New "MP3 100% Compatible" Logo For DRM-Free Music

Sockatume writes "A coalition of seven UK digital music stores have created a logo for DRM-free, MP3 music. The 'MP3: 100% Compatible' logo allows the stores to emphasize the advantages of the format, namely that MP3 files will run on any device and won't keel over and die as DRM-laden files are wont to. The BPI — the UK equivalent of the RIAA — is backing the scheme, emphasizing that it will also allow users to identify legitimate stores."

Re:Easier solution

[duckInferno]

I'd imagine that would send the wrong message in India.

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[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:yes but...

[Anonymous Coward]

Depends. Do you live in a country which allows software patents? Do you actually pay attention to legal issues and refuse to use software that violates patents?

If so to both, then no, it doesn't run on Linux. No on either one, and sure, why not?

Re:mp3 is nice, but...

[phatvw]

MP3 is supported on more handheld players and integrated chipsets that's why. It may not be the best compression scheme as there have been some great developments in psychoacoustics in the last 15 years, but MP3 just works.

Also, don't worry about Fraunhofer/Thomson. The patents are gonna expire in a couple years and none of the big companies have sued anyone for using LAME yet: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MP3 [wikipedia.org]

Re:mp3 is nice, but...

[Si-UCP]

I don't like encoding my music into a proprietary format.

You don't seem to have a problem using it on proprietary devices.

Rockbox [wikipedia.org] + your device with proprietary firmware (including iPods -- up to 5.5G) = your device with new, shiny open-source firmware, that, of course, supports .ogg.

Not so

[Craig Ringer]

Actually, there's a legal, licensed MP3 decoder available for Linux. http://www.fluendo.com/resources/fluendo_mp3.php [fluendo.com] It's open source (MIT) with binaries approved by Fraunhofer available. So you're OK even if you do stick strictly to all patent law, live in a country where such law applies to software, and require source to all code running on your system (above BIOS/firmware level).

Re:Easier solution

[Caetel]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swastika#Hinduism [wikipedia.org]

Re: 'MP3: 100% Compatible' != legit

[Anonymous Coward]

Use of this logo doesn't imply that you're legit, only that you're MP3-compatible.

Re: 'MP3: 100% Compatible' != legit

[Anonymous Coward]

No, it would probably be trademark infringement unless they didn't trademark the logo.

Re:MP3 != 100% compatible

[SanityInAnarchy]

Flac, then. Turns into mp3 or ogg easily enough, and is open and unpatented.

Re:mp3 is nice, but...

[theurge14]

Yes, tell us all about that proprietary Apple audio format.

Re:Sweet

[Yvanhoe]

I once bought a CD that refused to play on my computer. That was 4 years ago and that was the last CD I bought. Recently I discovered deezer and finally get to listen to other things than webradio

Re:Sweet

[Nursie]

"don't know how I'll get well-written, well-performed, well-produced music in large enough amounts to satisfy me without my money becoming they money."

Then you're not a music "sharer".

You pay for it, make your money their money. The point is you're not going to stop people sharing it, thats pretty much impossible, but you can stop punishing legitimate users and learn to live with a level of piracy that's not going to go away.

Meanwhile, you and I are paying for our music because we like it and want more. Actually, I'm buying CDs because I like having a thing and data seems temporary and unreliable, but then I'm apparently a dying breed.

Re:For varying definitions of compatible?

[Anonymous Coward]

The people worried about lack of support for FLAC and Ogg Vorbis need only use Rockbox [rockbox.org] on their iPod.

Re:MP3 != 100% compatible

[jonaskoelker]

I could download a codec for [.ogg] if I cared

Hi. I'm mister pedantic.

Ogg is a container format, meaning you can stick audio and video data inside ogg files much the same way you can files into a zip file. Except that zip has features to enable corruption detection and ogg has features to enable corruption handling (find next magic number, continue from there). Also, Ogg is streaming friendly, zip puts the data first and all the inode-like data last.

The ogg container format is most typically used with Vorbis sound and Theora video. There's also a Speex audio codec optimized for human voices (as opposed to "all sound").

Similarly, AVI is a container format [AVI = Audio Video Interlace], often storing mpeg data I'm told. Other container formats include Matroska (.mkv).

See wikipedia if you lack something to nerd out over :)

Re:For varying definitions of compatible?

[Just Some Guy]

I'm not sure there's that much resistence to Vorbis/FLAC/what have you among people who play their music off a desktop or laptop.

I'm fairly resistant even though my Rockboxed Sansa can play both just fine. My situations is that I ripped a few hundred of my CDs to high-quality MP3 and it takes up about 30GB of storage. With an 8GB portable player, that means I can take along about a fourth of my collection. This works out pretty well because a lot of it is my wife's stuff that I'm not into, and I don't like every single song from even my favorite artists.

Now, suppose I were starting from scratch and considering FLAC. I'm going to ballpark estimate the resulting collection to be about 3 times larger than what I have now. This is no big deal at all on the desktop, but suddenly the Sansa presents an awful decision:

• Only take 1/12th of my collection along, guaranteeing that I'll get an overwhelming desire to hear "Rye Or The Kaiser" which is sitting at home, or
• Transcode from FLAC to something reasonably sized at sync time.

You hear variants on the latter a lot: "just transcode when you want another format!" But why? Lame can already make MP3s that are much better than my concert-damaged hearing can distinguish, and they take a third the space of FLAC. Now, I love the idea of FLAC, but in practice I don't really see what problems it would solve for me.