[Openal] MP3-Player and License

[Tyler Olsen]

Ed Phillips wrote:
>
> 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
> _______________________________________________
>
True, but then you have the overhead of making sure that you distribute 
no more than 5,000 copies of your game. Unless you are only selling your 
game via retail, that is not trivial to do (and if your goal is to make 
a profit, why pay the licensing fees in the first place?). Also if you 
choose MP3 and modestly assume that you'll never distribute more than 
5,000 copies, what are you to do should you get more than 5,000 buyers? 
Cough up the royalty fees, or tell your potential players "Sorry but we 
can not distribute more than 5,000 copies"? I think of that "free under 
5,000 distributed copies" rule by the licensing company as nothing more 
than a trap to lure in uncareful victims. Just stick with Ogg.


But keep in mind that Ogg and MP3 are both lossy codecs, which throw 
away different parts of the audio stream. Therefore doing a direct 
conversion of one to the other will result in a degrade in audio quality.


- Tyler