MP3 licensing over - can we remove LAME restrictions?

[Alexander Leidinger]

Quoting Ben Woods <woodsb02 at gmail.com> (from Wed, 03 May 2017 07:18:18 +0000):

> "On April 23, 2017, Technicolor's mp3 licensing program for certain mp3
> related patents and software of Technicolor and Fraunhofer IIS has been
> terminated."
> http://www.mp3licensing.com/

Putting my FreeBSD-hat aside and speaking as one of the project admins  
of LAME:

What you list here are the Fraunhofer/Technicolor patents. There are  
at least 2 more parties involved. To what I was told the two other  
known patent portfolios are currently in the hands of Nokia and  
Sisvel. The later one being a very active party when it comes down to  
their intellectual property.

I don't know anything about when patents from the other two portfolios  
expire, nor what those patents would be, nor if they are expired or  
not. My only knowledge is basically "there are more than those you  
quoted".

> It seems that the FreeBSD port for LAME could now have the restriction
> removed, allowing the packages to be available for users by default.

My recommendation: not without legal advice (which IMO would be up for  
portmgr to seek for, together with the Foundation, if at all). In case  
we would go this way, I could ask my source of this information if he  
is willing to provide some more info as a seed for further  
investigation by someone else. Or if some Linux distro(s) are  
interested for a joined investigation (maybe the EFF is interested  
too)...

Bye,
Alexander.

-- 
http://www.Leidinger.net Alexander at Leidinger.net: PGP 0x8F31830F9F2772BF
http://www.FreeBSD.org    netchild at FreeBSD.org  : PGP 0x8F31830F9F2772BF
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