[vorbis] Fruanhofer patents and royalties for Streaming

[Steven Bailey]

        Your fear is a legitimate one, I'm afraid, provided a few details.  I'm
not sure that FHG could take you to court in America since they aren't
an American company... but they do have patents that are enforced in
America.  I think that means they have the legal right to seek court
arbitration of a patent dispute.  And because of the way our wonderful
legal system works, the claim doesn't have to be legitimate for it to go
to court most of the time.  If they can confuse the issue sufficiently
that the patent office cannot just tell them, "Your claim is b--- s---,"
then the claim will go to court.  Even if you are right and they are
wrong, they can still bleed you dry by dragging out the case and
refusing to conceed that you have done nothing to violate their
patents.  (hmm, sounds kind of like certain elections...)
        I expect I'm saying nothing most if not all of you have thought of
before.  This is mainly for the benefit of other Vorbis enthusiasts.
        At any rate, I would suggest that any CYA you guys can manage would be
a good thing.  I don't care that much about when "this feature" or "that
feature" gets released.  (*I'm* not the one busting my tail trying to
put it all together from scratch.  :)- )  I just would hate to see your
project caught in a legal fracas that could probably be avoided.
        Not very sure how to do that, though.  I've always hated lawyers, so I
don't know many details about patent law.

Steven

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