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Alcatel-Lucent Awarded $1.5 Billion from Microsoft over MP3 Patents
- Thread starter Teh Don Ditty
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Woot, Apple looks fine
See list of Alcatel License companies, Apple is there.
http://mp3licensing.com/licensees/
Sounds like Apple is fine.
See list of Alcatel License companies, Apple is there.
http://mp3licensing.com/licensees/
Sounds like Apple is fine.
Microsoft is in there too though... Unless that 1.5 billion dollars was the price they had to pay for a license. ROFL.See list of Alcatel License companies, Apple is there.
http://mp3licensing.com/licensees/
Sounds like Apple is fine.
Yeah, but Microsoft is on the list too!
Does this mean Fraunhofer sold a license that was invalid? Seems like it. If that is true I'd expect Microsoft to be going after Fraunhofer now.
I really hope all the music player companies decide to simply drop MP3. They never should have been using it when there were free codecs available (Like this http://www.vorbis.com/ ) MP3 only became popular when people started ripping off copyrighted music. And when you are already violating copyrights no one cared they were violating a patent too. But once you start doing things legally, you would have though they would care. MP3 should have gone the way of GIF when the patent was discovered MP3 is not even a good format anymore, best that it fades away
I really hope all the music player companies decide to simply drop MP3. They never should have been using it when there were free codecs available (Like this http://www.vorbis.com/ ) MP3 only became popular when people started ripping off copyrighted music. And when you are already violating copyrights no one cared they were violating a patent too. But once you start doing things legally, you would have though they would care. MP3 should have gone the way of GIF when the patent was discovered MP3 is not even a good format anymore, best that it fades away
Ouch, you are right.
And then we await with hope that Apple will invent the newest industry standard compression technology.
See list of Alcatel License companies, Apple is there.
http://mp3licensing.com/licensees/
Sounds like Apple is fine.
That site lists Fraunhofer/Thomson licensing agreements. Alcatel is claiming that they are the rightful owners of the patent and therefore deserve to be paid licensing fees. So if this case against MS holds up, then that site lists all those that Alcatel will be after next, including Apple.
just one more reason why patent and copywrite laws need to be reexamined.
I think it would be interesting to do a poll of different tech companies that developed some amazing products that never went market because the product was already covered by some vague patent owned by a company that doesn't make anything.
I think it would be interesting to do a poll of different tech companies that developed some amazing products that never went market because the product was already covered by some vague patent owned by a company that doesn't make anything.
Ouch someone is going to float on money, Apple would have to play for Macs and iPods, that may wipe all 11 billons in the bank. On top of that there is a big list of others that will also have to pay, Alcatel stock will be going thru the roof with the giant cash influx.
Let's see... so if this the award was based on numbers of PCs sold... and Apple has 5% of the market... that would make a similar award against Apple equal to 5% of this award, right? So that would be $75 million. That would blow, but with Apple's cash reserves it wouldn't exactly sink the company or anything.
I think it went by how many copies of Windows Media Player were installed. Apple would have to pay for QT, iTunes, iPod and any other software that uses the MP3 standard. So while it may not be $1.5B, it will definitely be a little over $75 million.
Oh, yeah, I forgot about iPods... I wonder how much an award based on number of mp3 players would figure... I guess Creative and Archos will be in the same boat, as will Microsoft with its Zune... although this award apparently does not take Zune sales into account in calculating Microsoft's fine, so I wonder what that means for Apple's iPods.
If the costs of using mp3 was defined first to these companies then it wouldn't have been a standard because other technologies would have been used.
It probably covers all 120 zune units sold.
We are talking about 90 million iPods sold since 2001, plus Macs.
I don't support this, at ALL
Sure its 'micro$oft', but this is about software patents.
This could have repercussions everywhere.
Sure its 'micro$oft', but this is about software patents.
This could have repercussions everywhere.
LOL! Well... still, though, the article says, "In its verdict, the jury assessed damages based on each Windows PC sold since May 2003."
And they ignored Zune sales, Windows Mobile sales for cell phones, Windows Media Player downloads, etc.
So maybe they're only going to be focusing on PC sales? (I can dream, right?)
One thing I don't understand, by the way, is why the licensor isn't liable. Seems that they are responsible, not the companies who bought licenses from them.
what;'s the MP3-related value of a PC vs an Ipod?
These awards are usually based on the actual value of the technology to the user, not on the number of units or their original cost.
Many people never play MP3s on their PCs, some play them occasionally, some use them a lot. Also, note that Windows hasn't been shipping an MP3 *encoder* in the base system, just the decoder.
For most people, a PC without MP3 support is a minor irritation.
But an Ipod without MP3 support ??? Big problem.
Apple's exposure to this licensing issue might be much larger than Microsoft's....
These awards are usually based on the actual value of the technology to the user, not on the number of units or their original cost.
Many people never play MP3s on their PCs, some play them occasionally, some use them a lot. Also, note that Windows hasn't been shipping an MP3 *encoder* in the base system, just the decoder.
For most people, a PC without MP3 support is a minor irritation.
But an Ipod without MP3 support ??? Big problem.
Apple's exposure to this licensing issue might be much larger than Microsoft's....
But after those 5 minutes, it's not just MS' problem anymore.
AidenShaw said:
It's not just the iPod. However many berjillion copies of iTunes they've distributed all have an MP3 encoder in them, plus all the copies of QT, which has the encoder too, even though you need the Pro key to get to it.
See list of Alcatel License companies, Apple is there.
http://mp3licensing.com/licensees/
Sounds like Apple is fine.
What are you reading? The site specifically says THOMPSON licensees, which the article specifically states is the new name of Frauhereorieror. This is the list of companies that will be paying millions, and billions of dollars simply by precedent that was just established. This is a death list.