"Telamon" wrote in message

I see that they are still lying about this on the web page.

"DRM is the world's only non-proprietary, universally standardized
on-air system for short-wave, medium-wave/AM and long-wave. The DRM
consortium does not endorse or certify products. Links to products are
listed on the DRM web site at the discretion of the DRM consortium. The
DRM Consortium is not responsible for the content of external internet
sites."

The decoding software was proprietary and as far as I know it still is
in part at least.

It depends on the definition, when it comes to broadcast or telecoms hardware
non-proprietary means it's based on a published open standard (usually ISO/ITU
approved) that any company is free to implement, for instance many companies
produce their own AAC implementations with specific performance and quality
tweaks, but the bitstream that comes out of each implementation is exactly in
spec.

There is of course a combination of patent and royalties concerns, however
MPEG-LA have to licence each indiscriminately and on equal terms. Compare that
to MS where they control the standard, which may not even be (fully) published,
they produce the encoders and decoders with any input from competition
companies, and they licence the actual codec in final form rather than just
charge royalties on some of the patents behind that. (MS have tried to rectify
some of this by getting SMPTE to rubberstamp WM9)

MPEG2 for example isn't a "free" standard, royalties must be paid whilst the
underlying patents are in force, however there are thousands of companies who
have produced their own implementation, there are hundreds of vendors that
produce silicon so there is immense competition, and no one company can control
the standard.

AAC+ may not be free but that doesn't necessarily mean it's "proprietary" in the
above context.


Az.