[advocacy] Ogg for commercial purpose ?

[gtgbr at gmx.net]

L Victor Marks wrote:
> An MP3 song is more than likely copyrighted. Unless you have permission from the owner of the copyright, you aren't allowed to do much with it, especially not "perform" it in a store.
>
> Similarly an OGG song is also likely copyrighted, and unless it is licensed to you under an Open music license, you can't "perform" it by playing it back in a store.

You're suggesting assumptions based on the format. This is misleading...
the format has nothing to do with how the music may, or may not be used.

> The other portion is, it's a free format. Windows Media, for example, is not. Windows Media only allows itself to be played back on devices that have paid the fee to MS. Windows Media files only work in software either written by MS, or that pay a fee to MS.

To my knowledge, MS was the one who paid the hardware manufactureres to
implement WMA support. WMA not being free lies within not being allowed
to modify any part of WMA, redistribute modified version, sell them,
etc. WMA is a strategical tool for MS.

> Anyone can use OGG in any device or software they choose, as long as they follow the terms of the license (GPL.)

This is also wrong, Ogg Vorbis, the specifications and the reference
implementation ... uhm, basically everything from Xiph except for the
vorbis-tools are BSD licensed. That is, there are no restrictions at all
- an important prerequesite to allow hardware manufacturers to support
Ogg Vorbis in their proprietary hardware. No hardware manufacturer is
forced to open up his firmware for support. (This is an important
detail, word is that some manufacturers were actually terrified of the
thought of having to open up their codebase. Getting this rumor out of
the way is pretty important.)

> So, taking a song and encoding it into OGG format does not make the song suddenly "free." It means you have a copyrighted song rendered in a free format which still carries the rights and responsibilities copyright carries with it.

That straightens out your first paragraphs that I found a bit incorrect
:)

<p>Moritz
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