[ubuntu-in] MEDIA CONVERSION

[Onkar Shinde]

On Fri, Jan 1, 2010 at 10:06 AM, m k <km12187 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> On Thu, Dec 31, 2009 at 11:12 PM, Gora Mohanty <gora at sarai.net> wrote:
>>
>> On Thu, 31 Dec 2009 20:24:17 +0530
>> m k <km12187 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> > hi frnds
>> > Is it legal to convert a propritary format like mp3 to free
>> > format.
>>
>> If you want a legal opinion, please talk to a lawyer, but
>> as I understand things, mp3 is not proprietary per se, but
>> patent-encumbered in countries that allow software patents. In
>> India, where software patents are not allowed, there is no
>> restriction on converting to/from mp3.
>>
>> Please note that this freedom of converting formats is an
>> independent issue from whether one has legal access to the content
>> itself.
>>
>> Regards,
>> Gora
>>
>> --
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>> ubuntu-in at lists.ubuntu.com
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>
> Thanks Gora and Mehul
> There is an idea to add a plug-in to media players(open source)to
> automatically convert
> propritary to free format.developers may be able to do this.That way free
> formats get popular.

What you are forgetting here is mp3 is lossy format. When you convert
from a lossy format there has been already loss of some info. If you
want best quality with free formats then convert from original data.

Also for free formats to get more popularity they needs more support
in hardware i.e. more audio players supporting vorbis/flac and more
video cards doing on-chip encoding/decoding for theora/dirac etc.


Onkar