Finding Ogg - Audio Evangelism

by The Dark Shirt

MP3 - everyone worth his or her salt (and those not even worth a pinch) have heard of it.

It's caused a storm in the music industry, most notably through the RIAA attacking Napster and other P2P file-sharing operations, making music files small enough to download, even over a 28.8k modem connection.  And if that wasn't reason enough for an enthusiastic world of music lovers to embrace it, it's free as well.  Isn't it?  Well, not exactly...

MP3 development began in 1987 in Germany.  Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft, a German research organization, led the way.  The following year, the Moving Pictures Expert Group began researching and creating standards for audio and video compression, eventually incorporating the Germans' work into the MPEG-1 standard as Audio Layer 3 - hence MP3 .  Here's the important bit - Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft were granted the patent for MP3 .

Those of you with quick minds will realize that this means Fraunhofer are therefore able to charge for the use of MP3 .  And guess what?  They do!  A company known as Thompson Multimedia are in charge of collecting royalties for Fraunhofer.  Thompson Multimedia collect $0.75 for every MP3 player/decoder and $5 for every encoder sold.  That's hardware and software, folks.  If the software is free, then the makers are currently exempt from paying royalties, though this isn't actually stated in the license anymore.

The main reason for the proliferation of free MP3 players available is that until last year, Thompson Multimedia's terms of licensing MP3 technology stated that "No license fee is expected for desktop software MP3 decoders/players that are distributed free of charge via the Internet for personal use of end-users."

The ominous removal of this part of the terms has led to some of the more paranoid among us feeling that there may be a possibility of having to pay to listen to MP3s .  But surely Thompson and Fraunhofer wouldn't take the opportunity to make a bit of extra cash?  I mean, they have the market pretty well cornered, everyone knows and uses MP3s , and... ah... oops.

So far Thompson have denied that the collecting of license fees for free players is being considered.  But then, why change the licensing terms?

If this alone is not enough to consider looking for an alternative, consider the following:

MP3 encoding is closed-source.  If you want to give it an overhaul, or improve its encoding from Average Bit Rate to Variable Bit Rate (VBR), you can't.

MP3 encoding is ten years old.  How much software/hardware do you use that's as old as that, that hasn't been changed/upgraded/improved in some way?  And leave off with the Emacs and all that stuff, you know what I mean...

So what's out there in the way of alternatives?

Thompson would probably suggest mp3PRO, which apparently uses advanced compression algorithms and VBR to produce a file with half the file size of a comparative quality MP3 .  However, mp3PRO is still closed-source and subject to the same patent and licensing issues (decoder $1.25 per unit, encoder $5 per unit).

In the licensed/patented corner are also Fraunhofer's Advanced Audio Coding (AAC) which has been adopted by QuickTime, and Windows Media Audio (WMA) which has the backing of You Know Who.

Both Microsoft and Fraunhofer seem more than happy to kowtow to the music industry's demands for tighter control of rights management, and are therefore incorporating Digital Rights Management (DRM) into their software.  DRM allows the use of license keys to "lock" music and wonderful things that allow the end-user to play the music for a limited number of times, or days.  This MP3 will self-destruct in 5... 4... 3... 2... you get the idea.  Maybe I'll just read my eBook... oh.

DRM seems to be expected to work along the same lines as the Mechanical-Copyright Protection Society (MCPS) in the U.K. and the RIAA in the U.S.  This is not quite the case, though.  DRM actually exists to prevent or restrict the copying or playback of music.

DRM has been known to produce negative effects, from reduced sound quality, to no playback on older computers, and even in some cases, the locking of the CD inside the drive, rendering it useless and requiring a service.

One of the earliest attempts to implement DRM was by the Secure Digital Music Initiative (SDMI), who in September 2000 offered a cash prize to anyone who was able to break one of four SDMI "watermarks."

A team from Princeton University and Rice University succeeded in removing watermarks from all four.  They declined the prize, which would have meant keeping their techniques secret and instead wrote a paper, which was to be shown at a conference in April 2001.  The SDMI tried to prevent the release of this information, and, predictably, the RIAA tried to prosecute under the much-loved DMCA.  The paper was eventually produced at a conference in August 2001 and the RIAA gave up in 2002.

The paper can be found at: www.usenix.org/events/sec01/craver.pdf

The SDMI's last posting on its site was in May 2001, labelled "Current Status."  Don't expect an update too soon.

We're not entirely up the proverbial creek yet, though, thanks to the folks at www.xiph.org, who have created the quite strangely named Ogg Vorbis audio compression format.  Ogg has comparatively smaller file sizes than similar MP3s , and a better compression algorithm too.

But here's the kick.  It's open-source.  It has no patent or licensing issues.  You can help it evolve.  Everyone can help it evolve.  It won't stagnate.  Cool, huh?

There are two problems holding back the rise of Ogg, though.

The first is that as a relatively new technology, there isn't a great deal of support for it at the moment.  There aren't really any Ogg players in hardware format at the moment, though Xiph say they have plans for some very shortly.  There are a number of players/rippers/encoders in software form though; Linux users should know about Audacity, which is also available for Windows machines, and players such as Winamp, Sonique, and Zinf to name but three, all support Ogg.  CD rippers with Ogg support include CDex, Easy CD-DA Extractor, and CD'n'Go! Suite.

The second issue is that Ogg is a bloody silly name.  That's been the hardest part in convincing people to try it:

"I've found a free, open-source audio compression format that gives better quality and smaller file sizes than MP3."

"Sounds good.  What's it called?"

"Erm...  Ogg.  Ogg Vorbis, to be exact."

(muffled laughter)

Yikes.

But hey, look at it this way.  When Thompson finally make the move to charge for all MP3 players, and we're all grooving on our free, better looking, better sounding, and goddamn sexy Ogg players, who'll be sniggering into their sleeves then?

Find out more about Ogg Vorbis at: www.vorbis.com and www.xiph.org