Freespire's Google ads: "What is Ubuntu Missing?"

[Daniel Robitaille]

On Tue, 2006-26-09 at 19:02 -0700, Matt Zimmerman wrote:
> On Sat, Sep 23, 2006 at 08:53:59PM -0600, Conrad Knauer wrote:
> > Also, I read the Wikipedia article on MP3s a little more closely and
> > it mentions "patent holders declined to enforce license fees on open
> > source decoders, allowing many free MP3 decoders to develop.
> > Furthermore, while attempts have been made to discourage distribution
> > of encoder binaries, Thomson has stated that individuals using free
> > MP3 encoders are not required to pay fees. Thus while patent fees have
> > been an issue for companies attempting to use MP3, they have not
> > meaningfully impacted users, allowing the format to grow in
> > popularity."
> 
> Unfortunately, there is no reference; I would be interested to hear more
> about this claim.

I found this on their mp3 web site:

"However, no license is needed for private, non-commercial activities
(e.g., home-entertainment, receiving broadcasts and creating a personal
music library), not generating revenue or other consideration of any
kind or for entities with associated annual gross revenue less than US$
100 000.00."

http://www.mp3licensing.com/help/index.html