paid for the use of the technology they developed if you are using it for commercial purposes only. That seems more then fair.

As a buisness you are responsible to know what licenses are required for anything you do. So don't pretend you don't have to pay a fee, just because you didn't have a warning pop up in your face when you used someone copyrighted technology.

You should simply wiegh the benefits of using this technology vs. the cost of the license. If the streaming media content will help you make more then $2000, (or $3000 in the case of mp3Pro) then use it and pay the fee. If not maybe you need to decide how important that element of your .swf is and if it is worth it or not.

Easy for me to say, as I am still just a student and don't know when my future company will start make $100K plus. But when it does I will pay the fees required just as I will expect other to pay me for my work and any beakthroughs I might develope.

[enemem]

Finchbirds,

you are correct of course - the fuss was more that the only audio format with decent compression that you can use with Flash is mp3, so you don't really have much choice. If you have to use audio (like in Docker's case) and mp3 is too expensive, then you would be forced to abandon Flash.

Perhaps more importantly I don't think anybody was really aware of these licensing requirements (me included), since mp3 is such a commonly used format, so shock was part of the reaction

- n.

[theblue1]

Do I need a license to use mp3/mp3PRO in games?
Yes. Games using mp3/mp3PRO encoded content are licensed on a per-title basis.

However, No license fees are due if less than 5 000 copies of a particular game title are distributed.

Docker, I did, indeed, miss this on their site. And it does seem to indicate they think they can extend their licensing requirements to encoded content in commercial products.

Enemem, I think the page you site could be read either way. It depends on what the legal definition of "mp3" and "mp3Pro" are... and, of course, on other licensing information, aggreements, etc. Having dealt with Fraunhofer/Thomson and their licensing divisions before I find their lack of clarity entirely consistent with my appreciation of their business sense: they don't have any. They are relatively clueless when it comes to dealing with customers.

But, yes, the quoted section does seem to indicate an attempt to extend their grip. And -- it's troubling for everybody from independent musicians (I have a track or two out there that have gone out from mp3.com that may be closing on the 5,000 mark... what are my rights and responsibilities? Does the Mp3.com license cover me?) to Flash designers (and the huge umbrella that forms).

And how many times can they expect to collect on the same piece of material. You have to pay for the license to use the encoder. The online music distributor has to pay to serve up streams or allow downloads (apparently)... and now, it does appear that Fraunhofer/Thomson are trying to assert licensing requirements over anything that appears in that format.

And, as I hinted, I seriously don't think Fraunhofer/Thomson has the business/marketing sense to pursue a rational course of action with regard to the continuing viability of the format.

It's deeply troubling.
[Edited by theblue1 on 09-20-2002 at 01:54 PM]

[theblue1]

Depending on the actual technology and processes involved (and I stand open to correction or amplification here), it may still be that an mp3 file imported and converted into Flash format would be like any other file conversion (as I understand it): Fraunhofer/Thomson's license rights would terminate when the content left the licensed format.

On the other hand, if the Flash movie is simply a wrapper for an embedded mp3 file, then the issues are a lot murkier... and less hopeful.