Ventis Media

The company behind MediaMonkey the Windows music player. It comes in free and paid versions.

The free version of MediaMonkey is generous with features, including CD ripping, audio file format conversion, CD burning and much more.

After 30 days, the free MediaMonkey stops ripping and converting to the MP3 format. It then presents you with a sales pitch: Upgrade to MediaMonkey Gold (at $20 - $40) and you can convert to MP3 once again.

You don't need to open your wallet for the upgrade if you are handy copying files around Windows. Just download the LAME library and copy lame_enc.dll to your MediaMonkey program directory.

Ventis Media mentions OEM and embedded versions of MediaMonkey on their company home page, though that's the only mention of these incarnations.