> How separate is SAOL from MP4?
In this discussion, SAOL is to MPEG 4 Systems as vanilla frosting is to
a cake. You can have vanilla frosting and put it on something other than
a cake (this is what sfront does now), you can bake a cake and put
chocolate frosting on it (for example, using an MPEG Video codec
[the chocolate frosting] as a codec in an MPEG 4 Systems stream (the cake),
or you could bake a cake and put vanilla frosting on it (if sfront generated
an MPEG 4 Systems bitstream or file).
So, for the specific IP related to MPEG 4 Systems, sfront seems to be
in the clear, since it doesn't implement MPEG 4 Systems.
> I did look at the audio page at
> http://www.m4if.org/patents/AudioPatentPressRelease.html, and it did not
> make any mention of Usage.
Don't focus on Usage vs. other ways patent owners could get revenue (i.e.
charging toolmakers for a license). These are just tactics and strategies --
patent owners choose their targets to maximize their profits for a
particular business situation, and if the situation changes the targets
change along with them. By law, they can go after anyone they wish to,
as long as they haven't entered into legal agreements to the contrary.
> Are you doing this because you are more interested in create
> "performance" systems, instead of a "playback" system? How will this
> work relate (legally) to the MP4 stuff?
Yes, performance systems is the focus ...
We don't use MPEG 4 Systems at all -- so, with regards to specific IP
related to MPEG 4 Systems, this work seems to be in the clear.
You could use it for streaming, but that's not the focus.
> Are there any future plans to restrict the usage of 'sfront'?
No, the GPL works for us, and more importantly, keep in mind that
sfront is a research tool first and foremost -- I think its serving
its purpose well as an "early adopter" tool, but if Structured Audio
becomes a viable format in the long run, it will be because of people
who used sfront as a useful test tool to build decoders that aren't
research tools, but user tools.
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John Lazzaro -- Research Specialist -- CS Division -- EECS -- UC Berkeley
lazzaro [at] cs [dot] berkeley [dot] edu www.cs.berkeley.edu/~lazzaro
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