I sent another followup question to the Thomson and received a response that they are working on a final answer. Below is my latest question and their response.

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MY 3rd QUESTION
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Gary,

Thanks for chatting with me on the telephone today. Unfortunately, I'm still puzzled on all this. When I read the Macromedia EULA for Flash, the only thing it has about MP3 is as follows,

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Fraunhofer IIS and Thomson Multimedia
MPEG Layer-3 audio compression technology licensed by Fraunhofer IIS and Thomson Multimedia (www.iis.fhg.de/amm/). You cannot use the MP3 compressed audio within the Software for real time or live broadcasts. If you require an MP3 decoder for real time or live broadcasts, you are responsible for obtaining this MP3 technology license.
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From that statement it sounds like the only time I need any additional license from you is when I am doing real time or broadcast use of MP3. It would seem that their license with you includes all other uses of MP3 when used within their Flash player.

Can you please elevate this and get a definitive response on this issue for me? I would be interested in whether a) you believe Macromedia has incorrectly or incompletely stated their users' rights or b) if you interpret their statement to mean their users cannot use MP3 within Flash.

Thanks.


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THE ANSWER I RECEIVED
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I am working on getting a final answer. Will let you know ASAP.

Cheers, gj