Comment 16 for bug 528910

The Fluendo MP3 decoder is licensed under the MIT license. The binary plugin provided by the website is built from that MIT licensed code, but since the patent fee was paid for this you can use this legally.

Taken from their website:
    "The Fluendo MP3 plug-in project is a combination of multiple things.

    * It is an MIT licensed source code package implementing the MP3 codec.
    * It is a fully licensed binary GStreamer plug-in available for download.
    * It is a redistribution contract allowing distributions to distribute the binary Fluendo GStreamer MP3 plug-in free of charge."

I'm curious about this last bullet point. Does Ubuntu provide this binary GStreamer plugin, or is the plugin compiled from the source?

    "If you are living in a country where the MP3 patents don't apply, you are entitled to use the source code provided by Fluendo (or anyone else) to get legal MP3 support onto your Unix/GNU/Linux desktop.

    In contrast, if you live in a country where patents do apply, or if you are a distribution maker working in countries where the patents apply, you need the licensed binary from Fluendo. If this is the case, please be aware that, even if our binary is made from MIT licensed source code, the resulting binary, combined with our license, is not free software, at least not GPL-compatible. This means that if you ship GStreamer with our binary MP3 plug-in, you need to be sure that you don't ship any GPL-licensed plug-ins that could end up being used together with the MP3 plug-in, as this would be a violation of the GPL. You also need to make sure you don't ship any GPL-licensed players which would use this plug-in.

    Fortunately, most GStreamer plug-ins are LGPL, and many of the playback applications come with licensing terms that allow them to be used with non-free plug-ins. The Totem media player and the Banshee music player are two examples."

Taken from: <http://www.fluendo.com/shop/product/fluendo-mp3-decoder/>.