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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 AthanasiusKircher on Tuesday May 16 2017, @12:00AM (1 child)

    by AthanasiusKircher (5291) on Tuesday May 16 2017, @12:00AM (#510303) Journal

    The main benefit for lossless algorithms is that you should be able to convert them later without loss of quality, since preferred formats seem to change over time.

    As for "audiophiles," MP3 may be "crap" to them. But many self-professed audiophiles also claimed they needed to spend $100+ on short Monster cables, even though they couldn't tell the difference in a blind test between a Monster cable and a coat hanger [consumerist.com].

    So, while I appreciate a good audio setup within reason (and have listened to the differences on my own pair of somewhat expensive headphones), you'll excuse me if I don't really care what "audiophiles" think is "crap" or not. ("If you listen on my $5000 setup in perfect conditions when my A/C is off and the moon is at last quarter, you'll find the sound of the 320 kbps MP3 positively revolting compared to my lossless version!" No, no... I really won't. I might hear a difference -- I know something about sound recording and even know "how to listen" to find the artifacts -- but I don't care.)

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  • (Score: 2) by Wootery on Tuesday May 16 2017, @08:23AM

    by Wootery (2341) on Tuesday May 16 2017, @08:23AM (#510446)

    The main benefit for lossless algorithms is that you should be able to convert them later without loss of quality, since preferred formats seem to change over time.

    I agree that avoiding multi-stage lossy conversion is one of the few reasons to use lossless codecs, but it's really only been MP3 and AAC in the lossy codec world for years. OGG/Vorbis and Opus (and even WMA I guess) haven't had a big break, and probably won't, as there isn't that much need to change. (Sure, Spotify use Vorbis, but that's all behind-the-scenes.)

    Agree that many 'audiophiles' are scientifically illiterate suckers.