[xiph-cvs] (fwd) the451.com - Can Ogg Vorbis save Net music?

[chad]

If you havnt seen it.

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From: editorial at the451.com
Subject: the451.com - Can Ogg Vorbis save Net music?
Date: 12/26/2000

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Can Ogg Vorbis save Net music?

Rachel  Chalmers
GMT Dec 19, 2000, 06:20 PM | ET Dec 19, 2000, 01:20 PM | PT Dec 19, 2000, 10:20 AM 	

San Francisco -  When CMGI subsidiary iCast failed in November, it threatened to take Ogg Vorbis with it. The oddly named project aims to develop open source technology to replicate every aspect of the MP3 compression format. Instead of music files ending in '.mp3,' Ogg Vorbis gives music lovers files ending in '.ogg.' Apart from that, the idea is that no one should ever know the difference.

This tends to puzzle people who already think of MP3 as an open format. The trouble is that Germany's Frauenhofer Institute and Thomson Multimedia own patents on some of the tricks used to compress music into MP3 files. Nobody worried about this much until recently, when Thomson started policing its rights and collecting license fees from companies that use MP3s.

"We developed MP3," said Thomson spokesman Dave Arland. "It's technology we own, and like anything in this world, if you use our technology, we'd like you to pay." He described the fees – $2.50 for every encoder and $0.50 for each decoder – as "reasonable beyond all measure."

The Ogg developers don't agree. They hope to give people equivalent or better tools for using Net music, without the intellectual shackles of existing patents. The death of iCast has not affected their plans.

"We have money in the bank," said project leader Chris Montgomery. He hopes Ogg will have a new corporate parent before that money runs out: "We've already got offers that we're seriously considering." Five companies are hovering around Ogg, hoping to hire the four or five members of the core engineering team.

The developers have learned from their iCast experiences and are warier than they used to be. "In the past we sort of let the parent company do everything for us," Montgomery admitted. "This time around we're going to take a little more responsibility for our own fate."

The 1.0 release of Vorbis is due in January, and in spite of iCast's demise, that date is not expected to slip. The developers firmly believe their software is more capable than the original MP3 format, while doing everything MP3 can do. "The consumer really shouldn't notice," said Montgomery.

Meanwhile, Thomson executives are saying publicly that they believe Ogg Vorbis infringes their patents just as much as MP3 does. "We intend to vigorously defend our patent portfolio," Arland told the451. "We are investigating Ogg Vorbis, and if it infringes our patents, we will defend them. If you owned something and someone was stealing it from you, you would go after them to get it back. If Ogg Vorbis or anybody else is infringing on our patents, we will do the same."

Montgomery, for one, is not surprised. "Everyone is all standing back and saying: 'Woo! They're rattling the saber!'" he chuckled. "What did they expect? If you didn't expect this, you're hopelessly naive." The project is busily recruiting its legal team, and its members remain optimistic. "We honestly do not believe they have a claim," Montgomery said.

What's more, he said, Thomson's bullying tactics are likely to backfire and end up encouraging the adoption of Ogg Vorbis. "MP3 and digital music got where they got because the format was free," he said. "They're going to start sapping the strength out of the surge that made the format so popular. Meanwhile, we get to be the giant-killer that's protecting the quaint hamlet of family farms."

Don Marti, longtime hacker and anti-patent activist, describes Ogg Vorbis as "neato." He says he can't pick an Ogg track from an MP3: "Considering it's not even at 1.0 yet, there's no question that they've at least matched MP3 in quality."

Marti agrees with Montgomery that Thomson's patent threats are self-defeating. "Depending on how greedy Thomson gets, the move to Ogg will be either rapid or gradual," he said.

As for Thomson, its lawyers will keep looking into Ogg until they find something actionable. While Arland believes they probably will, he added, "Obviously, if Ogg Vorbis goes an  d creates something that has nothing to do with MP3, well, good for them." 		

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