[NTLUG:Discuss] Proprietary media morass

[Patrick R. Michaud]

On Sat, Jun 04, 2016 at 12:00:19AM -0500, Leroy Tennison wrote:
> Can anyone point me to an authoritative statement (or statements) about
> playing proprietary media formats (WAV, MP3, etc) on Linux as long as the
> content hasn't been pirated?  Is it legal or not?  The immediate context is
> playing a voice mail message saved in WAV format.  My only concern is with
> the legality of working with the format, not copyrighted content.

While I generally don't consider Wikipedia to be "authoritative", it
often has references to things that are more authoritative.  
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MP3#Licensing.2C_ownership_and_legislation

For something like this there are two types of "legality" to consider:
copyright and patent.  Because of the formats of both WAV and MP3 are
well documented, widely known, and widely shared, I suspect there are 
no copyright restrictions involved for the formats themselves.  (Also,
it's difficult to copyright a "format" -- previous attempts to do so
have a long established history of failing.)

That just leaves patents.  Since WAV typically contains uncompressed
or raw audio, it's unlikely to be encumbered by any patent technologies.

MP3 has been affected by various patents for compression, encoding, 
and decoding, but nearly all of the MP3-related patents have expired.  
The few that remain have highly questionable legal basis due to
their timeline (i.e., prior art) and will expire at the end of 2017
anyway.

Summary:  I'd be very shocked if using either WAV or MP3 formats
on their own pose any legal risks.  WAV is likely to be entirely
riskless.

Disclaimer:  I'm not a lawyer, this is not legal advice.

Pm