MP3 licensing over - can we remove LAME restrictions?

[Alex Kozlov]

On Wed, May 03, 2017 at 07:18:18AM +0000, Ben Woods wrote:
> "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/
> 
> It seems that the FreeBSD port for LAME could now have the restriction
> removed, allowing the packages to be available for users by default.
> 
> Perhaps the LAME option could also be enabled by default in ffmpeg?
> 
> Thoughts?
First of all, IMNAL.

But I fear that it's not that simple. Even if the program was terminated,
it doesn't mean that patents are invalidated. And at least one patent from
Fraunhofer IIS is still unexpired: US6185539. Also there is uncertainty
about Alcatel's USRE39080. 


-- 
Alex