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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: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 15 2017, @06:18PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 15 2017, @06:18PM (#510165)

    For audiophiles, MP3 is crap.

    The only material where anybody has been repeatedly and reliably able to determine playback of a 320kbps MP3 and an uncompressed source in a double blind test is classical / orchestral. Even then, only on 'difficult' programme material. Worse still, many consumers prefer the sound of 128 and 256kbps MP3.

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  • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 16 2017, @08:01AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 16 2017, @08:01AM (#510439)

    The only material where anybody has been repeatedly and reliably able to determine playback of a 320kbps MP3 and an uncompressed source in a double blind test is classical / orchestral

    Considering that everything else has been compressed to become impossible to listen to without getting a headache for just about as long as we've had the MP3 format, this shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone.

    It's not that MP3 is good enough that people can't tell the difference, it's that the music (what's left of it) already sounds worse that MP3 before you even rip the CD.