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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: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 15 2017, @05:32PM (14 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 15 2017, @05:32PM (#510134)

    No idea why they claim the format is dead right when they can no longer collect royalties. Maybe it's precisely because they can no longer collect royalties and would like people to switch to other, still patent encumbered formats. Sorry, that's not going to happen. MP3 is good enough and the best codec out there, Opus, is also free.

    It's funny how many news outlets copy the statement like an echo chamber without checking the facts first.

    • (Score: 2) by kaszz on Monday May 15 2017, @05:56PM (1 child)

      by kaszz (4211) on Monday May 15 2017, @05:56PM (#510149) Journal

      The problem is not checking facts, it's actually thinking. Not to implying any journalist is incapable to do so ;-)

      • (Score: 5, Insightful) by bzipitidoo on Monday May 15 2017, @08:02PM

        by bzipitidoo (4388) on Monday May 15 2017, @08:02PM (#510203) Journal

        Mainstream media and their journalists are still firm believers in copyright and intellectual property. They've been moaning for years now that their business is dying and it's all the fault of technology and those naughty pirates for wrecking their monopoly on the ability to mass copy information. You won't get unbiased reporting from them on any topic related to that.

        One might think that being publicly funded, NPR at least would be a bit more open minded, but no, they are near as badly infected. Note that their article mentions AAC by name, though it wasn't necessary, and does not mention Ogg Vorbis, Opus, or even FLAC. The tone of the whole article is that mp3 was a huge disruption of the music business. There's no acknowledgement of the many ways technology has helped art flourish, helped bring more art to the public. Just a mention that it helped a corporate citizen, Apple. Guess we should be glad they didn't mention WMA.

        I only wonder how much longer they can go on with their propaganda that "copying is theft" and their wailing that artists and writers will starve without copyright.

    • (Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 15 2017, @05:58PM (9 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 15 2017, @05:58PM (#510151)

      For audiophiles, MP3 is crap. You lose clarity and frequencies where FLAC preserves them. Of course you'll need good headphones and a better soundcard than most PCs have. I use a USB-DAC with ~$200 headphones and FLAC files which beat the crap out of any MP3.

      • (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.

        • (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.

      • (Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 15 2017, @06:25PM (2 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 15 2017, @06:25PM (#510166)

        For the other 99% of the population, mp3 is just fine.

        • (Score: 5, Informative) by SomeGuy on Monday May 15 2017, @07:19PM (1 child)

          by SomeGuy (5632) on Monday May 15 2017, @07:19PM (#510191)

          Considering that 99% of the music out there is just loud grating noise with autotuned singing that sounds like GlaDOS trying to fuck your ear, its no surprise it is good enough for 99% of the people.

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 15 2017, @08:16PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 15 2017, @08:16PM (#510209)

            But its not tho thats just what the mainstream radio / tv plays.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 15 2017, @06:32PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 15 2017, @06:32PM (#510168)

        listening thru earbuds never gonna be audiophile, unless youre in a sound proof room. listening in car while driving, same. getting old enough to not be able to hear those 15kHz+ sounds, same. MP3 is good enough.
        Autotune, other modern mixing techniques that happen to kill the dynamic range, also suck rocks, so again, not audiophile.
        For music I care about (Rush, Pink Floyd, etc.) I kinda do want the original CDs (and rip em to MP3), not the newer remixes.

        of course, ymmv. and go piss on someone else's lawn.

      • (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.)

        • (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.

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

        by Wootery (2341) on Tuesday May 16 2017, @08:16AM (#510443)

        That's why people use high-bitrate MP3s: to compensate for MP3's comparatively poor lossy compression.

        Most people don't care all that much that they're using twice the disk-space using 320kbps MP3s compared to if they used Opus targeting a similar quality.

    • (Score: 1) by higuita on Tuesday May 16 2017, @01:57PM (1 child)

      by higuita (2465) on Tuesday May 16 2017, @01:57PM (#510528)

      Even better, dump mp3 and encode with ogg vorbis... it have better quality and is totally free

      • (Score: 2) by Celestial on Tuesday May 16 2017, @05:52PM

        by Celestial (4891) on Tuesday May 16 2017, @05:52PM (#510626) Journal

        That would require buying physical CDs again. No thanks. Now if a digital music store opened up and sold Ogg Vorbis or Opus encoded music, I'd switch to it in a heartbeat.

  • (Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday May 15 2017, @05:49PM (8 children)

    by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Monday May 15 2017, @05:49PM (#510143) Journal

    While there may be better formats that mp3, the one thing mp3 has going for it is that it is deeply entrenched. Universal support. Show me an audio player device, phone, tablet or software application that doesn't support mp3. Similarly mp3 audio support is near universal in software that supports video playback.

    I would go back and re-rip everything in Flac now. If I cared enough. Disk space is a lot cheaper today than in the mp3 heyday.

    Of course, even with a lossless audio format, it will not be sufficient to convince some people who insist that no digital format or technology can produce the sound of a vacuum tube equipment. Even with signal processing to make frequency specific spectrum adjustments, or phase shifts or any other manipulation. Because loudspeakers can mechanically reproduce the distinct tiny stairsteps of a digital waveform, even though loudspeakers have mechanical inertia.

    --
    People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.
    • (Score: 2) by kaszz on Monday May 15 2017, @06:00PM

      by kaszz (4211) on Monday May 15 2017, @06:00PM (#510152) Journal

      Yeah, with gigabit pipes and terabyte storage. Audio compression might have seen it's peak.

    • (Score: 5, Informative) by WillR on Monday May 15 2017, @06:05PM

      by WillR (2012) on Monday May 15 2017, @06:05PM (#510155)
      And support is only going to get more universal now that distros can move their mp3 codec packages from unofficial add-on repositories to main.
    • (Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 15 2017, @06:10PM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 15 2017, @06:10PM (#510159)

      It's not dead, it's just pining for the fjord! :)

      • (Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 15 2017, @06:26PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 15 2017, @06:26PM (#510167)

        That's "Fnord" in this case.

    • (Score: 5, Informative) by pTamok on Monday May 15 2017, @06:16PM (2 children)

      by pTamok (3042) on Monday May 15 2017, @06:16PM (#510164)

      Cough. What distinct tiny stairsteps?

      I will make a well earned exception to my habit of not posting links to videos. If you want to understand how digital audio gets converted to sound, the videos on the linked page are well worth watching. Really. Even though one is very nearly 24 minutes long, and the other a shade over 30 minutes. Presented by Monty Montgomery of Xiph.org.

      https://xiph.org/video/ [xiph.org]

      Go to the chapter on "stairsteps" on the second (nearly 24 minute) "Digital Show & Tell" video.

      • (Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday May 15 2017, @06:36PM

        by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Monday May 15 2017, @06:36PM (#510169) Journal

        Thanks

        --
        People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.
      • (Score: 1) by butthurt on Tuesday May 16 2017, @01:46AM

        by butthurt (6141) on Tuesday May 16 2017, @01:46AM (#510336) Journal

        > What distinct tiny stairsteps?

        Looks like GP forgot <sarcasm> tags.

    • (Score: 2) by Wootery on Tuesday May 16 2017, @08:26AM

      by Wootery (2341) on Tuesday May 16 2017, @08:26AM (#510448)

      Show me an audio player device, phone, tablet or software application that doesn't support mp3.

      There was a time some desktop Linux distros wouldn't ship with an MP3 decoder, over patent concerns. If the patents are now void, I imagine that's no longer the case.

  • (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....

    --
    Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
    • (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!

      --
      People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.
      • (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!

  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by wonkey_monkey on Monday May 15 2017, @06:46PM (1 child)

    by wonkey_monkey (279) on Monday May 15 2017, @06:46PM (#510176) Homepage

    Developers of the MP3 Format Claim it is 'Officially Dead'

    That wouldn't have anything to do with the fact that they can't make any money off it any more, would it?

    --
    systemd is Roko's Basilisk
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 16 2017, @12:38PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 16 2017, @12:38PM (#510505)

      Exactly. To pound it in:

      The developer of the format announced this week that it has officially terminated its licensing program.

      Wow, gee, it's almost like you can't license expired patents. I'm flabbergasted!

  • (Score: 2) by butthurt on Monday May 15 2017, @09:23PM

    by butthurt (6141) on Monday May 15 2017, @09:23PM (#510236) Journal

    This ran the week before last.

    /article.pl?sid=17/05/03/1348259 [soylentnews.org]

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