[IP] Re: The MP3 patent debacle

[David Farber <dave@farber.net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Bob Frankston <Bob19-0501@bobf.frankston.com>
Date: February 24, 2007 9:39:02 PM EST
To: "'David Wagner'" <daw@cs.berkeley.edu>
Cc: David Farber <dave@farber.net>
Subject: RE: [IP] The MP3 patent debacle

You won't hear the problem as long as you stay within spec and don't
repurpose (or remix) the music. As to compression -- you should have the
option of getting the extreme compression if you want. But if it's  
going to
cost billions of dollars for the license think about putting that money
into advancing generic capacity instead of just giving Alcatel a lottery
ticket. Perhaps I'm also annoyed because that money helps preserve the
illusion that the legacy telecom notion of transporting bits at a  
profit is
a real business rather than a way to assure scarcity.

-----Original Message-----
From: David Wagner [mailto:daw@cs.berkeley.edu]
Sent: Saturday, February 24, 2007 15:12
To: Bob19-0501@bobf.frankston.com
Subject: [IP] The MP3 patent debacle


In article <F626115F-68E9-4BC9-9003-05C59E90D310@farber.net> you write:
> IANAL but I wouldve thought that MP3 had to describe something but
> people use MP3 as a synonym for digital music. Its real value is in
> extreme compression  the kind that seemed necessary when 2400bps was
> considered a high speed connection. Today we have the tragedy of
> continuing of paying for the use of a brand that is not directly
> associated with the value of the compression scheme it stands for and
> that scheme itself distorts the music.

I disagree.

If compression is no longer necessary, then how were you thinking that
I would store all of my albums on my iPod nano?  Rest assured that I  
have
far more music than I can store uncompressed on a portable music device.

As for the distortion, I can't tell the difference, so why should I  
care?




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