This was news to me. It might be news to you as well:

MP3 is NOT free to use if you are an on-line publisher. BUT – permit me be clear – there are some choose-outs. It appears you do not have to spend any license costs if:

It is for personal use or non industrial elements (not generating revenue). OR – if your business income is beneath $100,000 a yr.

Now, these guidelines might change of plan. Make certain to examine these your self and make certain you are up to date by going to mp3licensing.com for total particulars.

Nonetheless, when there is alternatives I do not see why anyone publishing audio on-line would want to or ought to publish in MP3 format.

So what is the best option? Well – it is all about OGG.

Okay, a somewhat unusual name. Right here are the particulars:

OGG is just as higher quality as MP3.

OGG is just as fast to download as MP3.

OGG is open supply – this indicates no costs because of, actually (for total particulars on OGG visit vorbis.com).

The only current downside of OGG is that it is not as broadly supported by audio gamers as MP3.

BUT – I’m convinced this will change. As more and more on-line publishers say “No!” to having to spend hefty and needless licensing costs, more and more audio will be published on-line in OGG format, which means more and more audio gamers will assistance OGG.

So if you are presently publishing audio on-line in MP3 format, what does this suggest for you?

Well, my advice is to convert your audio from MP3 format to OGG format, with out delay.

Now I will confess it can be a little bit time consuming, but as soon as it is done, it is done. And would you instead make a little function to convert your audio, or spend licensing costs yr after yr?

So how do you convert MP3 to OGG? Simple – use an audio converter. You will discover a ton of higher quality free ones by looking download.com and also sourceforge.net. My personal favorite is WinLAME (terrible name, fantastic software) from winlame.sourceforge.net.

So use WinLAME to convert your MP3 to OGG. Spend interest to maintaining the MP3 and OGG files about the precise same size (I’ve actually found OGG files to be somewhat smaller). And then assess the audio quality. I will be shocked if you can discover any difference in between them.

Now this conversion procedure might think about a whilst. For about 6 hrs of audio it took my pc at minimum a few of hrs of processing time. But I just left the pc to it and arrived back again once more when it was done. You can even depart this procedure running overnight if you have a fantastic deal of audio to convert.

Now here’s an additional snippet you need to spend interest to:

Some OGG audio has “Tags”. Tags are additional information within the audio file which often consists of the name of the song for instance.

At this time (this will most likely change) some audio gamers have trouble experiencing OGG with “Tag” information in them. So think about the tag information out. It is easy and does not impact the audio in any way – here’s how you do it:

Download “MP3Tag” from mp3tag.de/en/. Set up the software, and start it up. Then just choose to “Get rid of All Tags” from your OGG files. This procedure requires literally two minutes but is extremely important.

Now after you’ve converted and de-tagged the OGG audio, you will need to upload it to your server of plan.

Then you will have to change all your download hyperlinks. This is fiddly, but requirements to be done. For instance – you would need to change all your hyperlinks from:

www.domain.com/folder/audio.mp3

To:

www.domain.com/folder/audio.ogg

Then check every download hyperlink to make certain it is working correctly.

Essential Note: Don’t neglect about the audio you’ve acquired in Zip files as well. You will need to recreate those Zip files with OGG audio instead of MP3 audio and re-upload them.

If you are not certain where all the MP3 and Zip files are on your web sites, here’s an easy way to checklist them:

Now, this only functions on Unix-primarily based servers (which addresses Linux servers, FreeBSD…and so on – inquire your web host if you are not certain)…

This is pretty advanced so do not do this if you are not comfy with the procedure. Or inquire your web host to do it for you if they’re happy to do that:

You need to Telnet into your server and then kind the subsequent:

discover . | grep mp3 &gt allmp3

Then kind:

discover . | grep zip &gt allzip

This will then give you two files on your server: allmp3 &amp#038 allzip

Download these files and think about a appear at them in a text editor. They will display you the route of every MP3 and Zip file on your server so that you can rapidly and effortlessly discover which files you need to convert to OGG. Dead helpful.

Okay – so after you’ve converted and uploaded the audio, you will need to change the text about the download hyperlinks. You will need to think about out any point out of “MP3″ from your website.

I do not recommend changing it with “OGG” on a sales web page for instance since that will most likely confuse people. Just substitute “MP3″ with “downloadable audio” or “higher quality downloadable audio”.

And then on your download pages point out that the audio is in OGG format which is just as higher quality as MP3 and just as fast to download. Then hyperlink to a few of audio gamers that you know for a reality assistance OGG.

The audio gamers I personally point out are Winamp from winamp.com and Quintessential Player from quinnware.com.

Essential Note About Winamp: As I write this only the Complete version (not the Lite version) of Winamp supports OGG effectively. So make certain to tell your guests to download and install that version. It is still free although so your guests will not have to make investments any additional money just to spend attention to your audio.

And that’s pretty much all the steps needed to convert your published audio from MP3 to OGG, which can conserve you a little lot of money in licensing costs with out compromising audio quality or pace of download.

Louis Allport is the creator of more than thirty (and counting) distinctive and higher quality information goods selling extremely effectively on-line.

He is straight worried with every stage of the item development and marketing procedure this kind of as finding the market, generating the content material, building the marketing procedure and materials, as properly as making constant and certified guests streams.

1 of Louis’ current goods reveals a confirmed 4-stage method that can make generating best-selling on-line goods a fantastic deal more predictable: http://www.createoffers.com/new/