car stereo and ogg

[Kevin Brown]

> 	Anyone who knows better, feel free to correct me on this if I'm wrong...
> 	My son has gone through a few CD players over the years, and it's been my 
> experience that almost all of them WILL play OGG files. The same seems to be 
> true with playing audio files in most home CD/DVD players as well (Look at 
> any commercial audio CD filesystem in your computer, and you'll see OGG files 
> are present on them as well). So, why does it seem to be kept such a secret?
> 	I was shopping around for a PMP that played OGG files this Christmas, and had 
> very limited success. Here's as much of an explanation as I could figure out 
> from the research I did on the matter.
> 	I seems that the DMCA, which is the law that makes it illegal to copy any 
> copy protected digital material for pretty much *any* reason, relies heavily 
> on DRM to enforce it. DRM is basically a MicroSoft invention, and MicroSoft 
> refuses to work with open formats like Ogg/Vorbis because they cannot control 
> the open source development of them. Since MicroSoft controls 95% of the 
> desktop market, that makes it essentially *illegal* to sell or promote 
> Ogg/Vorbis friendly hardware in the U.S. of A. no matter how popular the 
> format is in the rest of the world. It's a grey area to be sure, but grey 
> enough that US merchants won't touch it.
> 	If I want an Ogg/Vorbis compatible PMP, I'll likely have to order one from 
> England.

I don't think MS has anything to do with this.  More likely the media 
companies themselves are the reason that support for these formats 
aren't advertised.  MS didn't invent the CSS that is used on DVDs and 
had nothing to do with the DRM that Apple utilizes on purchases from the 
ITMS.