Don't lock MP3 encoder

[MusicMan]

In CWMC 2003 and I think Sonar, exporting a song or work as an MP3 is only possible for 30 days. I understand this may be a marketing thing, but why go through all the trouble of geting a key code to export works as MP3s?

[Axeman]

I agree, especially considering two things. One, there are NUMEROUS third party utilities that will let me convert it to MP3 anyways REGARDLESS of any sort of lock. Once it's mixdown to a .wav or .wma you can do almost anything to it. Two, if I am going to pay between 300-500 bucks for a peice of software, why in God's name would I want or tolerate needing ANYTHING to make a portion of my software work? It should be there AND WORK....PERIOD!

[GretscGuy]

Insert your Pro Audio disc and it works fine. I have no prob with this and think it's a licencing thing not a Cakewalk thing.

SoundForge does the same thing now.

[andychap]

It's all to do with Frauenhoffer? who developed the codec for MP3 in the first place. Originally they distributed decoders to the likes of Cakewalk and Sonic Foundry for free but when MP3 became so popular they decided to start charging for the license to use it.

There is an open source codec for MP3 called LAME which is just as good as Frauenhoffer and will always be free. Look for converters which use the lame codecs. Check out dbpoweramp here for good free converters and other goodies.

http://www.dbpoweramp.com/

Rembember there are alternatives to MP3 which can give better compression and better quality. WMA is one, so is MonkeysAudio and Ogg Vorbis.

http://www.monkeysaudio.com/

http://www.vorbis.com/download_win_1.0.1.psp

Have fun