Who invented mp3 compression

Mary Bellis. Inventions Expert. Mary Bellis covered inventions and inventors for ThoughtCo for 18 years. She is known for her independent films and documentaries, including one about Alexander Graham Bell. Updated August 09, April Fraunhofer received a German patent for MP3. September Fraunhofer began enforcing their patent rights. February A record company called SubPop was the first to distribute music tracks in the MP3 format.

Featured Video. Cite this Article Format. Bellis, Mary. Another audio format called Advanced Audio Coding, or AAC, is now the "de facto standard for music download and videos on mobile phones. Grill might be absolutely spot-on. But more than the quality of compression and file size, the MP3 might actually deserve to die, simply because the engineers who created it were working only upon assumptions on how humans processed sonic information, according to a report by NPR.

In short, MP3 might not have been the best way to hear music after all. But that aside, let's take a look at a brief history of the MP3. How it was invented, how it spread globally, and how it eventually died. As a result, the format was close to being abandoned by its developers again towards the end , in favour of the AAC format still patented and supported today. AAC generally performs better than MP3 at higher compression ratios, and the patent does not require a user to obtain a license to stream or distribute AAC encoded audio.

By this stage, the first time most people had even heard of the MP3 format, the horse had already bolted, and the music industry would never be the same again. But they allowed consumers to stockpile music to an extent that had not been possible before, heralding a new relationship between digital information and ownership. A market model based on scarcity had been turned on its head.

While copying music had been around for decades, each copy was physically coupled to the medium — a vinyl record or magnetic tape cassette, for instance. A single file could by copied by thousands, all at the same time. This changed listening patterns: instead of buying perhaps one album per month depending on what you could afford , and then listening to it several times, music fans could constantly scour the internet for new music.

Some would even stockpile music that they would never even listen to. Today, playing MP3 files is increasingly being superseded by the ubiquity of streaming services. Iphone Product Description. Top Searches on. Singapore Jobs. A Checklist for Used Computers. Cable Modem Reviews. The Free Wallpapers. Dont Cry Over Spilt Toner! Computers and Healthcare. Life Without Computers. Understanding Pdf Files.