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posted by martyb on Monday May 15 2017, @05:15PM   Printer-friendly
from the You-must-buy-everything-you-listen-to...-Again dept.

MP3, the digital audio coding format, changed the way we listen to music and drove the adoption of countless new devices over the last couple of decades. And now, it's dead. The developer of the format announced this week that it has officially terminated its licensing program.

The actual ownership history of the various patent rights involved in MP3 technology is complicated and messy. But the Fraunhofer Institute has claimed the right to license certain MP3 patents to software developers who want to "distribute and/or sell decoders and/or encoders" for it. The announcement that the company will end its licensing program was accompanied by a statement that reads in part:

"Although there are more efficient audio codecs with advanced features available today, mp3 is still very popular amongst consumers. However, most state-of-the-art media services such as streaming or TV and radio broadcasting use modern ISO-MPEG codecs such as the AAC family or in the future MPEG-H. Those can deliver more features and a higher audio quality at much lower bitrates compared to mp3."

Source: Gizmodo

See also: NPR's coverage which has additional background and details.


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  • (Score: 2) by edIII on Monday May 15 2017, @06:13PM (2 children)

    by edIII (791) on Monday May 15 2017, @06:13PM (#510160)

    Cuz I remember how the floppy disk died too. Of which I still have a case of blank floppies and a few USB readers laying around....

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  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by DannyB on Monday May 15 2017, @06:39PM (1 child)

    by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Monday May 15 2017, @06:39PM (#510171) Journal

    Show a kid a floppy disk, and hear . . .

    Woah! Dude! You 3D printed a Save icon!

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    • (Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 15 2017, @06:48PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 15 2017, @06:48PM (#510177)

      It's called a stiffy disk. Now get off my lawn!