[WikiEN-l] MP3 & OG

[Oldak Quill]

On 04/01/07, Matt R <matt_crypto at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
> I'd like to download Spoken Wikipedia articles to my MP3 player so I can learn
> stuff without being stuck at a computer. At present I cannot, because my MP3
> player doesn't play Ogg Vorbis, and cannot be made to support it. Further,
> MP3's are not permitted on Wikipedia because of the lack of legal free players:
>
>    http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2004-July/011514.html
>
> Our policy is motivated correctly: Wikipedia needs to be free, and that
> includes the technology which is required to access it.
>
> However, is there any problem with having a rule along the lines of: "MP3
> format can be used by Wikipedia only in those cases where the same material is
> also available in Ogg in equal or better quality"? That way, Wikipedia audio
> content can always be read by legal free players AND by devices which do not,
> and maybe cannot, support Ogg.
>
> (As usual, feel free to point me to wherever this has been beaten to death
> already, if that's the case)

I thought we didn't allow MP3s because they are patent encumbered. I
believe that those who encode MP3s (our volunteers) could,
theoretically, be asked to pay to do it. If this is the case, as I
believe it is, there is no way Wikimedia could ever host MP3s while
these patents stands and claim them to be "free" content.

Our content needs to be free on all layers: the content itself must be
free, the medium in which it is encoded must be free and access to it
(at Wikimedia level) should be free.

-- 
Oldak Quill (oldakquill at gmail.com)