Why Publishing MP3 Can Cost You A Fortune

Copyright © 2005 Louis Allport

This was news to me. It might be news to you too:

MP3 is NOT free to use if you're an online publisher. BUT -
let me be clear - there are some opt-outs. It appears you
don't have to pay any license fees if:

It's for personal use or non commercial reasons (not
generating income). OR - if your company revenue is below
$100,000 a year.

Now, these rules might change of course. Make sure to check
these yourself and ensure you're up to date by visiting
mp3licensing.com for full details.

However, when there's alternatives I don't see why anyone
publishing audio online would want to or should publish in
MP3 format.

So what's the best alternative? Well - it's all about OGG.

Okay, a slightly strange name. Here are the facts:

OGG is just as high quality as MP3.

OGG is just as quick to download as MP3.

OGG is open source - this means no fees due, ever (for full
details on OGG visit vorbis.com).

The only current downside of OGG is that it isn't as widely
supported by audio players as MP3.

BUT - I'm convinced this will change. As more and more
online publishers say "No!" to paying hefty and unnecessary
licensing fees, more and more audio will be published online
in OGG format, meaning more and more audio players will
support OGG.

So if you're currently publishing audio online in MP3
format, what does this mean for you?

Well, my advice is to convert your audio from MP3 format to
OGG format, without delay.

Now I'll admit it can be a little bit time consuming, but
once it's done, it's done. And would you rather make a
little effort to convert your audio, or pay licensing fees
year after year?

So how do you convert MP3 to OGG? Easy - use an audio
converter. You'll find a ton of high quality free ones by
searching download.com and also sourceforge.net. My
personal favorite is WinLAME (awful name, great software)
from winlame.sourceforge.net.

So use WinLAME to convert your MP3 to OGG. Pay attention to
keeping the MP3 and OGG files around the same size (I've
actually found OGG files to be slightly smaller). And then
compare the audio quality. I'll be surprised if you can
find any difference between them.

Now this conversion process might take a while. For about
six hours of audio it took my computer at least a couple of
hours of processing time. But I just left the computer to
it and came back when it was done. You can even leave this
process running overnight if you have a lot of audio to
convert.

Now here's an extra snippet you need to pay attention to:

Some OGG audio has "Tags". Tags are extra information
inside the audio file which often includes the name of the
song for example.

At this time (this will probably change) some audio players
have trouble playing OGG with "Tag" information in them. So
take the tag information out. It's easy and doesn't affect
the audio in any way - here's how you do it:

Download "MP3Tag" from mp3tag.de/en/. Install the software,
and start it up. Then just choose to "Remove All Tags" from
your OGG files. This process takes literally two minutes
but is very important.

Now after you've converted and de-tagged the OGG audio,
you'll need to upload it to your server of course.

Then you'll have to change all your download links. This is
fiddly, but needs to be done. For example - you would need
to change all your links from:

www.domain.com/folder/audio.mp3

To:

www.domain.com/folder/audio.ogg

Then test every download link to make sure it's working
correctly.

Important Note: Don't forget about the audio you've got in
Zip files too. You'll need to recreate those Zip files with
OGG audio instead of MP3 audio and re-upload them.

If you're not sure where all the MP3 and Zip files are on
your websites, here's an easy way to list them:

Now, this only works on Unix-based servers (which covers
Linux servers, FreeBSD...etc - ask your web host if you're
not sure)...

This is pretty advanced so don't do this if you're not
comfortable with the process. Or ask your web host to do it
for you if they're happy to do that:

You need to Telnet into your server and then type the
following:

find . | grep mp3 > allmp3

Then type:

find . | grep zip > allzip

This will then give you two files on your server: allmp3 &
allzip

Download these files and take a look at them in a text
editor. They'll show you the path of every MP3 and Zip file
on your server so that you can quickly and easily find which
files you need to convert to OGG. Dead handy.

Okay - so after you've converted and uploaded the audio,
you'll need to change the text around the download links.
You'll need to take out any mention of "MP3" from your
website.

I don't suggest replacing it with "OGG" on a sales page for
example since that will probably confuse people. Just
replace "MP3" with "downloadable audio" or "high quality
downloadable audio".

And then on your download pages mention that the audio is in
OGG format which is just as high quality as MP3 and just as
quick to download. Then link to a couple of audio players
that you know for a fact support OGG.

The audio players I personally mention are Winamp from
winamp.com and Quintessential Player from quinnware.com.

Important Note About Winamp: As I write this only the Full
version (not the Lite version) of Winamp supports OGG
successfully. So make sure to tell your visitors to
download and install that version. It's still free though
so your visitors won't have to spend any extra money just to
listen to your audio.

And that's pretty much all the steps needed to convert your
published audio from MP3 to OGG, which can save you a small
fortune in licensing fees without compromising audio quality
or speed of download.

--------------------

Louis Allport is the creator of over thirty (and counting)
unique and high quality information products selling very
successfully online. One of Louis' recent products reveals
a proven four-step formula that can make creating
best-selling online products a lot more predictable:
http://www.createoffers.com/new/