Re: LAME licensing (was Re: [Fink-devel] Re: binary release plans)

[Darian L. <dm...@us...>]

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David R. Morrison wrote:

> Alexander Strange <ast...@it...> wrote:
> 
> 
>>LAME should not be included in the binary distribution, unless you feel 
>>like buying Fink an unlimited MP3 license (distribution of decoders is 
>>OK, or at least not actively acted upon, but distributing encoders is 
>>not allowed; see http://mp3licensing.com/).
> 
Actually the story is a tad bit more Complicated. The initial "copyright 
Holder" of the mp3 Technologie is the Frauenhofer Institut. Their 
implementation of the Algortihm and the psychoacoustic model is licensed 
to them and also trademarked. Yet LAME does not use that exact same 
model, nor do they use the same exact technique to encode the files. The 
end result still conforms with the Specs of MP3 though, thus it is a 
valid MP3 file.

So unless the LAME developers themselves say that we cannot redistribute 
the LAME stuff as binaries I see no point in what is on that web-site. 
So to me that web-site very much looks like the usual Industry-FUD as 
they are not very detailed.

I would also like to mention that the Theory behind MP3 and the 
algorithms used is PUBLIC, no one ever licensed nor trademarked that. 
Only the implementations into working software usually are

- -d

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