Comment by nudgeee
1 day ago
Hilarious. Reminds me of Pioneer CDJs as well, even on the flagship CDJ-3000 models. If you read the user manual it says:
> About using MP3 files
> This product has been licensed for nonprofit use. This product has not been licensed for commercial purposes (for profit-making use), […]. You need to acquire the corresponding licenses for such uses. For details, see […]
Best use an open audio codec instead.
Nowadays, MP3 is an open audio codec. The patents have expired.
The format itself is patent-unencumbered. That doesn't mean I couldn't still write a non-free decoder and license it to Pioneer for use in their CDJs. Due to organizational inertia, I suspect that's what's going on here (e.g., they licensed a decoder from Fraunhofer or another commercial implementer twenty years ago, and have been using the same one since).
In this case, everyone at Pioneer knows their CDJs are used almost exclusively for commercial purposes, and perhaps they couldn't get away with lying about it in the fine print.
> Best use an open audio codec instead.
You will still need a separate license (or multiple separate licenses) for commercial purposes.
Music licensing is unbelievably complicated
That's about the music royalties, the comment above is about the CDJs ability to play MP3 encoded audio.