Earlier, we used to buy audio cassettes for listening to songs but it had only 10-12 songs and then came CDs; however, the music world changed drastically after the advent of MP3. Now after ruling the music world for almost two decades, the MP3 format is officially dead as its developer has decided to terminate the licensing program of the format.
Many developers across the globe claim to have the patent regarding the license of the MP3 format but since 2005, Fraunhofer Institute has been licensing the format for those who want to sell decoders and encoders and it has also won the legal battles in this concern. A statement was issued by the company which stated:
“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.”
Undoubtedly, many are shifting away from MP3 and it’s obvious to happen if a better technology is available in the market. How can we forget that CD-ROMs replaced floppy drives and if talk about the present time, the USB Type-C is getting preference by tech companies over Type-A USB and MicroUSB. The audio format which is replacing MP3 is co-developed by Fraunhofer Institute and is named AAC (Advanced Audio Coding).
MP3 may be dead but it’s almost impossible for most of us to forget it as it had a huge impact on our lives. In 1993, almost 24 years back, it came into market; nevertheless, it became popular by 1997 when Winamp audio player was released and MP3 was downloaded often by users from various websites, which was illegal though. It became more popular in 1999 when Napster was launched as it made downloading of large bundles of small audio files very easy.
Who can forget the iPods and iTunes from Apple, base of which was the MP3 format, the same format which made it possible for Gaana and Spotify to stream songs.
There is no chance that MP3 will make a comeback as the quality it provides is lower in comparison to the other formats but it was our friend for long two decades and we will miss it forever.
RIP MP3
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