[Openal] MP3-Player and License

[Ed Phillips]

Hey,

On Fri, 26 May 2006, Benjamin Grauer wrote:

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> Ed Phillips wrote:
>
>> Hey,
>>
>> On Fri, 26 May 2006, Tyler Olsen wrote:
>>
>>> 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
>
> So if i do not want to distribute MP3's with my Game, but still want
> the user to be able to play back his own MP3's in my game, and i do
> not sell, but give freely, it is ok to have an mp3-decoder inside of
> my code??

According to www.mp3licensing.com, the word "distibute" is used, not 
"sell".  So it doesn't matter if your game (with an mp3 decoder inside) is 
sold or not... if you distribute more than 5,000 copies of it, you have to 
pay the fee.

> Then the second question remains....
> 2. Does someone have any clue on how to decode mp3's??

There are API/SDKs on the Internet that you can use to decode MP3 files.

 	Ed

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