Avoiding MP3/MP4 licensing costs [for using that format]

Hey,

I was just doing some research and I discovered that if you want to use MP3 audio in a game, you have to pay for a license to do that. I don't know about MP4 audio but I should think it is the same.

Well I just wondered, is it possible to decode vorbis audio using JavaScript?

And I found this:
https://github.com/audiocogs/vorbis.js

It appears to be possible.

I wonder if this is the solution to avoid MP3/MP4 licensing?

Update: I found this: https://github.com/brion/ogv.js

Nope. It's not an issue of the audio format.

If you're using someone else's work and they have not agreed to license it to you, you are using it illegally.

I would suggest looking for audio/music that has been published under a Creative Commons license.
There are several types of CC licenses, and they are explained here.

Hi Mentalist,

You are right. You do need to license someone else's music.

But did you know that in order to use the MP3 format, you actually have to pay money to the people who created MP3?

Please take a quick look at this:

http://mp3licensing.com/royalty/games.html

I only just discovered this myself. It is only if you sell 5000 copies or more, of a game however.

To be honest, this is really a non issue, if you sell 5000 copies you can easily afford to pay the licensing cost of $2500… I was just a bit surprised/worried about it. But now I'm like: Fine, ok.

Thanks,

Andrew

But did you know that in order to use the MP3 format, you actually have to pay money to the people who created MP3?

That's why we recommend to use ogg-vorbis.

Yuri of course you are totally 100% correct and I did store all of my music in ogg vorbis.

It's just a shame that Apple doesn't support it(!)

I am saying that Apple is a pain sometimes. Although I personally use a MacBook Pro

But did you know that in order to use the MP3 format, you actually have to pay money to the people who created MP3?

I had no idea. That's a frustrating limitation, but I think it can be worked around in this case.

AAC is another audio format supported by Blend4Web, and it doesn't cost anything to deliver content in.

After checking the browser support for OGG and AAC, I believe that the best solution is to create two versions of each audio file in these formats and use browser detection to serve the appropriate one to the user.

Maybe the B4W developers can advise us on the best way to do this? (please)

AAC is another audio format supported by Blend4Web, and it doesn't cost anything to deliver content in.

After checking the browser support for OGG and AAC, I believe that the best solution is to create two versions of each audio file in these formats and use browser detection to serve the appropriate one to the user.

That is so cool. I didn't realise this.

Hi,

After checking the browser support for OGG and AAC, I believe that the best solution is to create two versions of each audio file in these formats and use browser detection to serve the appropriate one to the user.

Maybe the B4W developers can advise us on the best way to do this?(please)

The Project Manager can convert OGG-MP4 formats so that your app could always load appropriate media content for different browsers. Conversion is performed according to this table.

Thank you, Yuri!
I had read about the audio conversion feature before, but at that time I didn't realize the significance of this for cross-browser support, or why to work in .ogg as a base format. It's making sense now.