Comment Re:They should be doing the opposite (Score 1) 309
Yes, it's ultimately the producer that provides it in one format. And if patent law were structured sanely, so that the patent fees were paid by the producer - and not the consumer, that'd be fine.
They're paid by the software producer. Now, sure, they pass that cost on to the consumer, but complaining about that is like complaining about capitalism in general. "Why should I have to pay extra for my food because the farmer has to buy seed and fertilizer?"
It sounds like you're making a pseudo-libertarian argument for letting the market dictate formats and platforms. But patent law operates in opposition to that. In a market dominated by one or two players, a state-granted monopoly on file formats locks any upstarts out of that market.
Except it's (i) only a state-granted monopoly on a single file format, and those upstarts are free to make any other file format they want (see, e.g. Ogg, MP3, WAV, AIFF, etc., etc.); and (ii) it's not even a monopoly that locks people out. It's a standard, so it can't be used for an injunction - they just have to pay a reasonable royalty.
Compatibility with existing content is vital.
Hence AIFF and WAV, formats that have been around for decades and are free and clear of any patent protection. Full compatibility, hooray!
Oh, wait, that's not good enough - you want access to the latest and greatest perceptual audio coding systems, but don't want to pay even a small royalty for it... So pirate it. That's what everyone else does, and they're not going to go after an individual for a single copy.
But, wait, that's not what you want either... You want to become a commercial distributor, making thousands or even tens or hundreds of thousands in revenue, a new "upstart" in the marketplace, but you don't want to have to pay your suppliers. Yeah, I can't sympathize. Sorry.