-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Michael M. wrote: > On Fri, 2007-03-02 at 18:44 +0100, Joe Hart wrote: >> I didn't know that Lucent bought Frauenhover though. That is >> interesting news. > > > Huh? Lucent does not own Fraunhofer. > > Thompson handles mp3 licensing for Fraunhofer: > > Questions about MP3 > > End Users: Fraunhofer IIS is a research institute. Although MP3 was > developed here, we do not sell any MP3 products to end users. MP3 > encoders are available from various companies. They are integrated, for > example, in Apple iTunes, Windows Media 10 and MusicMatch Jukebox. > > Companies: Thomson (http://www.mp3licensing.com/) is our software and > patent licensing partner for MP3. Please direct your enquiry to them. On > the web site, you can find the current MP3 royalty rates and the contact > details of Thomson. > > http://www.iis.fraunhofer.de/fhg/iis/EN/bf/amm/projects/mp3/index.jsp > > Thompson has two rates for software mp3 licensing (not counting the > mp3PRO version): > > mp3 patent & software license: > Decoder: US $0.75 per unit or US $60,000 one-time paid up > Codec: US $5.00 per unit > > mp3 patent-only license: > Decoder: US $0.75 per unit or US $50,000 one-time paid up > Codec: US $2.50 per unit > > The minimum royalties are US $15,000 per calendar year. > > http://www.mp3licensing.com/royalty/software.html > > Michelle is partially right as are you.
Thompson does sell the licenses, but Freunhofer (with an f and not a v) is not the only party involved in the patent. <Quote> Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits IIS is a German research institute that helped develop the MP3 audio compression technology along with Bell Labs, once part of Lucent Technologies, which merged with Alcatel last year. </Quote> That's why MS was ordered to pay $1.52 Billion to Alcatel-Lucent recently. Joe -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFF6JhyiXBCVWpc5J4RAow+AJ49wUT+IBxytqTGUl3ZB30ROuUbugCghafY U8YGN5aHka4VYlvPqGuuQCQ= =fZm1 -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
