If I might be so bold: the problem might be that he is /acquiring/ MP3 files from servers that won't release them as Ogg/Vorbis. It's all very well for us to decide to rip our audio CD's to Ogg/Vorbis instead of MP3. But that doesn't help the user who acquires MP3's that are distributed by certain multimedia Webmasters who, AFAIK, are the original owners or have themselves acquired full distribution rights. An example would be the excellent recording of the Soviet Army Chorus singing the Hymn to the Soviet Union, available on the Web site dedicated to that song's history.
Or he bought them from one of the online stores. $1 per song.
That said, I solved the problem by downloading the RealOne Player for Linux. It will play MP3's without a problem, and Real Media charges nothing. Evidently they have a long-standing MP3 license, and their business model allows them to distribute, free-of-charge, a player that supports MP3, even on an open-source platform like Linux.
More likely they simply paid flat fee of $50,000 - $60,000 for unlimited decoder license for the base (free) version of Real player, and are paying $2.50 - $5.00 for each copy of pro (or gold, or whatever they call it now) version they sell. While commercial company can probably afford spending $50-60k for license for something they are giving for free, most open source developers can't. Wich puts them in inferior position. Something legislators hasn't envisioned would happen. If they was, they probably wouldn't allow for software patents, or there would be some limitations on their applicability (believe it or not, patent law is about giving inscentive for research and development of any kind, so that society as hole can benefit from it, not about companies making big money). That's where the big fuss in Europe is about right know. While Americans had allowed software patents before it was clear that it was mistake, Europeans are now in position to see that not having software patents actually returns greater value to the society at the end (well, except for pattent office, that probably only thinks about all the money they can make on patent applications which are rather expensive over there).
-- Aleksandar Milivojevic <amilivojevic@xxxxxx> Pollard Banknote Limited Systems Administrator 1499 Buffalo Place Tel: (204) 474-2323 ext 276 Winnipeg, MB R3T 1L7
