proprietary? How so?
-Josh
yes, MP3's always been proprietary. :)
From WikipediaThomson Consumer Electronics controls licensing of the MPEG-1/2 Layer 3 patents in countries that recognize software patents, including the United States and Japan, but not EU countries. Thomson has been actively enforcing these patents. Thomson has been granted software patents in EU countries and by the European Patent Office [1], but it is unclear whether or not they would be enforced by courts there. See Software patents under the European Patent Convention.
For current information about Thomson's patent portfolio and licensing terms and fees see their website mp3licensing.com.
Ogg would require users to install a 3rd party codec when you can play mp3's out of the box in just about any media player on the market-Josh
There are many free OGG players out on the web and also, OGG is natively supported by many well-known music players. ;)
Check these links out:
Mobile players known to support Ogg Vorbis
http://wiki.xiph.org/index.php/PortablePlayers3rd Party Software known to support Ogg
http://www.vorbis.com/software/Just for your information, Ogg is the official audio/video container format for Wikipedia, Wikinews et al.
Yeah it's true that MP3s are ubiquitous and you can play it out of the box, however it's still proprietary. And it's not good. :)