Well, debter's prison anyway. (fairly long post) Yes, you can be sued for distributing MP3 files of your own music or MPEG4 movies you took with your own camera. You can also be sued for distributing a program that plays MP3 sounds or MPEG4 movies, even if you use the codecs built into windows or write the codecs yourself. How is this possible? Don't I have the right to distribute my own copyrighted works? Copyrights, yes. Patents, no. The good folks who convinced the world to accept their MP3 and MPEG4 standards as such a regular part of our lives have baited the trap and now the steel jaws are beginning to close. Just as the copyright enforcement started at the highest volume pirates then filtered down to the common individual, the patent enforcement has started at the top and is bound to filter down to the common person. Here is a site about MPEG patent licensing: http://www.eetimes.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=159902209 But you do have some options, thankfully. An unexpected ally, Microsoft, being both technology vendor and patent holder, gives licensees permission to use its technology under their prescribed conditions for a customer in good standing. The Windows Media format may or may not contain patents of others, but Microsoft has licensed that technology to its customers without any disclaimer (that I have seen) like the disclaimers they made in VS6 about the gif file format. At first glance it looks like they have placed themselves in between you and any unknown patent holders by licensing the technology to you, but you may want to carefully read their legal yourself to be sure. (If according to the fine print they don't actually insulate you from any unknown patents then you may want to stick to the oggs.) Other options would be the "Patent-Free" or more accurately "Patent-Clear" formats such as the Oggs and VP3. Ogg Vorbis is for audio and Ogg Theora is for video. They cannot promise that there are no patents in these technologies; they can merely say that to the best of their knowlege there are none other than their own patents, which they give you permission to use for free. It is a good sign, however, that the USPTO did perform patent searches as part of granting their patents and such theoretical unknown patents would most likely have surfaced in that process, so you a probably safe. Conclusion: To avoid getting sued: You may want to use Ogg Vorbis instead of MP3. You may want to use Ogg Theora (or VP3 version 3.2.6.1 in AVI) for video instead of MP4 AVI or MPEG. In this post I have presented the reasons for using Ogg and VP3. In my next post I will provide brief descriptions and links to the best resources I have found for Ogg and VP3. Note to moderator: If you feel this is useful to the video folks too, please feel free to post there a link to this for their benefit. This issue is fairly new and does not get much attention, but I think it will impact all of us who make any media implementation in the near future. [Edited by - inspired on September 23, 2006 11:08:07 PM]

Wow. Maybe I will start using Ogg for everything.

Have many distributors of MP3 or MPEG files been sued for this? Quite honestly, I don't think companies should sell you software that creates these formats if they don't include some sort of license...

It is just starting now. I don't know how far it has gotten yet. I am intentionally trying to get the word out before it gets really bad. You could do your own search using words such as "patent" and "MP3" and "Litigation" or "lawsuit" or "legal action"; you can be creative and think up your own search strings. So far I do not know if the mere act of distributing an MP3 has been litigated, but lawsuits over the act of decoding them are gathering momentum. And because we are those who would include sound files in our own works, we would of necessity include the act of decoding them and thus be subject to the lawsuits.

I will post an organized list of recources for Ogg Vorbis and VP3 soon.

Is this also true to JPEG?
How long does this patent is valid? I mean, patents end after a while and then everybody can use it.

Quote:Original post by inspired
It is just starting now.

Actually it's been true for pretty much as long as the format has been around, there just havn't really been [m]any high profile cases.

A lot of us have been recommending Vorbis for exactly this reason for quite a long time.

Quote:Quite honestly, I don't think companies should sell you software that creates these formats if they don't include some sort of license...

Actually, commercial products typically do. It's the encoding and decoding that's covered by the patents IIRC, and typically the creator of the software (whether that be software for creating or playing back files) pays the fee, licencing you to use that software to create/playback files. No licence is required for private non-profit use of mp3 files (I'm unsure about other MPEG formats); see this FAQ.

Excellent point!

I kept intending to look up jpeg. I had read some things about the original gif patents expiring soon but apparently the jpeg stuff is more recent.

Here are a couple of links from an initial quick search:

http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1789074,00.asp?kc=EWNKT0209KTX1K0100440
http://news.com.com/Patent+litigants+target+DVRs/2100-1047_3-5659298.html
http://voip-blog.tmcnet.com/blog/rich-tehrani/rates-technology/jpeg-patents-and-yahoo.html

and here is the sewarch string I used:
http://www.altavista.com/web/results?itag=ody&q=%2B%22jpeg%22+%2B%22patents%22&kgs=1&kls=0

Any suggestions as to a patent-free still image standard?

"The sky is falling! The sky is falling!"

-unknown author

"God himself could not sink this ship"
(in reference to the titanic)

Ok, all kidding around aside, I did find the PNG format for graphics.
http://www.libpng.org/pub/png/index.html

Now this is a lossless standard, which might mean less of a compression ratio.
I am still hoping for a patent free lossy still picture format. Perhaps a single frame of VP3 might suffice. I'll look into both and find out what size ratio and quality each can give me.

I just ran a preliminary test, to see if i could do it wih the technology I now have, and it can be done pretty easily... so I thought i would share my plan:

I'll be converting each still image file to a high quality single frame of VP3 AVI file whose extension shall be VPG. This extension will inform my program to treat it as a still image file of VP3 (in AVI) format. I will be using the VP3 version 3.2.6.1. codec without altering the codec; my dll will simply pass the data through the standard vp3 codec. So that's the plan, pass it on; in no time someone will write a simple dll to take care of loading VPG file into a GDI DC.

[Edited by - inspired on September 24, 2006 2:41:39 AM]

That's very funny and so true, at least that's what I thought up until so recently, until I hapenned across the news about the lawsuits. Then I understood what the excitement was all about. I think there are a few layers of concern, and I'll research them and get back to you with the exact details. For one thing, there is a distinction between a free and clear grant (unrevokable permission given for a certain usage of a certain technology) and the mere unwillingness to "go after" certain people. The latter is an enforcement policy rather than a safe legal standing.

Here is a statement about MP3:
http://www.mp3licensing.com/help/index.html#5
http://slashdot.org/yro/02/08/27/1626241.shtml?tid=155
http://www.mp3licensing.com/help/developers.html

As you can see in the second link, even if you provide software to decode an MP3 into ogg, you had better be doing so from a country that does not honor software patents. Unless of course you plan on never making more than 100 grand annualy. Then you can make a converter for all to use for free. Just don't win a million dollar lottery. Now your private use of MP3 is ok if not for profit.

So my advice if you make a game engine:
1. Provide a convenient encoder from uncompressed formats to patent free formats.
2. Provide links to 3rd party converters that will decompress content into such uncompressed formats.
3. Insert code to prevent your engine frrom loading MPEG of any sort.

But you could always instead use the Cheech and Chong approach, which means to deal contraband until you get busted.