Hi Folks I was going a little confused in this Non-Free and OSS mixup... to explain my problem take a look at this small case-study..
Fact : Mp3 decoding is not legal without paying royalty fees (in some countries)...
Case : XYZ installs FedoraCore (100% OSS Guaranteed :-) ) and installs his fav MP3 player from say Yum or RPM download or...
Now is it illegal to : 1. Write an MP3 (decoder which is available for free download) player 2 Use this MP3 Player 3. <if i missed anything>
Regards Siddharth
Siddharth Upmanyu wrote:
Hi Folks I was going a little confused in this Non-Free and OSS mixup... to explain my problem take a look at this small case-study..
Fact : Mp3 decoding is not legal without paying royalty fees (in some countries)...
Case : XYZ installs FedoraCore (100% OSS Guaranteed :-) ) and installs his fav MP3 player from say Yum or RPM download or...
Now is it illegal to :
- Write an MP3 (decoder which is available for free download) player
2 Use this MP3 Player 3. <if i missed anything>
IANAL but the situation is a bit complex and would require understanding of several concepts. Software can be protected via three things
1) Copyright license 2) Trademarks 3) Patents
For a short discourse on how they differ you can hear it from a actual lawyer.
http://www.redhat.com/magazine/007may05/features/ip/
In a region which recognized and allows software patents like in US, you can have a entirely Free and open source software and still be restricted by patents. In such regions MP3 as a technology has restrictions. Writing a software that infringes on a patent should be ok as long as you dont redistribute it to a third party with appropriate patent licenses. Even when you do have patent licenses you might be infrigning on other similar patents for the same technology.
http://www.oreillynet.com/digitalmedia/blog/2007/02/microsoft_must_pay_in_mp...
Using a MP3 player is restricted or allowed depending on whether it is commercial or private use. In India or other regions which dont recognize software patents either of these activities are completely legal.
Rahul
On 3/14/07, Rahul Sundaram wrote:
In a region which recognized and allows software patents like in US, you can have a entirely Free and open source software and still be restricted by patents. In such regions MP3 as a technology has restrictions. Writing a software that infringes on a patent should be ok as long as you dont redistribute it to a third party with appropriate patent licenses. Even when you do have patent licenses you might be infrigning on other similar patents for the same technology.
http://www.oreillynet.com/digitalmedia/blog/2007/02/microsoft_must_pay_in_mp...
Using a MP3 player is restricted or allowed depending on whether it is commercial or private use. In India or other regions which dont recognize software patents either of these activities are completely legal.
Rahul, can you document it properly on http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Multimedia/MP3 plz?
And possibly add a link to http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Multimedia/fluendo-mp3 as well :)
regards, Chitlesh
On 3/15/07, Chitlesh GOORAH chitlesh@fedoraproject.org wrote:
Rahul, can you document it properly on http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Multimedia/MP3 plz?
And possibly add a link to http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Multimedia/fluendo-mp3 as well :)
regards, Chitlesh
Thank you for pointing that out. I've linked from mp3 to fluendo-mp3 Regards,
Siddharth Upmanyu wrote:
Fact : Mp3 decoding is not legal without paying royalty fees (in some countries)...
Case : XYZ installs FedoraCore (100% OSS Guaranteed :-) ) and installs his fav MP3 player from say Yum or RPM download or...
Now is it illegal to :
- Write an MP3 (decoder which is available for free download) player
2 Use this MP3 Player 3. <if i missed anything>
1. write? ok, as long as you don't share it. :) 2. use? probably not, but no one will probably care. 3. (you missed) (re)distributing said mp3 encoder/decoder, illegal, tied to your "Fact" above.
-- Rex
Rex Dieter wrote:
Siddharth Upmanyu wrote:
Now is it illegal to :
- Write an MP3 (decoder which is available for free download) player
2 Use this MP3 Player 3. <if i missed anything>
- write? ok, as long as you don't share it. :)
- use? probably not, but no one will probably care.
Clarifcation: you can get free/legal mp3 decoding, provided it's properly licensed and paid for, e.g. http://www.fluendo.com/press/releases/PR-2005-05.html
- (you missed) (re)distributing said mp3 encoder/decoder, illegal, tied
to your "Fact" above.
Addendum: Illegal for a US-based company/group, like Fedora, without paying licensing fees.
-- Rex
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