According to that page listing the WMP components, the SDK is provided free of charge given you own a licensed copy of Windows. Distribution of your program also appears to be free. I assume as soon as you start to make money for your program, then Microsoft will ask for royalties. I would have to give it a full read, but after a cursory glance, thats what it appears to be.
However, my point still stands. You as the user and maker of the WMA pay nothing explicitly, except for the device that will ultimately play it.
Some of you have to understand that Microsoft wants prominence. Sure, they can make some money, but ultimately they want their name on the format. VC-1 itself is open. But they want control of it and their name behind it, not necessarily money (although it ends up being a concenquence). VC-1 turned out so well that even some movies on blu-ray are using that compression technique.
Also, im sure the standardization board wont let Microsoft f*ck around with this, so i would bet its safe for all to use free of charge.
“An engineer explained to us that hundreds of ear impressions were gathered in the name of research, and while each one obviously boasted its own unique shape and size, one single characteristic remained uniform across the board: the entrance into the ear canal is not a perfect circle, it's an oval.”
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According to that page listing the WMP components, the SDK is provided free of charge given you own a licensed copy of Windows. Distribution of your program also appears to be free. I assume as soon as you start to make money for your program, then Microsoft will ask for royalties. I would have to give it a full read, but after a cursory glance, thats what it appears to be.
However, my point still stands. You as the user and maker of the WMA pay nothing explicitly, except for the device that will ultimately play it.
Some of you have to understand that Microsoft wants prominence. Sure, they can make some money, but ultimately they want their name on the format. VC-1 itself is open. But they want control of it and their name behind it, not necessarily money (although it ends up being a concenquence). VC-1 turned out so well that even some movies on blu-ray are using that compression technique.
Also, im sure the standardization board wont let Microsoft f*ck around with this, so i would bet its safe for all to use free of charge.