[vorbis] Mp3 to Ogg converter?

[Gregory Maxwell]

On Thu, Apr 19, 2001 at 01:57:39AM +0100, Mat Bettinson wrote:
> Heya fungus,
> 
> >> Oh go on, explain what could possibly be the benefit of doing this.
> 
> f> Ummm....he wants to sell them without paying mp3 royalties?
> 
> If you were selling content, surely you'd have the uncompressed
> source.

No only that, but by transcoding mp3->ogg (IANAL) you've made the patented mp3
processes an integral step in the production of that OGG. It's highly
unlikely that you could ever achieve an identical result without the
transcoding. The fact the the intermediary mp3 step reduces quality is
immaterial (again, IANAL). 

Because of this your situation regarding patents and owed royalties would
likely be unaffected by the final file-format.

High profile prosecutions of MP3->OGG transcoders could even potentially
dilute the value of OGG as an mp3 patent free format: If RCA/FhG could go
to a judge and say "look we've proven OGG users before violate our mp3
patents (by transcoding), please help us from starving in the streets due to
this theft and give us a hand bugging these OGG users".

Perhapse a standard TAG "transcoded from" would be useful, it would allow
users to identify files that have be passed through an inferior process
without detailed listening (so they can go find better versions), and it
would help avoid the claim that joe-random-OGG-file was produced with
patented mp3 methods.

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