[LINK] File formats and licencing

[Alastair Rankine]

Gruber posted a followup (http://daringfireball.net/2007/04/ 
wee_bit_more_on_aac) which postulates a reason why Ogg Vorbis and  
friends are not widely deployed: the device manufacturers believe  
that these are likely to be patent infringing.

I think it's also interesting that the same scenario has not played  
out in the video codec world. H.264 Baseline profile is intended to  
be royalty-free by design. In other words, the various organisations  
that contributed to the creation of the standard were encouraged to  
declare their patent interest up-front. These declarations were taken  
into account in the development of the standard.

Notwithstanding a recent patent suit by Qualcomm, this approach taken  
for H.264 seems to provide the most certainty for implementers,  
without excluding the open source crowd.


On 11/04/2007, at 12:14 PM, Anthony Hornby wrote:

> Ogg Vorbis, Flac etc .... there are now good open format choices  
> available.
>
> *sigh*
>
> Its all so depressing.
>
> Anthony.
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Ivan Trundle" <ivan at itrundle.com>
> To: "The Link Institute" <link at anu.edu.au>
> Sent: Wednesday, April 11, 2007 9:18:36 AM (GMT+0930) Australia/Darwin
> Subject: [LINK] File formats and licencing
>
> Following on from the recent debate about iTunes and music file
> formats, John Gruber of Daring Fireball has an interesting analysis:
>
> http://daringfireball.net/2007/04/some_facts_about_aac
>
> Until now, I didn't realise that the MP3 format has a licence fee.
>
> Nonetheless, Gruber's assertions put an interesting spin on file
> formats and the licencing regime that end-users like us must endure
> and comply with.
>
> iT
>
> --
> Ivan Trundle
> http://itrundle.com ivan at itrundle.com
> ph: +61 (0)418 244 259 fx: +61 (0)2 6286 8742
> skype: callto://ivanovitchk
>
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>
> -- 
> Mr Anthony Hornby
> Associate Director, Resources and Technology
> Library and Information Access
> Charles Darwin University (CRICOS 300K)
> Phone: +61 8 8946 6011
> Email: anthony.hornby at cdu.edu.au.no-spam(remove the .no-spam)
>
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