The licensing program for MP3-related patents has been terminated • Hacker News Board

Re: The licensing program for MP3-related patents has been terminated

#191

Post by midnightclubbed » Tue, May 02, 2017, 4:27 AM UTC

Some number of years ago I wrote an mp3 decoder for a game I was working on. It allowed us to put hours of speech onto our 16Mb N64 cartridge (yep, it was quite a few years ago).

Knowing we had to get a mp3 license I contacted Fraunhofer who decided that a console game required a hardware decoding license which ran at $10,000s (if we had been a PC title it would have been a few $100 as I remember).

Legal got involved and decided they would license Rad Games Tool's Miles audio (since it already had a mp3 license and they could take any heat from Fraunhofer!).

Unfortunately for me legal then made me completely wipe the first implementation, carefully optimized N64 RSP vector code and all, and do a clean re-write of everything. We didn't use a single line of the Miles code, but they got a license fee and we had happy lawyers.

Re: The licensing program for MP3-related patents has been terminated

#192

Post by juskrey » Tue, May 02, 2017, 4:33 AM UTC

midnightclubbed wrote: post #191

Some number of years ago I wrote an mp3 decoder for a game I was working on. It allowed us to put hours of speech onto our 16Mb N64 cartridge (yep, it was quite a few years ago). Knowing we had to get a mp3 license I contacted Fraunhofer who decided that a console game required a hardware decoding license which ran at $10,000s (if we had been a PC title it would have been a few $100 as I remember). Legal got involved…

Did you consider Ogg Vorbis?

Re: The licensing program for MP3-related patents has been terminated

#193

Post by themodelplumber » Tue, May 02, 2017, 4:41 AM UTC

juskrey wrote: post #192

midnightclubbed wrote: post #191

Some number of years ago I wrote an mp3 decoder for a game I was working on. It allowed us to put hours of speech onto our 16Mb N64 cartridge (yep, it was quite a few years ago). Knowing we had to get a mp3 license I contacted Fraunhofer who decided that a console game required a hardware decoding license which ran at $10,000s (if we had been a PC title it would have been a few $100 as I remember). Legal got involved…

Did you consider Ogg Vorbis?

Ogg and Vorbis hadn't yet discovered one another back in the N64 days, had they?

Re: The licensing program for MP3-related patents has been terminated

#194

Post by kevindong » Tue, May 02, 2017, 4:43 AM UTC

juskrey wrote: post #192

midnightclubbed wrote: post #191

Some number of years ago I wrote an mp3 decoder for a game I was working on. It allowed us to put hours of speech onto our 16Mb N64 cartridge (yep, it was quite a few years ago). Knowing we had to get a mp3 license I contacted Fraunhofer who decided that a console game required a hardware decoding license which ran at $10,000s (if we had been a PC title it would have been a few $100 as I remember). Legal got involved…

Did you consider Ogg Vorbis?

Given that the N64 was released in the North America in September 1996 and that the first stable release of Vorbis wasn't released until May 2000, it's very probable that OP couldn't have considered/used Vorbis.

Re: The licensing program for MP3-related patents has been terminated

#195

Post by [deleted] » Tue, May 02, 2017, 4:44 AM UTC

juskrey wrote: post #192

midnightclubbed wrote: post #191

Some number of years ago I wrote an mp3 decoder for a game I was working on. It allowed us to put hours of speech onto our 16Mb N64 cartridge (yep, it was quite a few years ago). Knowing we had to get a mp3 license I contacted Fraunhofer who decided that a console game required a hardware decoding license which ran at $10,000s (if we had been a PC title it would have been a few $100 as I remember). Legal got involved…

Did you consider Ogg Vorbis?

[deleted]

Re: The licensing program for MP3-related patents has been terminated

#196

Post by rangibaby » Tue, May 02, 2017, 4:46 AM UTC

midnightclubbed wrote: post #191

Some number of years ago I wrote an mp3 decoder for a game I was working on. It allowed us to put hours of speech onto our 16Mb N64 cartridge (yep, it was quite a few years ago). Knowing we had to get a mp3 license I contacted Fraunhofer who decided that a console game required a hardware decoding license which ran at $10,000s (if we had been a PC title it would have been a few $100 as I remember). Legal got involved…

Perfect Dark?

Re: The licensing program for MP3-related patents has been terminated

#197

Post by juskrey » Tue, May 02, 2017, 5:02 AM UTC

kevindong wrote: post #194

juskrey wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you consider Ogg Vorbis?

Given that the N64 was released in the North America in September 1996 and that the first stable release of Vorbis wasn't released until May 2000, it's very probable that OP couldn't have considered/used Vorbis.

Oh, ok. I thought "few years" was meaning actually few years. Did not know much about N64. After googling, it seems devs were still active in 2003-2005.

Re: The licensing program for MP3-related patents has been terminated

#198

Post by hackinthebochs » Tue, May 02, 2017, 5:26 AM UTC

wbl wrote: post #185

chc wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Software patents aren't particularly useful for making money with software. Hackers produce code, which is protected by copyright, and that's how the law protects them from having their work stolen. Patents are a bad match for software, and are mainly used for two things: 1. Trolls use them to seek rent from independent creations. 2. Companies that are not purely trolls but need a vector to attack another company som…

What about 4: research institute that invents an audio compression method? The work that goes into mp3 isn't just coding the method.

Debating software patents with silicon valley types is a losing battle. They're the types who would stand to profit from someones non-obvious software invention not being patentable, and so most such people are unsurprisingly against software patents. There's little nuance involved beyond that.

Re: The licensing program for MP3-related patents has been terminated

#199

Post by midnightclubbed » Tue, May 02, 2017, 5:28 AM UTC

juskrey wrote: post #192

midnightclubbed wrote: post #191

Some number of years ago I wrote an mp3 decoder for a game I was working on. It allowed us to put hours of speech onto our 16Mb N64 cartridge (yep, it was quite a few years ago). Knowing we had to get a mp3 license I contacted Fraunhofer who decided that a console game required a hardware decoding license which ran at $10,000s (if we had been a PC title it would have been a few $100 as I remember). Legal got involved…

Did you consider Ogg Vorbis?

Mp3 was the only option that was relatively mature and had good enough compression ratios for what we needed (as I remember). Anything more computationally expensive was completely off the table.

Re: The licensing program for MP3-related patents has been terminated

#200

Post by hackinthebochs » Tue, May 02, 2017, 5:29 AM UTC

chc wrote: post #157

JohnJamesRambo wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With your ideas about patents someone should do it out of the kindness of their heart I guess. Is that what has driven most technological advancements of the human race? In your software-patentless world, why would a genius choose to work in software as opposed to another field inventing patentable tangible objects where he or she will be monetarily rewarded for it and able to make a living? Don't say you are already…

Software patents aren't particularly useful for making money with software. Hackers produce code, which is protected by copyright, and that's how the law protects them from having their work stolen. Patents are a bad match for software, and are mainly used for two things: 1. Trolls use them to seek rent from independent creations. 2. Companies that are not purely trolls but need a vector to attack another company som…

The difference is that person now has to sell their idea packaged in a finished product to see any return on their idea. If you could patent it and license it, you could make money on the idea while leaving the work of developing a polished product to the experts at delivering products to end users.