In an article entitled "Top 5 Linux Myths", myth number 3, Matt Hartley mentions the possibility of Linux users breaking laws by having MP3 support on their systems.
"Many people out there honestly believe that you cannot create, watch or participate in video/audio formats without using Microsoft's protected format and other options like MP3. This is simply not the case. The fact is that there are open formats that use extensions like .OGG which support quality sound and video. Unfortunately, the bulk of the content producers in the market are using restricted formats, which certainly hinders any real traction with open source alternatives. Basically, you would be looking at OGG Vorbis for audio and OGG Theora, which is why .OGG is considered to be a wrapper much like we might see with .AVI.
Anyway, I digress. The point about most Linux users breaking the law with the use of protected/restricted media formats is true depending on where you live. You see law is a fluid thing that varies from country to country, so in many, many countries, the idea of patent rights does not exist."
The main reason why most Linux distributions do not include MP3 support is that they do not wish to face the possibility of being involved in any impending lawsuit regarding patent fees.
To the best of my knowledge, none of the organisations that have claimed ownership of patents necessary to implement MP3, has ever sued an individual for encoding or decoding MP3.
Thomson Consumer Electronics, which claims to control MP3 licensing of the MPEG-1/2 Layer 3 patents in many countries, including the United States, Japan, Canada and EU countries, has already declared that individuals who use MP3 technology are not required to pay fees.
So, even in countries where patent rights exist, individual users who install MP3 support on their systems are in fact not breaking any law.
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