MP3 has officially been terminated by the format's developers
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Marking the end of an era in digital audio
by Harrison Williams 15 May 2017
The rights owner of the digital audio coding format MP3 has officially terminated its licensing program, marking the end of the popular format that helped revolutionize the digital audio industry and has been used for over two decades.
The Fraunhofer Institute, which owns the rights to license the MP3 patent to developers, released an official statement touching on why it will move toward other formats in the future.
The institute recognized that the MP3 is still very popular within the consumer market, but it lacks the quality of today’s industry standard: “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.”
Today’s industry standard is AAC, or Advanced Audio Coding, which was also mainly developed by the Fraunhofer Institute. With the MP3 licensing program terminated it will likely not see a resurgence due to the low quality of the format.
How this will affect the music industry remains to be seen, as much of the general public still uses MP3. That said, top-tier DJs tend to use other formats, like AIFF or WAV.
[Via: Gizmodo]
http://mixmag.net/read/the-mp3-has-officially-been-terminated-by-the-for...
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Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: skifurthur
This is going to reverberate
This is going to reverberate negatively in the consumer market place. One the license terminates, all those MP3 files on people's devices will also need to be terminated. New players will not legally be able to decode the files and the files that people a license for from places like Apple, Amazon and the like will also have to be deleted by those companies that sold them. One never actually bought the file, they only bought a license to use those files. I will be curious to see is those sellers will upgrade the files for free or up charge a fee and replace the files with new formats. Since the MP3 files were purchased at a lower fee than the other formats, I suspect an up charge. The TOS, which almost nobody ever read, for those files make it very clear that the consumer was only buying a license that can be terminated by the seller for most any reason. This is a reason.
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: An organ grinder’s tune
ha ha, buy them again custies
ha ha, buy them again custies....
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: skifurthur
^^^
^^^
Not only the files but those with devices that are chock filled with music (iPods, phones, other music players) may no longer have enough room to store all their files. Those people might also have to buy new devices with larger storage, which can be pricey.
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: Ken D.
>>>buy them again custies....
>>>buy them again custies....
Another reason I am glad my music collection is primarily in the form of LPs and CDs.
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: the new, new mighty Quinn
>>One the license terminates,
>>One the license terminates, all those MP3 files on people's devices will also need to be terminated. New players will not legally be able to decode the files
i don't think this is accurate. Sold licenses are not being canceled. New licenses are not being sold anymore, and that is because Fraunhofer no longer owns the patent rights they have been selling licenses to. The patents have expired. So new players can legally decode the files and without buying any license from anyone.
my understanding is based on the discussion in the comments here: http://gizmodo.com/developers-of-the-mp3-have-officially-killed-it-17952...
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: ________
What's a MP3?
What's a MP3?
i don't have any
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: skifurthur
^
^
I didn't see the part about the patents running out. That would change my comments a lot. More research on my part is needed. Thank for the heads up, Quinn.
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: Bucky Badger
Fortunately CD's will always
Fortunately CD's will always be a preferred format for ever.
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: An organ grinder’s tune
>What's a MP3?<
>What's a MP3?<
its what 6er stores his ratdog collection in...
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: New & Improved
MP3 was a Mazda hatchback.
MP3 was a Mazda hatchback.
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: Is forgiveness possible?
Turtle is very butthurt about
Turtle is very butthurt.
Winning!
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: New & Improved
Why do you celebrate the
Why do you celebrate the misery of others?
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: ________
Is it 6 brain cells or 6
Is it 6 brain cells or 6 nanometers of skin?
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: Is forgiveness possible?
>>Why do you celebrate the
>>Why do you celebrate the misery of others?
Do you really think he's that miserable?
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: I rang a silent bell
It's about time.
It's about time.
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: Def. High
Good riddance.
Good riddance.
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: An organ grinder’s tune
>Do you really think he's
>Do you really think he's that miserable?<
do you really think i am "butthurt"?
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: Sycamore Slough
Haven't dabbled in them since
Haven't dabbled in them since the days of Napster, except for some 'Books On Tape' from Archive that went on to CD-R for a friend's long drive. I think the format is good enough for listening to someone read a book, and you can put a lot of hours on a disc.
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: Is forgiveness possible?
>>do you really think i am
>>do you really think i am "butthurt"?
No
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: Lasher Von Zekenstein
Interesting counterpoint-
Interesting counterpoint-
https://marco.org/2017/05/15/mp3-isnt-dead
"AAC and other newer audio codecs can produce better quality than MP3, but the difference is only significant at low bitrates. At about 128 kbps or greater, the differences between MP3 and other codecs are very unlikely to be noticed, so it isn’t meaningfully better for personal music collections. For new music, get AAC if you want, but it’s not worth spending any time replacing MP3s you already have."
"So while AAC does offer some benefits, it also brings additional downsides and costs, and the benefits aren’t necessary or noticeable in some major common uses. Even the file-size argument for lower bitrates is less important than ever in a world of ever-increasing bandwidth and ever-higher relative uses of it.3
Ogg Vorbis and Opus offer similar quality advantages as AAC with (probably) no patent issues, which was necessary to provide audio options to free, open-source software and other contexts that aren’t compatible with patent licensing. But they’re not widely supported, limiting their useful applications.
Until a few weeks ago, there had never been an audio format that was small enough to be practical, widely supported, and had no patent restrictions, forcing difficult choices and needless friction upon the computing world. Now, at least for audio, that friction has officially ended. There’s finally a great choice without asterisks."