Effective immediately, we will drop support for the mp3 codec from our entire product line. As a result of the recent $1.5 billion ruling against Microsoft, as well as this week’s lawsuits against Apple and other manufacturers, we feel that it is simply too risky to continue to include support for mp3 in our products. The last thing this company needs is another lawsuit.
Later this week (or early next week), we will release a firmware upgrade to address this issue. ALL of our users must install the new firmware ASAP. Failure to do so will validate your warranty and may subject you and your family to legal actions beyond our control.
The firmware upgrade does the following:
- Disables mp3 decoding.
- Converts all mp3 files to the dt6 format.
- Deletes mp3 files.
Users who do not wish to convert to the dt6 format may continue to use Ogg Vorbis. However, the upgrade process will be manual. A brief 27-step manual upgrade process will be posted shortly after the new firmware becomes available.
Given the recent developments surrounding the mp3 codec, we are now offering to license our dt6 technology to third parties. We have always believed dt6 is superior to mp3 because it offers a higher fidelity, better security, and larger file sizes.
We encourage representatives of Microsoft, Apple, San Disk, Samsung, and Creative to contact us immediately for special pricing.
