I'm a bit surprised about the recent fuzz about licensing fees for mp3 decoders. The relevant page at mp3licensing.com has not had any relevant changes for more than a year, so this is not news. There has been no other indication that the patent holders original attitude against "freeware" decoders has changed, as far as I can tell. In my opinion, the only thing they would accomplish by trying to enforce fees on free decoders would be a PR disaster.