Why does "AAC Encoder Plug-in" cost money?

[pk1234]

Hey,
I'm looking for an AAC Encoder Plug-in for MediaMonkey.
So I found... but it costs 10$ !?
I wondered, that it is not free for the owners of MediaMonkey Gold...
I just bought MM, and it doesn't own an included aac encoder?
I gave money for the program so I want to have this encoder for free.

I can't understand it, winamp pro either owns an aac plugin... winamp costs 20$

Please say me why you want to have money for the plugin?

[rovingcowboy]

because they need to pay for the lic fee to use it if you don't want to buy the plugin but have it in your install of mediamonkey. that would raise the cost for monkey by the lic fee.. its cheaper for mediamonkey this way.

[nohitter151]

Because you should be able to get the same functionality for free by installing Quicktime. If you don't wish to have Quicktime installed on your computer, you can instead buy the aac encoder.

[Lowlander]

QuickTime Alternative should also do the trick if you don't want to install QuickTime.

[rusty]

At the time that we released AAC, we felt that the percentage of users who require AAC is rather small and that it was preferable to most to charge a small add-on fee, to raising the cost of MediaMonkey to cover aac licensing liabilities (see: http://www.vialicensing.com/licensing/AAC_fees.cfm ). We may revisit this decision moving forward, depending on what users prefer, but I think that the current approach still makes sense.

-Rusty

[hittinon]

Hm, I have just started purchasing songs from 7digital and whenever possible I prefer AAC. Just today I stumbled upon the 'MM does not play AAC' issue, after I removed WinAmp. I am definitely not installing QT (or any other Apple bloatware, to be honest). But obviously I'd have to install WinAmp once more. OK - how come freeware WinAmp has AAC and paid MM does not?

[Lowlander]

You should be able to use QuickTime Alternative instead of QuickTime if you don't want to install Apple software.

[pk1234]

Is there a trick to use an AAC-Encoder from Quicktime or others im MM so I dont have to pay the Lic-Fees?

[chrisjj]

> it was preferable to most to charge a small add-on fee, to raising the cost of MediaMonkey
> to cover aac licensing liabilities (see: http://www.vialicensing.com/licensing/AAC_fees.cfm )

Is this the cost referred to?

. . . . . . . Decoder Products
Per Unit Fee $0.48

[Santa]

Has any thought been given to revising this policy? I'd be happy to buy MM Gold if it included AAC encoding. Although it would make your packaging harder, you could do an unlimited MP3 or AAC choice?

Maybe I'm an irrational guy, but for some reason there's a big difference in my head between $20 and $30.

[rovingcowboy]

> it was preferable to most to charge a small add-on fee, to raising the cost of MediaMonkey
> to cover aac licensing liabilities (see: http://www.vialicensing.com/licensing/AAC_fees.cfm )

Is this the cost referred to?

. . . . . . . Decoder Products
Per Unit Fee $0.48

if it is chris that makes since.

cause it says per unit. meaning that each download of monkey having it in there would be considered one unit.
how many people have mediamonkey? how many times 48 do you need to do to find that cost per unit?
say there is around 10,000 users of mediamonkey that downloaded the free version and then half of them got the gold version. so thats 15,000 downloaded units. times .48 equals $7200.00, do you really think rusty and jiri are going to be able to pay that with a cheap 30 dollar cost for the program? i don't think so more likely they would need to charge upwards of over $120.00 dollars for the monkey just to cover the cost of the free downloaded versions
Edited in

and yes that is how per unit is done in software.

its the same with m$ wanting to make you buy a new cdrom for each
computer to put the same os on different computers. which is what they do.

second edited in
okay so my math was slightly off.

okay on the price it seems that they sould be able to handle it if every one of the 15000 paid 30 for monkey it would make them.
450,000.00
but if only the 5000 paid 30 for it. then it would make them 150,000.00

so they still would make 142,800.00 profit not as much a loss as i thought it was.

[chrisjj]

> cause it says per unit. meaning that each download of monkey having it in there would be considered one unit.

The OP question is not about the free version, but about the Gold version:

>> I wondered, that it is not free for the owners of MediaMonkey Gold...
>> I just bought MM, and it doesn't own an included aac encoder?

[rovingcowboy]

okay so in my example its 5,000 gold users times .48 equals $2400.00 for them to have it for free.

5,000 times 30.00 equals 150,000.00 so they could pay with that. how ever !! including it in the program will also be in the free program which brings us back to the 15,000 downloads and the possible price of over 120 dollar price for monkey. do you really want that inculded now with the program for the gold users.

made a math mistake on the first post fixed it.

[chrisjj]

> how ever !! including it in the program will also be in the free program

There are about a dozen features included in the paid (Gold) version and not the free version. The OP is simply asking why this encoder is not one of them.

[arthurb]

I too am confused by this issue. I would have thought that it would be possible to only pay the licence fee for the registered 'Gold' users, but, of course, I am not familiar with the actual terms of the licence. I also use dbPoweramp, and they use a Nero decoder which you have to download separately from the Nero a.g. web-site, but it is free. When you unzip the file, there appears to be both an encoder and a decoder; would it not be possible to use Nero's free offerings?