Fedora 25 to have MP3 playback [LWN.net]

Are the patents officially expired?

Posted Nov 11, 2016 0:43 UTC (Fri) by yodermk (subscriber, #3803) [Link] (6 responses)

Last I heard/understood, it was unclear if the patents would expire this year or in early 2018, depending on the interpretation of something (I forget what).

Are the patents officially expired?

Posted Nov 11, 2016 2:14 UTC (Fri) by drag (guest, #31333) [Link] (5 responses)

It is my understanding that there are many different aspects of mp3 that are covered by different patents.

Maybe it's possible to change a particular implementation detail to avoid infringing on the last remaining valid patents.

Are the patents officially expired?

Posted Nov 11, 2016 4:47 UTC (Fri) by JoeBuck (subscriber, #2330) [Link] (2 responses)

I would expect that patents necessary for a decoder would expire sooner than patents for an encoder: just synthesizing sound from parameters is less technically challenging than finding a good set of parameters for good quality at a low bit rate. And I am sure that Red Hat's lawyers are being very careful; if they sign off, then they must think they can legally defend it.

Are the patents officially expired?

Posted Nov 11, 2016 19:38 UTC (Fri) by tialaramex (subscriber, #21167) [Link]

It's not just the parameters, even picking the algorithm itself is in scope for encoding. The MPEG audio layer specification doesn't mention how you might choose to go about encoding PCM data at all, it _solely_ specifies how an encoded stream is to be converted back into PCM data by a correct decoder. I haven't stared closely at MP3, but it isn't rare for these lossy encodings to have lesser features which, at the time they were standardised, nobody really knew how to use well when encoding. They're basically a few bits gambled on future proofing. A correct decoder should work fine regardless of whether that feature ends up being incredibly important or is instead left to rot because no researchers can figure out how to make use of it.

Are the patents officially expired?

Posted Nov 11, 2016 23:01 UTC (Fri) by tterribe (guest, #66972) [Link]

> I would expect that patents necessary for a decoder would
> expire sooner than patents for an encoder

In general it is exactly the opposite. In an encoder, you can pick and choose what you actually use. In a decoder, you have to be able to play anything someone might have chosen to encode. I believe it has been possible to write a not-crippled-so-much-as-to-be-useless MP3 encoder since 2013.

The difficulty isn't the complexity of the processing you have to do, it's the fact that you must comply with the standard. I.e., there is little to no value in these patents from the technology or the invention. All of the value is from the network effects of other people using them.

Are the patents officially expired?

Posted Nov 11, 2016 22:19 UTC (Fri) by pr1268 (guest, #24648) [Link] (1 responses)

It is my understanding that there are many different aspects of mp3 that are covered by different patents.

Just how many patents are we talking about here? I'm sincerely curious, as I originally thought there was only one patent covering MP3 "perceptual coding" (owned by the Fraunhofer Institute). I kinda assumed that decoding was not patented (or at least not enforceable) because it's just a file format (compare to e.g. a Microsoft Word document).

Oh, wait, apparently there are eighteen patents still active in the USA. Sigh...

Are the patents officially expired?

Posted Nov 13, 2016 19:48 UTC (Sun) by Felix (guest, #36445) [Link]

Not sure why there should be 18 active patents related to mp3. The page you linked lists only 5 which are not expired by now (Nov 2016) and all of the remaining patents have something like "encoding" in their title so I think it is plausible to assume all decoder patents just expired (in the US).

Fedora 25 to have MP3 playback

Posted Nov 11, 2016 0:44 UTC (Fri) by mattrose (guest, #19610) [Link] (39 responses)

Why now?

What changed?

MP3 playback support has been a problem for years, and was always waved off with various legal and IP issues, even though other Linux distros had none of the same problems.

Fedora 25 to have MP3 playback

Posted Nov 11, 2016 2:02 UTC (Fri) by rahulsundaram (subscriber, #21946) [Link] (32 responses)

> even though other Linux distros had none of the same problems.

What? Are you claiming software patents are magically not a problem for other distributions?

Fedora 25 to have MP3 playback

Posted Nov 11, 2016 2:16 UTC (Fri) by Wol (subscriber, #4433) [Link]

Looks like it might not be a problem much longer, though.

One more big patent case, and the Federal Appeals Court might kill them stone dead. Hopefully, when Oracle/Google finishes its appeal, that might be the case ...

Cheers,
Wol

Fedora 25 to have MP3 playback

Posted Nov 11, 2016 10:26 UTC (Fri) by cesarb (subscriber, #6266) [Link] (30 responses)

> Are you claiming software patents are magically not a problem for other distributions?

Other distributions are not based in the USA. According to Wikipedia, Ubuntu is based in the UK, and SUSE is based in Germany. RedHat/Fedora being based in the USA makes it specially vulnerable to software patent lawsuits.

Fedora 25 to have MP3 playback

Posted Nov 11, 2016 13:42 UTC (Fri) by Wol (subscriber, #4433) [Link] (29 responses)

Being pedantic, I think Ubuntu is based in the British Isles, not the UK. The distinction between Great Britain, the UK, the British Isles, and any such other terms is subtle and usually not understood even by the locals :-)

Cheers,
Wol

Fedora 25 to have MP3 playback

Posted Nov 11, 2016 14:20 UTC (Fri) by jriddell (subscriber, #3916) [Link] (28 responses)

Ubuntu the project is based wherever its contributors are. Canonical is headquartered in a tax haven bank in the Isle of Man and has major subsidiaries in the UK, USA, Taiwan and elsewhere.

Fedora 25 to have MP3 playback

Posted Nov 11, 2016 17:13 UTC (Fri) by Wol (subscriber, #4433) [Link]

And as far as I'm aware, the Isle of Man is not - legally - part of the UK. Being most definitely part of the British Isles, and pretty tightly tied economically, most people don't know any different.

Cheers,
Wol

Fedora 25 to have MP3 playback

Posted Nov 12, 2016 11:38 UTC (Sat) by paulj (subscriber, #341) [Link] (26 responses)

Right, which means that Wol is correct.

The Isle of Man is not part of the political entity of the United Kingdom of Great Britain, Scotland and Northern Ireland, though it is part of the geographical entity of the British Isles (very historically, that should really be "Gaelic" Isles, but hey). Although it is a protectorate of some kind of the UK (a "Crown dependency" is the term apparently) and some of its affairs (e.g. defence, foreign affairs) are handled by the UK government.

Fedora 25 to have MP3 playback

Posted Nov 12, 2016 20:40 UTC (Sat) by Wol (subscriber, #4433) [Link] (24 responses)

Whoops :-) Great Britain includes Scotland, so it's the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Except that, of course, if you're being pedantic, Great Britain leaves out an awful lot of what is the UK, including such places as the Isle of Wight! :-)

And of course, the intersection of "Scotland" and "The Land of the Scots" is only a small part of either - the major part of The Land of the Scots (Scotia) is no longer part of the UK :-)

And am I right - I believe the Orkneys are unusual in that they ARE part of the UK, but NOT part of the British Isles, belonging geographically to Norway or Denmark? :-)

Cheers,
Wol

Orkneys

Posted Nov 13, 2016 16:10 UTC (Sun) by tialaramex (subscriber, #21167) [Link] (4 responses)

As to the last, I believe you are wrong, not only the Orkneys (which on a map look very obviously to just be a bunch more Scottish islands, not terribly far from the coast), but even the Shetlands (which are seriously a long way from Great Britain, but still marginally closer to the Scottish mainland than to the Norwegian coast) are geographically more related to Great Britain than to Scandinavia even though at times they were settled by or even conquered by peoples from Scandinavia. A list of "British Isles" includes both Orkneys and Shetlands for this reason.

Orkneys

Posted Nov 13, 2016 17:55 UTC (Sun) by Wol (subscriber, #4433) [Link] (3 responses)

Oops yes - I got my Orkneys and Shetlands mixed up, but I don't think it's only distance. If the "deep water channel" goes between the Shetlands and the British Isles, then geographically they're not part of Britain.

Bit like Iceland, politically part of Europe, it's partly on the American tectonic plate I suspect :-)

Cheers,
Wol

Orkneys

Posted Nov 13, 2016 22:51 UTC (Sun) by mathstuf (subscriber, #69389) [Link]

The plates do divide Iceland (you can snorkel and dive between them in Þingvellir).

Orkneys

Posted Nov 15, 2016 17:23 UTC (Tue) by mpr22 (subscriber, #60784) [Link] (1 responses)

Geologically, there's at least one faultline between the Northern Isles (Orkney & Shetland) and Norway; it's the continuation of the faultline that runs along the Great Glen, making Orkney and Shetland roughly speaking part of the Highlands from a tectonic perspective.

Orkneys

Posted Nov 17, 2016 1:15 UTC (Thu) by anselm (subscriber, #2796) [Link]

But then again the Highlands of Scotland are really part of the Appalachians …

Fedora 25 to have MP3 playback

Posted Nov 13, 2016 19:04 UTC (Sun) by paulj (subscriber, #341) [Link] (18 responses)

uh, yes. UKGB is by definition the kingdoms of England and Scotland. Apologies.

Fedora 25 to have MP3 playback

Posted Nov 14, 2016 8:31 UTC (Mon) by anselm (subscriber, #2796) [Link] (17 responses)

Not quite. England and Scotland used to be two separate kingdoms (albeit ruled by the same monarch part of the time) until the “Union of Parliaments” in 1707, when they became the single “Kingdom of Great Britain” (no “United” yet). This can create weird effects; for example, when the current queen ascended to the throne as Elizabeth II, some Scots took exception to the name since there hadn't been a previous queen Elizabeth in Scotland (Elizabeth I of England reigned before the Union of Parliaments), so as far as these Scots were concerned the new incumbent was Elizabeth I. They would blow up postboxes that said “EIIR”.

The “United” in the name didn't come in until 1801, when the Kingdom of Great Britain officially merged with Ireland, which before used to be yet another separate kingdom ruled by the same monarch. That created the “United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland”, but most of Ireland got out again in 1921, hence today's “United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland”. (If the Scots ever opt for independence what will be left will presumably be the “United Kingdom of England and Northern Ireland”.)

Fedora 25 to have MP3 playback

Posted Nov 14, 2016 9:20 UTC (Mon) by NAR (subscriber, #1313) [Link] (6 responses)

so as far as these Scots were concerned the new incumbent was Elizabeth I.

Ah, isn't it great when not only the name, but the serial number of a monarch changes when one crosses a border? IV. Károly suddenly becomes Karl I, etc.

Fedora 25 to have MP3 playback

Posted Nov 14, 2016 9:39 UTC (Mon) by jriddell (subscriber, #3916) [Link] (5 responses)

The post boxes in Scotland lack the ERII of the ones in England because of blowing up post boxes at the time of the coronation, making it a unique example of Scottish nationalist terrorism and a successful one at that. But Winston Churchhill at the time decided the system would be to use the higher of the numbers required between England and Scotland for a monarch to keep consistency, not something which has yet or is due to be been tested the other way round however.

Fedora 25 to have MP3 playback

Posted Nov 14, 2016 11:01 UTC (Mon) by anselm (subscriber, #2796) [Link] (4 responses)

not something which has yet or is due to be been tested the other way round however.

Much like the Pope, British monarchs get to pick their official name when they ascend to the throne, so theoretically Prince Charles (or for that matter Prince William or Prince George) could opt to be called, say, King Malcolm, and that would make him Malcolm V in Scotland but Malcolm I in England as they haven't had a Malcolm yet. There haven't been any Charleses in Scotland so far, and too few Williams to avoid controversy, so maybe in order to avoid more trouble along the lines of the Elizabeth I/II thing, these two ought to go for a completely new and unused name, like “Dwayne” or “Leroy” (which would be particularly apt). Baby George, OTOH, should be fine under his own name as all six of the previous Georges were after 1707.

Fedora 25 to have MP3 playback

Posted Nov 14, 2016 15:35 UTC (Mon) by Wol (subscriber, #4433) [Link] (3 responses)

Actually, there HAVE been Charles in Scotland - When Charles I was deposed and executed as King of *England*, his son became Charles II of *Scotland*. Okay, he was a King-in-exile, only returning to Britain when he became King of England as well in ?1660?

And I think pretty much all monarchs who've used a different regal name have used their second name - Queen Victoria, Edward VII, George VI. Charles would become King Philip (although the rumour is he would use the name George, which is his fourth name).

(Changing topic again, there's a whole bunch of EIIR postboxes in Scotland that do have a monarch's cipher - they were made about 1980 with VR on them!!! :-(

Cheers,
Wol

Fedora 25 to have MP3 playback

Posted Nov 14, 2016 15:37 UTC (Mon) by Wol (subscriber, #4433) [Link]

> although the rumour is he would use the name George, which is his fourth name

That would make baby George the VIIIth, but only the sixth to actually be called George :-)

Fedora 25 to have MP3 playback

Posted Nov 15, 2016 22:13 UTC (Tue) by nelljerram (subscriber, #12005) [Link] (1 responses)

But why oh why can't we have a King Arthur? (That being Charles's third name.)

Fedora 25 to have MP3 playback

Posted Nov 16, 2016 13:49 UTC (Wed) by Wol (subscriber, #4433) [Link]

Yes - and he'd be the first of that name too, seeing as they restarted the numbering with William ... There's at least one, and I think several, Edwards before Edward I.

Cheers,
Wol

Fedora 25 to have MP3 playback

Posted Nov 14, 2016 9:21 UTC (Mon) by tao (subscriber, #17563) [Link] (8 responses)

I'm fairly sure it'd still be Great Britain and Northern Ireland; don't forget Wales...

Fedora 25 to have MP3 playback

Posted Nov 14, 2016 10:29 UTC (Mon) by anselm (subscriber, #2796) [Link] (7 responses)

Wales – although geographically located on the island of Great Britain – had already been part of the Kingdom of England for some 400 years at the time of the Union of Parliaments in 1707. Remember that the heir apparent to the English throne has since the late 13th century been styled the Prince of Wales.

Hence, Welsh national sentiment and modern devolved governance practice notwithstanding, it doesn't show up as a separate entity as far as these traditional realms are concerned. Blame Edward I, who concluded the conquest of Wales by the English in 1282, and the 16th-century “Laws in Wales Acts”.

Fedora 25 to have MP3 playback

Posted Nov 14, 2016 15:46 UTC (Mon) by Wol (subscriber, #4433) [Link] (6 responses)

And the same would have been true of Scotland if it hadn't been for the successful revolts by people like William Wallace and Robert the Bruce.

My knowledge of British history isn't as good as I'd like, but about 900 all the kingdoms of Britain were steadily coalescing into a single united country. William's conquest of (most of) the Saxon south rather upset the applecart. His descendants (notably Edward I) spread that much further north, but his son Edward II promptly lost it all again.

(The Angle kingdom of about 900 stretched from the Firth of Forth in the north, to the Tyne in the south) (One of the reasons Harold lost the Battle of Hastings is he'd just fought a battle in that far north...) (The other, bigger reason, is that like Richard III he had the misfortune to get killed just when victory was his for the taking ...)

Most of? - do you know why the Kent motto is "Invicta"?

Cheers,
Wol

Fedora 25 to have MP3 playback

Posted Nov 14, 2016 21:31 UTC (Mon) by tome (subscriber, #3171) [Link] (5 responses)

A brief summary of the situation ca. 1990's from the point of view of an Edinburgh Scot, as portrayed by Irvine Welsh via a character in Trainspotting:
"It’s nae good blamin it oan the English for colonizing us. Ah don’t hate the English. They’re just wankers. We are colonized by wankers. We can’t even pick a decent, vibrant, healthy culture to be colonized by. No. We’re ruled by effete arseholes. What does that make us? The lowest of the fuckin low, the scum of the earth. The most wretched, servile, miserable, pathetic trash that was ever shat intae creation. Ah don’t hate the English. They just git oan wi the shite thuv goat. Ah hate the Scots."

Fedora 25 to have MP3 playback

Posted Nov 14, 2016 22:01 UTC (Mon) by Wol (subscriber, #4433) [Link] (4 responses)

And don't call me a Sassenach! :-)

The Sassenachs are the Anglish, or Lowland Scots (who, obviously, aren't actually Scots :-) I'm a cross between a Saxon (ie my father's family came from East Anglia - nothing to do with the Angles I believe), and a Highlander, ie a Pict not a Scot :-) I wear the kilt with pride :-) The Stewarts (or Stewards, caretaker Kings) were Sassenachs, I believe.

Hence Edinburgh, the Angle capital, being the capital of Scotland :-)

Cheers,
Wol

Fedora 25 to have MP3 playback

Posted Nov 15, 2016 0:21 UTC (Tue) by anselm (subscriber, #2796) [Link] (3 responses)

A Sassenach is a person who doesn't speak Gaelic. That means most of us ;^)

Fedora 25 to have MP3 playback

Posted Nov 15, 2016 1:53 UTC (Tue) by paulj (subscriber, #341) [Link]

I know a focal or two. Wish I'd paid more attention in school and learned more Gaelic, and then not forgotten most of what I did.

Fedora 25 to have MP3 playback

Posted Nov 15, 2016 12:24 UTC (Tue) by Wol (subscriber, #4433) [Link] (1 responses)

In other words, someone who lived in the old Angle kingdom, in the lowlands. Modern Scotland is made of four ancient kingdoms - the Land of the Scots (ie the Western Isles), the Land of the Picts, ie the highlands, north of the Glasgow Edinburgh line, Angleland ie lowland Scotland to the east, and Dalriada (about which I know nothing) below Glasgow to the west.

Historically a Sassenach was someone from the lowlands, the old Angle kingdom :-) ie NOT us saxons from Southern Britain :-)

Cheers,
Wol

Fedora 25 to have MP3 playback

Posted Nov 18, 2016 15:46 UTC (Fri) by jnicol (guest, #106134) [Link]

Dalriada was the name for the kingdom of the Scots (in gaelic, "scot" comes from latin). There was the brhetonic kingdom of strathclyde in the south-west.

I studied all this at advanced higher (Scottish equivalent of A-Level) but that was years ago and I can unfortunately barely remember it!

Fedora 25 to have MP3 playback

Posted Nov 15, 2016 1:48 UTC (Tue) by paulj (subscriber, #341) [Link]

Ha! :) Very good. I was thinking of the "Great Britain" bit mostly, hadn't considered the "United" bit only came in with Ireland.

Note that while Ireland ceased to be part of the UKGB in 1921, with the Treaty of London, it continued to be a British Crown dominion, with the King of England as its head of state. I.e., legally it continued under the same monarch.

This was a major point of contention for many of the Irish who'd fought for a republic, as they were republicans. This, and other points (the partition notably), led to a briefish low-level civil war in Ireland. All of Ireland notionally remained under the British crown until 1949, when the republic was declared (again, this time England didn't step in to quash it militarily, unlike in 1916). The current state marked its anniversary this year, taking the original declaration in 1916 as the start of the state. ;)

Fedora 25 to have MP3 playback

Posted Nov 21, 2016 11:47 UTC (Mon) by gerv (guest, #3376) [Link]

ObReference: "The Difference between the United Kingdom, Great Britain and England Explained" by CGP Grey.

Gerv

Fedora 25 to have MP3 playback

Posted Nov 11, 2016 2:05 UTC (Fri) by kskatrh (guest, #73410) [Link] (2 responses)

AIUI, it's not that Fedora had "problems" shipping the CODEC. It's that Fedora took the high ground on not shipping patent encumbered software; other distributions chose to look the other way and ship the CODEC anyway.

Fedora 25 to have MP3 playback

Posted Nov 11, 2016 5:05 UTC (Fri) by mcatanzaro (subscriber, #93033) [Link] (1 responses)

That's not true, the only consideration here is legal. Of course we want to ship all the codecs we think we can get away with. Previously MP3 was disallowed by legal. Now it's allowed. I don't have any details on this, but patents are expiring and I presume risk is considered to be much lower than it was previously.

Fedora 25 to have MP3 playback

Posted Nov 11, 2016 5:08 UTC (Fri) by mcatanzaro (subscriber, #93033) [Link]

To be clear: the only factor driving the choice of which codecs to include is legal risk to Red Hat.

Fedora 25 to have MP3 playback

Posted Nov 11, 2016 6:51 UTC (Fri) by scottt (guest, #5028) [Link] (2 responses)

> What changed?

Patents expired and a legal review confirmed it, presumably. I've read that the MP3 decoder patents would expire ~2016 for years. I'm frankly surprised that you're surprised.

Fedora 25 to have MP3 playback

Posted Nov 11, 2016 10:29 UTC (Fri) by jond (subscriber, #37669) [Link]

Heresay is the last of the MP3 patents expires next year, rather thanthis year; but perhaps those that cover decoding are all done.

Fedora 25 to have MP3 playback

Posted Nov 11, 2016 22:37 UTC (Fri) by mattrose (guest, #19610) [Link]

I'm just surprised because I had no idea that the MP3 patents were due to expire. Not a big follower of patent expiry dates.

Fedora 25 to have MP3 playback

Posted Nov 11, 2016 12:16 UTC (Fri) by epa (subscriber, #39769) [Link] (4 responses)

I wonder if there is some kind of 'uncompressed MP3' which you can generate without falling foul of the MP3 software patents. That might possibly be useful for compatibility with devices which only play MP3 format.

Fedora 25 to have MP3 playback

Posted Nov 13, 2016 7:12 UTC (Sun) by flussence (guest, #85566) [Link] (3 responses)

MP2 is a wholly compatible subset of MP3, AFAIK (and if various things I've read are to be believed, it sounds better at equal bitrates…)

Fedora 25 to have MP3 playback

Posted Nov 13, 2016 12:39 UTC (Sun) by Jonno (subscriber, #49613) [Link]

MP2 is not quite a subset of MP3, but you dont loose much compared to full MP2 by limiting the encoder to the common subset of the two (a bit like C and C++).

MP2 is *not* better than MP3 at any bitrate, but the MP2 specification allows for up to 384 kb/s, while the MP3 specification maxes out at 320 kb/s, and computer analysis shows that MP2 @ 384 kb/s is marginally better than MP3 @ 320 kb/s for some samples (though human listening tests shows no difference, as both are statistically tied with the original sample).

Fedora 25 to have MP3 playback

Posted Nov 13, 2016 20:12 UTC (Sun) by eru (subscriber, #2753) [Link]

MP2 is a wholly compatible subset of MP3, AFAIK (and if various things I've read are to be believed, it sounds better at equal bitrates…)

Don't they use entirely different compression methods? It shows when you dial down the bit rate, they get different compression artifacts. Experimented with this once. MP2 starts sounding like a weak radio station, whereas MP3 becomes "robotic". Maybe this is why some people think MP2 sounds better: the artifacts are more natural.

Fedora 25 to have MP3 playback

Posted Dec 1, 2016 10:46 UTC (Thu) by davidgerard (guest, #100304) [Link]

Nope! MP2 is a completely different encoder to MP3, though it works on a lot of the same principles. MP2 was put forward by Phillips, MP3 by Fraunhofer. There was a pile of industry politics, which Phillips were better at than Fraunhofer, which meant that the technically inferior MP2 ended up in DVD and DAB and so forth, and MP3 only achieved popularity because its freeware encoder/decoder happened to be adopted by warez types in the late 1990s. But, for instance, Severed Heads put out an MP2 "complete works" CD in 1996, because MP3 had yet to find its way back to popularity.