GoodNoise Corp has waded into the battle over the MP3 audio compression standard (CI No 3,529) with its FreeAmp MP3 player, which includes a decoder licensed from Xing Technology Corp. What makes FreeAmp particularly interesting is that like the Apache web server or Linux operating system, it’s the result of an open-source development effort. GoodNoise is making FreeAmp available for download under the terms of the GNU General Public License (GPL), which guarantees the freedom of users to share and change the software. Appropriately enough, FreeAmp 1.0 is available for Linux as well as Windows 95/97. The Xing decoder forms the basis of FreeAmp. This is believed to be the first time a company has licensed another company’s software for inclusion in a product released under GPL. Xing evidently believes the benefits of inclusion in FreeAmp will outweigh the risks of publishing its software source code. It’s extremely important to the continued growth of the MP3 standard that consumers have access to enabling technology that is not controlled by any one company, explained Hassan Miah, preside nt and CEO of Xing. The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and music publishers in general have opposed MP3 because fans can use it to make high-quality copies of commercial songs, violating owners’ copyrights. RIAA resorted to the courts in a bid to bar Diamond Multimedia Systems Inc from releasing its Rio PMP300 portable MP3 player. Diamond may yet have the last laugh. With Christmas only weeks away, the Rio is in stores and has been awarded one of only 100 Best of What’s New awards from Popular Science magazine.
