Some software was released using this strategy: companies used the LAME library, but obtained patent licenses. They also advised users to obtain relevant patent licenses before including a compiled version of the encoder in a product. The LAME developers stated that, since their code was only released in source code form, it should only be considered as an educational description of an MP3 encoder, and thus did not infringe any patent in itself. Distributing compiled binaries of LAME, its libraries, or programs that derive from LAME in countries where those patents have been granted may have constituted infringement, but since 23 April 2017, all of these patents have expired. The developers of LAME did not license the technology described by these patents. Like all MP3 encoders, LAME implemented techniques covered by patents owned by the Fraunhofer Society and others. May 2007: default variable bitrate encoding speed is vastly improved.LAME no longer requires users to enter complicated parameters to produce good results. December 2003: substantial improvement to default settings, along with improved speed.LAME is not a patch anymore, but a full encoder. May 2000: the last pieces of the original ISO demonstration code are removed.November 1999: LAME switches from a GPL license to an LGPL license, which allows using it with closed-source applications.Soon after this, LAME also became able to target lower sampling frequencies from MPEG-2.

June 1999: The first variable bitrate implementation is released.

May 1999: a new psychoacoustic model (gpsycho) is released along with LAME 3.0.

Mark Taylor then started pursuing increased quality in addition to better speed, and released version 3.0 featuring gpsycho, a new psychoacoustic model he developed.Ī few key improvements, in chronological order: Mike Cheng eventually left leadership and started working on tooLAME (an MP2 encoder). The project quickly became a team project. That branch (a patch against the reference sources) became Lame 2.0.

His goal was only to speed up the dist10 sources, and leave its quality untouched. After some quality concerns raised by others, he decided to start again from scratch based on the 'dist10' MPEG reference software sources. Īround mid-1998, Mike Cheng created LAME 1.0 as a set of modifications against the '8Hz-MP3' encoder source code. The name LAME is a recursive acronym for ' LAME Ain't an MP3 Encoder'.

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