Check this out: http://www.mp3licensing.com/royalty/index.html

Use OGG!!! You do not need to pay for this compression
format.
http://www.xiph.org/ogg/vorbis/index.html

OGG has MUCH better quality. 128kbps OGG is like mp3 256kbps, 48-80 kbps is like mp3 128-160 kbps. Ogg needs less CPU power when decoding than mp3.

Ogg Vorbis is a fully Open, non-proprietary, patent-and-royalty-free, general-purpose compressed audio format for mid to high quality (8kHz-48.0kHz, 16+ bit, polyphonic) audio and music at fixed and variable bitrates from 16 to 128 kbps/channel. 128kbps is audiopfile quality (cut-off frequency: 19.4 Khz!!!).

PS. Check also this topic: http://www.gnutellaforums.com/showth...threadid=12518

It will take a while before large numbers of people see the light drop MP3 in favour of OGG.

If MusicMatch would get a move on and bring out a version with ogg support that would help. For the moment you have use a different player like
http://www.ashampoo.com/products/0014/
and a separate CD ripper like
http://www.cdex.n3.net/
which encodes OGG as instructed inspite of having MP3 emblazened over the "go" button.

We can all do our little bit to encourage others:
Share more OGG files and less MP3 files.

CDex is a good for ripping CDs to OGG and it is improving.
On version 1.5 beta 7 the old references to MP3 have been banished to a large extent.
http://cdexos.sourceforge.net/