[Icecast] Frauenhofer signing off on mp3, ogg stream player for Macs?

[Marvin Scholz]

First: I am not a lawyer, this is no legal advice!

On 16 May 2017, at 0:25, Robert Jeffares wrote:

> Jack,
>
> I am using AAC+ encoded by Darkice and distributed on Icecast2 on a 
> Ubuntu server. I had to install a number of open source libraries and 
> compile darkice from source. No licence.

This sounds like it would violate the license, given that the FAQ on 
http://www.via-corp.com/us/en/licensing/aac/faq.html states:

> An AAC patent license is needed by manufacturers or developers of 
> end-user encoder and/or decoder products.

Additionally on the authors website for libaacplus it clearly says:

> These tarballs don't provide any 3GPP source code. It is downloaded 
> from 3GPP during compilation. To use package compiled by this code, 
> you may need a license from 3GPP.
>
> AAC+ codecs incorporate several patents, held by Philips, Dolby, 
> Ericsson and Nokia. Companies holding patents for HE AAC v1 (SBR) have 
> formed a patent pool under Via Licensing to provide a single point of 
> license for product makers. Patents owned by Dolby and Philips 
> covering the Parametric Stereo used in HE AAC v2 (SBR+PS) are not 
> included in the Via Licensing pool and are licensed separately by 
> Dolby. Depending on law in your country, manufacturers and developers 
> may need to get a license. Because it is a shared library, you may 
> need special contract for each one application, which links against 
> this library, directly or indirectly.
>
> Please also note, that downloaded .doc file has a very restrictive 
> license: No part may be reproduced except as authorized by written 
> permission. The copyright and the foregoing restriction extend to 
> reproduction in all media.

This is certainly not something I would like to see recommended to be 
used, on this mailing list.