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MP3'south accept been a fixture of the internet and the broader technological landscape since many of the states kickoff got online. While largely supplanted past newer audio compression schemes, including some that feature lossless encoding, MP3 is the fallback option for when y'all need an audio format that'south guaranteed to play on well-nigh annihilation from whatever era.

It was surprising, therefore, to see an announcement from NPR over the weekend that the MP3 was "officially expressionless," even if the headline included the proviso "according to its creators." A quick jaunt over to the Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits' website seemed to confirm this, with a statement reading:

On April 23, 2017, Technicolor'south mp3 licensing plan for sure mp3 related patents and software of Technicolor and Fraunhofer IIS has been terminated…

Although there are more efficient audio codecs with avant-garde features available today, mp3 is even so very popular amongst consumers. However, nigh state-of-the-art media services such equally streaming or TV and radio broadcasting use modern ISO-MPEG codecs such equally the AAC family or in the future MPEG-H. Those tin can evangelize more features and a higher audio quality at much lower bitrates compared to mp3.

This is all true, as far every bit it goes. MP3 has been superseded past improve codecs, information technology'south not a cut-edge technology whatsoever more, and Fraunhofer has other technologies, like AAC, that it still holds patents on. But what's interesting well-nigh the way the manner NPR framed the outcome is that information technology presents MP3 equally a engineering that everyone volition at present but move abroad from, in much the same style that the world moved away from vinyl records. Merely MP3, and digital standards in full general, don't work the aforementioned was every bit vinyl records.

What actually happened is this: As of April, the final patents on MP3 encoding that Fraunhofer could nevertheless validly enforce and collect royalties on expired in the United States. As a result, the institute has terminated its licensing program, considering licenses are no longer necessary. And unlike a physical factory, there's nothing stopping people from standing to rip audio tracks into MP3–it's no longer considered the superior format for doing and so, but hey, if you desire to practice information technology, nobody is going to stop you. That's rather different than physical audio standards, where corporate decisions near mass production dictate how you'll exist able to listen to a piece of music.

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Audio players like Winamp became incredibly popular thank you to MP3 support and a superior front-terminate to what Microsoft offered at the time.

But the consequence hasn't been framed in this fashion to date. And without implying whatsoever negative intent on the function of whatever specific publication, information technology's an interesting way of how conventional means of thinking well-nigh products don't always apply in the digital historic period. The expiration of MP3 patents won't have an affect on consumers, because consumers never had to buy the right to play back MP3 products. It probably won't accept an impact on device design either, considering it'southward highly unlikely any visitor will drib support for a free standard that'southward also the overwhelmingly pop format for audio playback back up. MP3 compatibility is expected from basically any device that plays audio at all.

Of course, plenty of people volition argue that MP3 should die, given that it's based on a decades-sometime compression model that causeless an equivalent level of processing power to what you lot find in your boilerplate toaster these days. Only those of you with several yard songs ripped in the old MP3 format need non worry — y'all won't see playback adequacy vanishing from electric current or future devices, non any time soon. If yous're curious near the evolution of the MP3 standard, the Fraunhofer Institute has published a retrospective of its ain.