Re: [Advocate Play Ogg] Two thoughts: automated conversion, and radio4all.net.

[Michael Fötsch]

Karl Fogel wrote:
> That is, a website that accepts MP3 files and gives you back
> an Ogg Vorbis file?

I thought about a similar thing for videos, where I find it even more difficult 
to do a conversion. But I have a few reservations:

- Upload bandwidth is usually only a fraction of download bandwidth. 
Furthermore, if transfer quotas are limited, who'd want to download a file, 
then upload it, then download it again in the converted format? What you'd 
really want is a site that asks you for a URL, the site downloads the original, 
and you just download the converted file. Such a site could cache converted 
files to speed up requests, BUT that's where your legal problems start.

- Whether or not you ask your users to agree to your Terms of Service, the 
lawyers will go after you anyway. That's the way they seem to understand their 
job. (And YouTube's ToS forbid illegal activity as well, don't they.)

- Wouldn't it be hypocritical to use non-free formats in this way? You'd 
outsource the dirty work of using proprietary/patented applications or formats, 
and you can still claim that your PC is "100% FSF-approved free software only". 
But not being able to watch that video that everyone talks about is one of the 
best incentives (for me, at least) to really start nagging web sites, the way 
you did with that radio station, or the way I tried with MIT OpenCourseWare 
(they answered, but they politely declined ;-).

Kind Regards,
M.F.


P.S.: I really enjoy your web site, http://www.questioncopyright.org/. It was 
among the sites that really triggered my interest in free culture issues.
(Next was the "Introduction to copyright" lecture at MIT OpenCourseWare. It was 
in RealVideo, so that's when I started to think about a conversion web site for 
video. And this lecture is the reason why I think this idea might get you into 
legal trouble. :-)






       
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