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MP3 decoding was already free and got recently included in Fedora. But now, encoding is also free according to Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits IIS: "On April 23, 2017, Technicolor's mp3 licensing program for certain mp3 related patents and software of Technicolor and Fraunhofer IIS has been terminated." The Wikipedia MP3 article confirms that.
So, do you still use an MP3 library or have you switched to another format or means of listening to music such as (spying built-in) streaming services?
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The MP3 Format is now Patent Free
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Life is like a diaper -- short and loaded.
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Friday May 05 2017, @07:20PM
Well, that's certainly part of it, but the death of DRM in music was around the same time, along with price cuts in the average cost of an album. I'm sure as shit not buying files that will only play on one device or that require an internet connection to validate no matter what the price is. I'm not gonna pay for a streaming service where I still have to deal with "BUFFERING..." trying to listen in my car and re-purchasing the same songs every single month. I'm not gonna pay twenty bucks to download a few megabytes. But when I started to see *reasonable* offers, I took them.
These are the same reasons I don't often buy or go to theaters to see movies. It's not worth the price for something two hours long that I'll only ever watch once, and even if the content was worth the price it's rendered nearly worthless with DRM and other restrictions. I could afford to go to the theater a few times a week if I wanted to; I've actually gone twice in the past five years. I could afford to buy or rent a DVD whenever I want, but I honestly don't think I've ever done that in my life. I can probably afford to watch as many movies as I want, but instead I watch hours and hours of YouTube because it's easier to get and it's generally got higher quality content anyway. Doesn't matter how much money you've got if the products they're producing just aren't worth buying.