[Openal] MP3-Player and License

[Ed Phillips]

Hi,

On Fri, 26 May 2006, Tyler Olsen wrote:

> Benjamin Grauer wrote:
>> Now i want to implement the same thing in mp3, and here come my two
>> questions:
>> 
>> 1. What's about the license: can we still ship our game through the GPL??
>> 2. How to implement it at all: What libraries/Methods/portability?
>> all hints are really welcome
>> 
>> goodle did not give me anything usefull, so any help/hint as appreciated
>> 
>
> 1. You can still ship your game source with the GPL (I'm not sure if you can 
> GPL the mp3 files), but you have to pay hefty licensing fees for using even 
> one MP3 file in a game, even if you are distributing that game free of 
> charge. I have personally contacted the licensing company myself and 
> confirmed this with them two years ago.
>
> http://www.mp3licensing.com/royalty/
>
> The fee is $2,500 US, or $3,7500 US if you are using mp3pro. Unless you have 
> a reason that you absolutely *must* use MP3, I strongly recommend you stick 
> with Vorbis Ogg. Its free, you've already have it working, and the 
> quality/file-size isn't all that different from MP3 (in many cases, it is 
> better). I see absolutely no reason why anyone would want to go to MP3, 
> unless you want players of your game to be able to easily play the game's 
> music in their personal media players (Ogg is playable in almost all music 
> players of course, but it is not as ubiquitous as MP3s are).
>
>
> 2. I haven't looked into this myself and haven't bothered to either because 
> of the issues with MP3 I pointed out above, so I can't help you here.

One thing to note... at the bottom of the page here:

http://www.mp3licensing.com/royalty/games.html

There is a note that says no license fees are due if less than 5000 copies 
of the game are distributed.  Not much help for those interesed in 
distributing a GPL'd game, but maybe for a company that is distributing a 
modest number of copies of its game.

Personally, I'd also suggest to use Ogg.  There's no good reason to use 
MP3 for games unless you want to allow the user to play their own music 
with the game - and even then, you can tell users to convert their music 
to Ogg format to be compatible with the game.

 	Ed

Ed Phillips <ed at udel.edu> University of Delaware (302) 831-6082
Systems Programmer III, Network and Systems Services