Thomson Multimedia, who license the MP3 format have confirmed that software players are not under threat, and can remain free.

The disappearance of a specific opt-out for software from Thomson's licensing page caused great alarm earlier this week. Thomson's licensing page (http://www.mp3licensing.com/royalty/) had indeed changed, and an opt-out of free decoders had vanished. (http://web.archive.org/web/20000818191854/www.mp3licensing.com/royalty/swdec.html)

But Thomson says the decoder royalty refers to hardware devices, such as CD players capable of playing MP3 data files, and the policy is unchanged.

"Thomson has never charged a per unit royalty for freely distributed software decoders. For commercially sold decoders - primarily hardware mp3 players - the per-unit royalty has always been in place since the beginning of the program," a spokesman said.

"Therefore, there is no change in our licensing policy and we continue to believe that the royalty fees of 75 cents per mp3 player (on average selling over $200 dollars) has no measurable impact on the consumer experience."

A Thomson spokesman told (http://newsforge.com/newsforge/02/08/29/1633205.shtml) NewsForge's Robin Miller that it was a ruse by Ogg Vorbis advocates to get publicity.®