> I rather think that's parnoia talking - MS have no way to
> prevent a 3rd party codec from encoding at a higher rate
> than 56kbit.

I know they don't. They don't need to do that.

If you use the Opera web browser it identifies itself as IE
by default, since many sites don't work otherwise. This
came about in the same way: through their desktop monopoly
microsoft bribed other companies to include their technology
and exclude others.

Same thing is happening with WMA. You're including it because
it's free. Yeah right.

Paul