Dolby Laboratories, a leader in multichannel sound, today announced the launch of a newly expanded MPEG-4 AAC licensing program. Joined by the co-licensors, Dolby is building on its successful MPEG-2 AAC program to address streaming, wireless, and multimedia applications.
Acting as the licensing administrator for patents held by AT&T, Dolby, Fraunhofer IIS-A, and Sony, Dolby is pleased to announce the addition of Nokia to the group of co-licensors. Dolby will immediately begin offering MPEG-4 AAC licenses worldwide under fair, reasonable, and nondiscriminatory terms. Furthermore, a convenient migration path for existing MPEG-2 AAC licensees will be made available.
The latest licensing program from Dolby Laboratories is specifically geared toward MPEG-4 applications, which include Internet streaming, electronic media distribution (EMD), multimedia playback, and wireless applications. "Dolby has long recognized that one size does not fit all when licensing to a worldwide market with multiple business models and applications," commented Ed Schummer, Senior VP and General Manager of Dolby's Consumer Division. "The MPEG-4 AAC licensing program has been fine-tuned, taking into account various market demands in radically different environments ranging from freely distributed PC-based software decoders to high-quality playback consumer electronics devices."
Under the new license terms, licensees will pay the following royalty rates for MPEG-4 AAC products:

-- For a consumer (non-commercial) decoder product: $0.50 to $0.12
(volume-based) per channel

-- Royalty rates for PC-based software decoder products are $0.25
per channel, up to a maximum annual payment of $25,000 per
legal entity

-- For a consumer (non-commercial) encoder product: $0.50 to $0.12
(volume-based) per channel

-- Royalty rates for PC-based software encoder products are $0.50
to $0.27 per channel (volume-based), up to a maximum annual
payment of $250,000 per legal entity

-- For a professional (commercial) decoder product: $2.00 per channel

-- For a professional (commercial) encoder product: $20.00 per channel

There are no royalties or usage fees for content distribution in AAC format, either in electronic form or in packaged media.
The MPEG-4 AAC Patent License Agreement will be available in April. "The significance of our new licensing program is that it has been developed in response to high market demand in a rapidly moving marketplace," noted Ramzi Haidamus, Dolby's Director of Business Development. "We have been receiving numerous requests for an MPEG-4 AAC license, and we are pleased to announce the commencement of this program."
The AAC co-licensors have expanded their existing MPEG-2 AAC patent licensing program to include additional patents for MPEG-4 AAC, which includes several important enhancements. New AAC tools in their MPEG-4 incarnation allow increased efficiency at lower data rates-MPEG-4 AAC is effective at stereo bit rates down to the 40 to 48 kbps range, and to the 24 to 30 kbps range in mono. MPEG-4 AAC includes tools for error robustness, which makes this technology of particular interest in wireless networking applications. MPEG-4 AAC also offers scaleable bitstream modes and new low-latency tools for high-quality real-time conferencing applications. Dolby will be promoting MPEG-4 AAC for 3G wireless networks, Internet streaming of audio and audio/video, and home networking, as well as for the traditional MPEG-2 AAC applications such as electronic music delivery, digital radio, and ISDB television broadcast.