Some of the CODECS in FFmpeg are still covered by patents. And, it’s legal to distribute MP3s without any license (as long as you are the copyright owner of the song/program). The patents expired a couple of years ago so now it’s legal to give-away LAME, and legal to include it in Audacity. As an individual you couldn’t buy a single license or buy a licensed copy of LAME… You had to buy an application that included a licensed copy. If you want to import/export a wide variety of other formats you still need to install FFmpeg separately. But if you install the latest version of Audacity (2.3.2) it’s already built-in. You can open MP3s without it, and you can export to WAV or several other formats without it. So, you had to compile it yourself or download from 3rd-party sites who were willing to take the risk (both still illegal and you could theoretically be sued if you distributed MP3s made this way), or you could buy an application (such as dBpowerAmp) that included a licensed copy. You need to install LAME if you want to export-to (create) MP3s. When LAME was created there were patents covering MP3 and it WAS illegal to distribute a complete-working MP3 encoder/decoder without paying royalties. It has to be compiled to get a usable EXE or DLL file. The official LAME website distributes the source code (raw computer code). Online explanations of the program include “LAME is an educational tool to be used for learning about MP3 encoding”

You can open MP3s without it, and you can export to WAV or several other formats without it.īut if you install the latest version of Audacity (2.3.2) it’s already built-in. You need to install LAME if you want to export-to (create) MP3s.

Install lame for audacity