Commercial use of mp3 content, 10 commercial use of mp3 content – Sonnox Fraunhofer Pro-Codec User Manual
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10 COMMERCIAL USE OF MP3CONTENT
10 CommercialuseofMP3Content
It is important to distinguish between the use of codecs and the use of content produced
by the codecs. Therefore it is important to note that any MP3 royalty fees are independent
of which encoder is used to produce the MP3 file content. If royalty fees are due for a
particular project or enterprise, they will be due irrespective of whether the Pro-Codec is
used or some alternative encoder is used.
Thereisnocircumstancewhereusingthe
SonnoxFraunhoferPro-Codecwillincreaselicencefeesorrequireadditionalfeesof
anysort.
Both the MP3 and AAC compression routines are based on technology that is patented.
At present no royalties are required for AAC codec usage, and private or non-commercial
use of MP3 content does not require royalty fees. Under some circumstances the
commercial (i.e. revenue-generating) use of MP3 content will require a separate licence
irrespective of how that content is generated. To summarise:
• There are no licence fees for private or non-commercial use of MP3 content.
• Enterprises with a turnover of less than $100,000 per year are exempt from MP3
royalty payments.
• There are currently no royalties collected for AAC commercial content distribution.
Note:
If you are in doubt about whether fees are applicable for your project, please contact