Any way to integrate WinLame with Sonar 4?

ORIGINAL: donitg
I ran out of the trial period of the lame encoder that is supplied with Sonar 4. And I personally believe it's atrocious to pay more money for mp3 encoding in a sound production software @#*$
Don.

Following the great history of GNU naming, LAME originally stood for LAME Ain't an Mp3 Encoder. LAME started life as a GPL'd patch against the dist10 ISO demonstration source, and thus was incapable of producing an mp3 stream or even being compiled by itself. But in May 2000, the last remnants of the ISO source code were replaced, and now LAME is the source code for a fully LGPL'd MP3 encoder, with speed and quality to rival all commercial competitors.

LAME is an educational tool to be used for learning about MP3 encoding. The goal of the LAME project is to use the open source model to improve the psycho acoustics, noise shaping and speed of MP3. LAME is not for everyone - it is distributed as source code only and requires the ability to use a C compiler. However, many popular ripping and encoding programs include the LAME encoding engine.

Using the LAME encoding engine (or other mp3 encoding technology) in your software may require a patent license in some countries.

6. Does LAME use any MP3 patented technology?

LAME, as the name says, is *not* an encoder. LAME is a development
project which uses the open source model to improve MP3 technology.
Many people believe that compiling this code and distributing an
encoder which uses this code would violate some patents (in the US,
Europe and Japan). However, *only* a patent lawyer is qualified to
make this determination. The LAME project tries to avoid all these
legal issues by only releasing source code, much like the ISO
distributes MP3 "demonstration" source code. Source code is
considered as speech, which may contain descriptions of patented
technology. Descriptions of patents are in the public
domain.

Several companies plan on releasing encoders based on LAME, and
they intend to obtain all the appropriate patent licenses. At least
one company is now shipping a fully licensed version of LAME with
their portable MP3 player.

Note that under German Patent Law, §11(1) a patent doesn't cover
private acts with non-industrial purposes. Probably interesting for
developers is that a patent doesn't cover acts with experimental
purposes, that aim at the object of the patented invention (§11(2)).

ORIGINAL: techead

ORIGINAL: donitg
I ran out of the trial period of the lame encoder that is supplied with Sonar 4. And I personally believe it's atrocious to pay more money for mp3 encoding in a sound production software @#*$
Don.

Hi Don,

Cakewalk's licensing fees for the mp3 encoder are just an extension or passing on of the fees you would have to pay if you developed your own encoder. As a company intending to make money in the audio software business Cakewalk needs to generate revenue on their products which is more than the expenses in the production of the products; they cannot do that if they give an encoder away free but are still paying the encoder royalties to the mp3 patent holders.

Everyone making legally acceptable MP3 encoders is paying expensive royalty fees to the patent holders of the MP3-related patent suites. Once the patent expires then the situation may change.

ORIGINAL: techead

So yes, LAME is free...you can obtain the software in source code form at no cost--just download it from the Internet.

Developers of freeware programs that come precompiled with LAME are either taking a gamble hoping they won't get caught with their pants down by a court battle brought on by the patent holders, or they are properly licensed but have figured out a way to cover their royalty costs some way other than charging for their software encoder, or perhaps they are in a country where patents are not honored and thus are free to publish their encoder to the Internet.

Also, if you create MP3 files (or data streams) and distribute them commercially you need to abide by licenses and royalty fees for content distributed in MP3 form.

ORIGINAL: techead

Here is some of the math based on fees from the mp3 licensing site. It is $5.00 or $2.50 per unit sold. I don't know what the SONAR unit sales volume is but suppose for example they sold 10,000 SONAR licenses. That is then either $25,000.00 or $50,000.00 they owe in royalties to the patent holders just on the per unit volume plus there are annual minimums. Manufacturers like Cakewalk pass that cost on to the consumer by including it in the price of the product. $50,000 is a huge chunk of revenue which could be more productively spent on product features instead of paying a 3rd party company royalties for software you can build for free.

ORIGINAL: dcastle

All this fuss for a $19.00 activator fee. That's less than 1/2 tank of gas, less than a nice dinner out, less than a night at the movies, less than a mic cable, less than a set of strings, less than ... well you get the drift. I think it's pretty childish to raise this kind of a rucus over a such a little thing.