Sharing audios.

Sharing audios is nearly the same as "Sharing pictures". Maybe it is a bit more complex in some ways - it happens that there are confusions about patents and licences. Therefore I'd like to write here about MP3 and whose possible use connections.
The audio format "MP3" was mainly developed by the Fraunhofer Institute, a research society. They performed brilliant achievement, worked a lot and didn't augur their success (because this format research was originally only intended for the use of DVD). Now they have 18 patents for parts of MP3. Fraunhofer is now known all over the world; nearly everybody gets in contact with MP3s. It seems free, easy available and more. - Patents are no secrets. You are allowed to read the patent of MP3 and look how the codec works. If you go further and develope a supply, be it an machine or a software, which can read the binaries of MP3 and sell it afterwards you have to pay a license to the MP3 developer. This fact gets sometimes lost. As example it is legal to create MP3 files with e.g. Lame but it is not allowed to sell them.
An extract from the website "www.mp3-tech.org" says:
"No license is needed for private, non-commercial activities (e.g., home-entertainment, receiving broadcast and creating a personal music library), not generating revenue or other consideration of any ind or for entities with associated annual gross revenue less than US$ 100 000,00." (quotation from www.mp3-tech.org)
Example: You can only buy (shop, web) ready Linux packages without any software which can read the MP3 format. The reason is that the sellers would have to pay the license for MP3; instead they offer the buyer the possibility to download a free MP3 reader from the web.
A good alternative for open resource is the audio format "Ogg Vorbis" which has a really good quality and which even is a bit smaller than MP3.