Hi, The people who make .mp3 players are supposed to pay Fafenhoffer labs (or something like that :) since they hold a patent for the compression algorithm. Much as Unisys do for the LZW compression algorith that is used to compress .gif images. Which, if memory serves was created by Compuserve. Now anyone can go and lookup a patent and find out how it's done. That's one of the requirements of the patent process. Also, last time I looked it wasn't illegal to reverse engineer anything to see how it worked. You can even rebuild stuff using that knowledge. What you're not allowed to do is make a profit from it. I'm not sure where the law stands on giving away the information gained by reverse engineering either. But I doubt you're allowed to distribute a product created this way, for free, if it damages the salability of the original product. How this applies to Joe Bloggs making a drink that that tastes like Coke and then selling it is beyond me, however :) later jb