The licensing of LAME in Reaper (legal)

[tramway11]

Hello.
Sorry if I had similar questions in another posts, but it's rather unclear thing:
if I use LAME inside Reaper v4+ for saving the track as MP3 is it licensed for me only if the Reaper is FULL non-trial, so can I use commercially the MP3 created in Reaper with LAME? Or I don't need any additional license for LAME any version in ANY version of Reaper?


For now, does the use of LAME inside Reaper violates any rights of Technicolor (authors of patent - http://mp3licensing.com)?
If yes, is it any violation of laws if I use LAME inside Reaper (both for commercial use or non-commercial) only as USER?

Does this still active: http://manual.audacityteam.org/o/man...al_issues.html
And it's not known can Russian users use LAME absolutely legal?

[bluzkat]

How you use Reaper has nothing to do with how you use LAME.

Here's the LAME website, all (legal) information you need is enclosed there.

http://lame.sourceforge.net/index.php.

Enjoy.

[DVDdoug]

And it's not known can Russian users use LAME absolutely legal?

I don't know anything about Russian copyright law. (I believe there are some Russian websites where you can buy pirated MP3s at about 1/10 the cost from iTunes or Amazon, so there doesn't seem to be much enforcement.)

Cockos doesn't distribute LAME. REAPER works with LAME but you have to download it somewhere else. The default LAME download is obviously not licensed, since you are not paying for it.



There are two issues:

1. In order to distribute the LAME encoder, you are supposed to pay a royalty. For example, The non-free versions of dBpoweramp come with a fully-licensed copy of LAME. (The free version doesn't encode to MP3.)

As far as I now, you can't buy a stand-alone LAME encoder (or any other MP3 encoder). If you want a licensed copy of LAME, you need to buy software that comes with a licensed copy (such as dBpoweramp or Adobe Audition).

Also as far as I know, Fraunhofer has NEVER gone after anyone using an unlicensed MP3 encoder at home. They have gone after people for distributing unlicensed copies.

2. If you distribute or stream MP3 music files (or other MP3 encoded files) you may need to pay a separate royalty for that. But according to the website, you only have to pay if your revenue exceeds $100,000 USD.

[viscofisy]

The short answer appears to be that you can use mp3 encoding for free, but after your business makes over $100, 000 you should pay a license.

However, apparently Youtube doesn't use mp3, and you can't upload an actual mp3 to Youtube either, as far as I know (it has to be converted)...... so if you convert from wav and upload it in another Youtube-friendly format there'll be no mp3 usage in your recording chain.

So you can keep all of your money above $100,000 instead of just most of it.

However, if your record is such a huge hit that you fear Fraunhofer might detect that you used mp3 at some point in the chain, and supposing you did, then you could choose to do the legal thing and volunteer this information to them.

It would then be up to them to decide - once your business generates over $100, 000 - whether you owe them royalties.

You'd then be left with at least $100,000 minus their percentage, but your conscience would be clear.

You could of course just contact licensing at mp3 dot com tomorrow, for full advice.

From Wikipedia :

Like all MP3 encoders, LAME implements some technology covered by patents owned by the Fraunhofer Society and other entities

The developers of LAME do not themselves license the technology described by these patents. Distributing compiled binaries of LAME, its libraries, or programs that derive from LAME in countries that recognize those patents may be patent infringing.

The LAME developers state that, since their code is only released in source code form, it should only be considered as an educational description of an MP3 encoder, and thus does not infringe any patent by itself when released as source code only.



At the same time, they advise users to obtain a patent license for any relevant technologies that LAME may implement before including a compiled version of the encoder in a product

Some software is released using this strategy: companies use the LAME library, but obtain patent licenses.

Fraunhofer Society and Youtube

The MP3 compression algorithm was invented and patented by Fraunhofer IIS.

Its license revenues generated about € 100 million in revenue for the society in 2005.

The side-effects of that were a serious decline of the reputation of Fraunhofer in open source communities and the adoption of a competing sound format, Ogg Vorbis.

Later on even Google avoided the Fraunhofer developed sound and video formats by acquiring a company that developed the WebM video format.

As a result, YouTube runs with WebM, not the Fraunhofer video formats that are often not supported by many open source operating system distributions.

So who licenses Fraunhofer's mp3 format on their behalf?........

....technicolor at mp3 licensing . com :

4) Do I need a license to stream mp3 encoded content over the Internet?

Yes. A license is needed for commercial (i.e., revenue-generating) use of mp3 in broadcast systems (terrestrial, satellite, cable and/or other distribution channels), streaming applications (via Internet, intranets and/or other networks), other content distribution systems (pay-audio or audio-on-demand applications and the like) or for use of mp3 on physical media (compact discs, digital versatile discs, semiconductor chips, hard drives, memory cards and the like).

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.
Links:
Royalty Rates - Electronic Music Distribution

5) Do I need a license to distribute mp3 encoded content?

Yes. A license is needed for commercial (i.e., revenue-generating) use of mp3 in broadcast systems (terrestrial, satellite, cable and/or other distribution channels), streaming applications (via Internet, intranets and/or other networks), other content distribution systems (pay-audio or audio-on-demand applications and the like) or for use of mp3 on physical media (compact discs, digital versatile discs, semiconductor chips, hard drives, memory cards and the like).

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.

[viscofisy]

p.s. - the royalty rates for mp3 distributed/streamed/broadcast music is 2% of related revenue.

That's for businesses or entities who gross above $100,000.


http://mp3licensing.com/royalty/

That's $20,000 straight off your first million.

[tramway11]

Thanks!
So how I use LAME inside Cockos its fully mine liability and Cockos doesn't have any liability on this even if I create MP3 files and use them commercially?
So if 100% that Fraunhofer doesn't require any License or royalty for commercial use of mp3 (STREAMING or DISTRIBUTING - via Youtube, Web, etc.) if I have <$100000 profit, then all is OK. The only thing is that in their site was "entities with associated annual gross". Does entity in this context mean individuals too, not only firms? I couldn't get right answer from them for now.

So it seems that good is to use OPUS format instead of MP3.
If I use OPUS format - do I have this MP3licensing-like stuff? It's a pity that Reaper doesn't support OPUS.

By the way, is it possible to determine from MP3 file was it created by licensed or non-licensed copy of LAME?

[micron]

once the tune has been created, there is not a relationship between the tune and the tools used to create it.

[DVDdoug]

So it seems that good is to use OPUS format instead of MP3.

The listener needs an Opus decoder. Anybody can just "click and play" an MP3.

If I use OPUS format - do I have this MP3licensing-like stuff?

No.

It's a pity that Reaper doesn't support OPUS.

You can render to WAV and then convert to Opus with a 3rd party encoder. It's not that unusual to record & mix with REAPER (then perhaps master with different tools), then make CDs, MP3s, AACs, etc., with other tools.

[tramway11]

"or for entities with associated annual gross revenue less than US$ 100 000.00."
So entity as from dictionaries from Web means "legal entity", but if I'm an individual (not having firm for music production), does this suits for me?
I'd do even a 7% royalty in case of profit, what is most important is that they give me the answer, which I coulnd't get yet, not sure why (maybe there is a big queue for this).

"You could of course just contact licensing at mp3 dot com tomorrow, for full advice."

Why mp3 dot com? ) it's another website, maybe you mean mp3licensing.com? )

[tramway11]

Originally Posted by DVDdoug

The listener needs an Opus decoder. Anybody can just "click and play" an MP3.

But if I'll convert WAV from Reaper to OPUS and put it to Youtube can this video be seen by majority of users in the world? Or simply Youtube doesn't apply this format...? Then the way is to use OPUS-supporting tools for making Youtube-friendly video so Opus is hardly to see on Youtube now (you'll have to have special player?)?

At the same time, they advise users to obtain a patent license for any relevant technologies that LAME may implement before including a compiled version of the encoder in a product

Does that mean that for commercial use of NON-licensed LAME end users of Reaper must get this license from Technicolor? Looks like no or maybe in case of $100000 profit, as said above, but this is not an official answer from Technicolor, as I understand...........

Must I know anything about patents in case of using LAME (Technicolor or others)?
looking for OPUS already...

[Time Waster]

Anything you put up on Youtube will be converted into Youtube's format (FLV) so anyone who can view Youtube videos will be able to listen to it. Just check to see that whatever format you upload to Youtube is supported (can be converted) by Youtube.

[tramway11]

Thanks.

The questions that remain (if anybody knows):
Does usage of non-licensed LAME encoder (for ex., in Reaper, Audacity) requires getting license or paying royalties from Technicolor (or any firm)? Is it the same patent that is stated here:
http://mp3licensing.com/royalty/emd.html (for Electronic music distribution, broadcasting, streaming)? I.e., the ENCODING of file ALREADY CONSISTS in the process of MP3 DISTRIBUTING (not important, how MP3 was created), or it's a separate license? If yes, where I can read about this - I didn't find special licenses for this on mp3licensing.com, but maybe usage of MP3 supposes the use of only licensed soft as stated in http://mp3licensing.com/licensees/index.asp.
So there is no info for usage of MP3 encoders regarding commercial use with profit <$100000 and >=$100000 - for end users (not companies).

[Xenakios]

I am amazed the original poster keeps going on and on about this when there probably isn't even a chance anyone would view the resulting Youtube video except by accident in the end...(To make any money, I bet at least hundreds of thousands of views are needed.)

It seems as if tramway11 is very sure his video will be a big hit in Youtube...? (A cynical person would suspect he has come up with a very efficient way to click views for a Youtube video automatically without Google/Youtube noticing it...)

And even if the video ended up popular, it's not like Youtube isn't already filled with popular videos that have all kinds license and copyright violations going on.

And like has been said by other people, the whole thing seems like a non-issue to begin with, since Youtube doesn't use mp3 in the videos anyway. They convert the uploaded videos to their own format.

[tramway11]

As for Youtube - yes I'll try to use OPUS. Here is clear.
The problem is to using MP3 for another sites: if here I need to use MP3 can I do it with LAME? I don't want to receive any copyright violations or something.
If I wasn't sure to get minimum 50000 views, I'd like not to write here and waste time

[Banned]

Originally Posted by tramway11

I'd like not to write here and waste time

Just go hire a lawyer instead of wasting your time (and ours!) here, then.

[tramway11]

Thanks for valueable info!

[fundorin]

Kostya, I don't think that you should even bother yourself with this question. And it doesn't related to Reaper in any way, cause you can simply render your project to WAV file and then convert it to mp3 manually, using the command line attributes of LAME encoder

[The Telenator]

It's like we keep tellin' you ones who got to ask questions:

They're coming to GET YOU for what you been doin'.

Oh, well ... we warned ya!

[jerome_oneil]

Originally Posted by DVDdoug

I don't know anything about Russian copyright law.

Russia is a party to almost all the major copyright treaties in existence, so their copyright law will be remarkably similar to ours.

[peter5992]

Originally Posted by jerome_oneil

Russia is a party to almost all the major copyright treaties in existence, so their copyright law will be remarkably similar to ours.

Yeah, but in reality, copyright enforcement in Russia is pretty much non existent.

Tramway, stop getting your knickers in a twist, you already asked and got answers to all the legal aspects of mp3 technology and Reaper in a previous thread you started.

http://forum.cockos.com/showthread.php?t=158663

It's all gonna be fine just don't say, or do, or think, anything that Putin might not like, that's the only law you gotta worry about.

[evanrabby]

as of 2017 the patents have expired, no more licensing:

https://www.iis.fraunhofer.de/en/ff/...odecs/mp3.html

[Goldreap]

Originally Posted by evanrabby

as of 2017 the patents have expired, no more licensing:

https://www.iis.fraunhofer.de/en/ff/...odecs/mp3.html

Which is why LAME is now included in the REAPER install
package rather than users having to download it separately.

[evanrabby]

but, we'd rather have the fraunhoffer IIs codec in reaper, as it is higher quality right? i cant find any comparison but i remember in 1999 comparing codecs and found the former to be quite noticeably better

[bcslaam]

That makes sense. Recently I did a mp3 render in Reaper with Lame and compared it to one made by Sony Soundforge 10 using FraunhoferII and the quality from soundforge was noticably better.

Im hoping since the patent has expired that a rival to the sonnox codec toolbox will come along at a much cheaper price .

[JamesPeters]

Are you certain that an MP3 encoded with the most recent LAME sounds worse somehow than with Fraunhofer's codec? Were the same encoding settings used?

I recall comparing those codecs a long time ago and finding them relatively equal in quality, although sounding somewhat different. Neither were perfect, and each one had its inherent "sound" to it. When encoding for maximum quality, I couldn't reliably tell a difference. With storage space being much less costly these days, I wouldn't bother encoding MP3 at anything other than highest quality (320 kbps, cbr, slowest encoding). Even for the encoding speed, I wouldn't choose anything other than "slowest" since CPUs are so much more powerful now.

[evanrabby]

to *compare*, you want to encode at a lower bitrate like 128 where you can hear artifacts. i remember clearly the difference was noticeable.
the point is still to save space: i put these on my iphone which does far too many tasks for its 64gb storage///
i normally use 256kbps as i found that that was just high enough to equal uncompressed cd audio (we tend to hear to about 15khz by the time were over 30 if were lucky and havent suffered more acute hearing loss...)

[JamesPeters]

I haven't encoded at 128 kbps since...probably before the year 2000 anyway. I can tell every MP3 codec is affecting the audio, in every test I did, reliably; I was also able to name each codec based on how it butchered the audio (I had my friends set up blind tests for me). I didn't like any of them at 128 kbps. 256 kbps was my compromise for saving space back when HDDs were typically less than 50 GB, and backup media was basically DVD. Nowadays though I wouldn't use anything less than 320 kbps. If my phone is running low on space, I'd just swap music around from time to time. And if you're playing music from your phone, I figure the difference in MP3 codecs is probably not as important as the headphones you choose to wear (please don't tell me you can reliably notice the difference in MP3 codecs encoding at 256 kbps with ear buds in your iPhone!)

I'm 48 and I still hear up to 17 KHz (possibly a bit more).

By the way if you didn't compare recently: LAME has had a lot of updates--some quite significant--in the last 20 years.

[evanrabby]

I have never encoded on 128 :-) but I do remember a quality difference between that Fraunhofer and other MP3. That is the specific focus of my comments, to get the Fraunhofer instead of lame in reaper. And the way that I compared how well they couldn't code was to switch to a lower resolution just for the comparison of encoding quality, and then encode at a resolution with no difference can be detected by ear.

17 kHz, that's really good for 50 years old! Did you determine that by turning on a frequency generator and sweeping it to the highest frequency that your ears could detect at the same volume as lower frequencies?

[JamesPeters]

My hearing is less sensitive at 17 KHz, but it's still pretty good. (Those "teen" 17 KHz ringtones sound like someone's stabbing me in the ears.) I've done sweeps as well as singular tones (one at a time, at 1 KHz intervals). It's better in the morning, and not as good in the evening. I try to not subject my ears to loud noise for long periods of time, and I guess it's paid off.

My hearing was unusually good when I was younger though, exceeding test expectations that the test team performed at my grade school. They kept trying to trick me, and then told me they thought I was cheating somehow, since I was able to hear a bit higher than 20 KHz reliably. Exactly how much higher, I don't remember. My hearing didn't remain quite that good for very long anyway.

[bcslaam]

Originally Posted by JamesPeters

Are you certain that an MP3 encoded with the most recent LAME sounds worse somehow than with Fraunhofer's codec? Were the same encoding settings used?

I recall comparing those codecs a long time ago and finding them relatively equal in quality, although sounding somewhat different. Neither were perfect, and each one had its inherent "sound" to it. When encoding for maximum quality, I couldn't reliably tell a difference. With storage space being much less costly these days, I wouldn't bother encoding MP3 at anything other than highest quality (320 kbps, cbr, slowest encoding). Even for the encoding speed, I wouldn't choose anything other than "slowest" since CPUs are so much more powerful now.

It is with the higher compression ratios that it is more noticable. I have to encode for specific job at mono/22khz 40bps. The lame version was noticably duller than then soundforge encode. It was more lacking in depth and had lost more top end, and at that bit rate you need all you can get. Sure its not usual for people to encode music this low but for specific client requirements (voice only bites) like this I have found LAME to be inferior.

Also, what this tells me is that, in general there must be a quality difference. ie Fraunhofer is better than lame. Probably on purpose to give Fraunhofer an edge. I dont expoect Reaper to go and include a Fraunhofer option. But was hoping for another paid option than the expensive sonnox one.

[evanrabby]

Originally Posted by bcslaam

I dont expoect Reaper to go and include a Fraunhofer option. But was hoping for another paid option than the expensive sonnox one.

not only is it to be expected and wanted, but its now free to include. i have a new a FR for it, i hope you will all vote! tis here:

https://forum.cockos.com/showthread.php?t=219204