[asterisk-users] G729 Licensing Revisited - I'm Sorry!

[Eric Wieling]

Asterisk transcodes at many other points.  Inband ringing, audio mixing for conferences, beep tones.      It is naive to think you can passthrough g729 and never transcode without spending significant amounts of time tracking down each instance Asterisk would have to transcode.    

Over the years I've often seen people claiming "I'm only using it for research/educational use so I don't need a license."    I don't recall a single one of those people who could point to an actual law or case precedent to back up their claim, at least for the United States.  Personally I think it is simply wishful thinking.   

-----Original Message-----
From: asterisk-users-bounces at lists.digium.com [mailto:asterisk-users-bounces at lists.digium.com] On Behalf Of Jayson Devor
Sent: Friday, February 28, 2014 4:00 PM
To: Asterisk Users Mailing List - Non-Commercial Discussion
Subject: Re: [asterisk-users] G729 Licensing Revisited - I'm Sorry!

On 2/28/14, Johann Steinwendtner <steinwendtner at gmx.net> wrote:
> On 2014-02-28 14:04, Tahir Almas wrote:
>>     1) We do not perform any transcoding whatsoever. All recordings, and
>>     voice mail are in G729,
>>     and allow=g729 for all peers and in sip.conf. Is there anything else
>>     we need to perform "g729 passthrough". More importantly are we still
>>     liable? Given that most vendors support G729, why do some still
>>     require the need to transcode?
>>
>>
>>   As earlier referred following quote from their site
>>
>> "DISCLAIMER: You might have to pay royalty fees to the G.729/723.1 
>> patent holders for using their algorithm"
>>
>> You have to pay royalty fee for using their algorithm and it does not 
>> matter whether you are trans-coding or not however there is no 
>> restriction to pay their royalty fee under testing / evaluation 
>> environment.
>>
> Hmm, wouldn't that mean, that every single ISP needs to pay the fee 
> for passing G.729 data through their network ? They really do not transcode.
> If you do not transcode, you do not use their algorithm. This is my 
> opinion, but I 'm not a layer.
>
> Regards
>
> Hans
>
>
> --

This is what I would expect? Not a laywer either however can someone please share some light on the legality of straight passing through traffic using the g729 codec without any transcoding. Is a license require for such cases?

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