[FFmpeg-user] MP3/MP4/AAC patent-license fees

[lite li]

Hi, All

I want to support MP3/MP4/AAC encoding and decoding into my
software, it is a commercial software in US.
I prefer to use FFmpeg to support them.

Can I avoid MP3/MP4/AAC patent-license fees?
If use ACM/DirectShow on Windows and use QuickTime on Mac OSx, we
still need apply patent-license?

?If patent-license always need apply, how about your suggestion?

?Thanks in advance,
Lite

[lite li]

http://episteme.arstechnica.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/48409524/m/831001197931/p/3

It's more than just the license fee.

GPL says anyone you distribute software to has the right to distribute
the software as well.
So even if Red Hat paid the mp3 patent fee, they would not be able to
distribute lame because lame is GPL and Red Hat would not have the
authority to grant distribution rights to the recipients.

In some countries the mp3 patents are not a problem, but for the US they are.

There are non GPL mp3 decoders that Red Hat could distribute, I
believe many of the audio/video codecs are taken care of with closed
source gstreamer plugins you can purchase, but if you are an open
source distribution distributing closed software isn't an option. An
OEM however could slap rhel/centos/ubuntu/whatever on a box and
include the gstreamer plugins - I'm not aware of any that do, but they
could.

However, to be honest, the open source solutions (even when compiled
as gstreamer plugins) in my experience are better than the current
closed source gstreamer plugins (I have not had an opportunity to play
with recent versions) - and xine kicks gstreamer's ass anyway, so we
really need a xine solution to the patented codecs.