I want to upload some very simple sound efects on a website and release them into public domain. What file format should I choose?
mp3 file format and encoding is patented, so the question is: do I have to pay anything just for distributing .mp3 files (even if they are free) ? What about the other music file formats?
What music file formats are patent free?
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goldberg988
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The best open-source (free) audio compression format is Ogg Vorbis. It gives compression rates with quality comparable to MP3s. The only downside to Ogg Vorbis is that it may not be supported by all programs. You can find more information at the wikipedia page:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vorbis
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vorbis
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Yagan Kiely
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Yagan Kiely
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horndude77
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I agree with Yagan. I don't think there are any problems with distributing your own mp3's. The patent problem is in the encoding/decoding algorithms.
The LAME developers have an interesting argument to get around the patent issue (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LAME#Paten ... gal_issues). It doesn't look like it's been tested in court however. This sort of reminds me of the PGP developers publishing their source code as a book to get around the crypto software export laws.
In any case go with FLAC for lossless compression and OGG for lossy compression. For uncompressed audio I don't believe there are any copyright/patent/trademark problems with wav, aiff, or au files.
The LAME developers have an interesting argument to get around the patent issue (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LAME#Paten ... gal_issues). It doesn't look like it's been tested in court however. This sort of reminds me of the PGP developers publishing their source code as a book to get around the crypto software export laws.
In any case go with FLAC for lossless compression and OGG for lossy compression. For uncompressed audio I don't believe there are any copyright/patent/trademark problems with wav, aiff, or au files.
http://www.nero.com/eng/nero-aac-codec.html
Nero's free AAC converter is probably the best converter out there. As far as releasing your own works into the public domain, file format and compression has nothing to do with it. You aren't licensing anything since it's a spec which other software tools abide by, so as long as you own the rights to the recording and the recorded work you can release the recording in any format that you like. MP3 is outdated technology. AAC is what I'd recommend with a variable bit-rate encoding using the above-mentioned tool at about q=.40.
Nero's free AAC converter is probably the best converter out there. As far as releasing your own works into the public domain, file format and compression has nothing to do with it. You aren't licensing anything since it's a spec which other software tools abide by, so as long as you own the rights to the recording and the recorded work you can release the recording in any format that you like. MP3 is outdated technology. AAC is what I'd recommend with a variable bit-rate encoding using the above-mentioned tool at about q=.40.
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spacecraft
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Well I think I got your point: Once I made the sounds, they are owned by me, no mater what file format I chose for them. And once I place them into the public domain, they will stay there. However, according to Thomson's website http://www.webcitation.org/5MeUrGbFN: "Yes. A license is needed for commercial (i.e., revenue-generating) use of mp3/mp3PRO". And, in case my project will grow beyond my wildest dreams, one day the managers of the project (I can abandon the project and someone else takes over for example) might think that a banner generating revenue on the project's webpage could be very usefull. And, that will (possibly) make Thomson to see it as a "revenue-generating use of mp3/mp3PRO". Also, they can change their mind anytime and ask everyone to pay fees for distributing mp3, no matter if it's for commercial purposes or not. So I think it's just safer to avoid use of mp3 at least untill 2017 or so, when mp3 patents expire.
So I think I will use AAC for my project.
I have a little question about AAC: I encoded a .wav into .aac with the nero tool like this:
neroAacEnc.exe -q 0.4 -if snd.wav -of snd.aac
But Windows Media Player 11 doesn't want to play it, and Winamp 5.41 only plays it if i rename it to .m4a. How can I fix that? I also have ffdshow-tryouts installed and it has some aac decoding.
PS: oh, and I choose AAC and not Vorbis because I can play AAC sounds from web page with http://www.schillmania.com/projects/soundmanager2/ but not OGG (because Adobe Flash doesn't support OGG - and yes, I think the same thing: that kind of stinks)
So I think I will use AAC for my project.
I have a little question about AAC: I encoded a .wav into .aac with the nero tool like this:
neroAacEnc.exe -q 0.4 -if snd.wav -of snd.aac
But Windows Media Player 11 doesn't want to play it, and Winamp 5.41 only plays it if i rename it to .m4a. How can I fix that? I also have ffdshow-tryouts installed and it has some aac decoding.
PS: oh, and I choose AAC and not Vorbis because I can play AAC sounds from web page with http://www.schillmania.com/projects/soundmanager2/ but not OGG (because Adobe Flash doesn't support OGG - and yes, I think the same thing: that kind of stinks)