MP3

For other uses, see MP3 (disambiguation).
Not to be confused with MPEG-3.

MP3
Filename extension.mp3
.bit (before 1995)[1]
Internet media type
  • audio/mpeg[2]
  • audio/MPA[3]
  • audio/mpa-robust[4]
Developed byKarlheinz Brandenburg, Ernst Eberlein, Heinz Gerhäuser, Bernhard Grill, Jürgen Herre and Harald Popp (all of Fraunhofer Society),[5] and others
Initial release6 December 1991; 32 years ago (1991-12-06)[6]
Latest release
ISO/IEC 13818-3:1998
April 1998; 26 years ago (1998-04)
Type of formatLossy audio
Contained byMPEG-ES
Standards
Open format?Yes[9]
Free format?Expired patents[10]

MP3 (formally MPEG-1 Audio Layer III or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III)[4] is a coding format for digital audio developed largely by the Fraunhofer Society in Germany under the lead of Karlheinz Brandenburg.[11][12] It was designed to greatly reduce the amount of data required to represent audio, yet still sound like a faithful reproduction of the original uncompressed audio to most listeners; for example, compared to CD-quality digital audio, MP3 compression can commonly achieve a 75–95% reduction in size, depending on the bit rate.[13] In popular usage, MP3 often refers to files of sound or music recordings stored in the MP3 file format (.mp3) on consumer electronic devices.

Originally defined in 1991 as the third audio format of the MPEG-1 standard, it was retained and further extended—defining additional bit rates and support for more audio channels—as the third audio format of the subsequent MPEG-2 standard. MP3 as a file format commonly designates files containing an elementary stream of MPEG-1 Audio or MPEG-2 Audio encoded data, without other complexities of the MP3 standard. Concerning audio compression, which is its most apparent element to end-users, MP3 uses lossy compression to encode data using inexact approximations and the partial discarding of data, allowing for a large reduction in file sizes when compared to uncompressed audio. The combination of small size and acceptable fidelity led to a boom in the distribution of music over the Internet in the late 1990s, with MP3 serving as an enabling technology at a time when bandwidth and storage were still at a premium. The MP3 format soon became associated with controversies surrounding copyright infringement, music piracy, and the file-ripping and sharing services MP3.com and Napster, among others. With the advent of portable media players (including "MP3 players"), a product category also including smartphones, MP3 support remains near-universal and a de facto standard for digital audio.

  1. ^ Cite error: The named reference mp3-name was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ Cite error: The named reference rfc3003 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  3. ^ Cite error: The named reference rfc3555 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  4. ^ a b Cite error: The named reference rfc5219 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  5. ^ "The mp3 team". Fraunhofer IIS. Archived from the original on 14 July 2020. Retrieved 12 June 2020.
  6. ^ Patel K, Smith BC, Rowe LA (1 September 1993). "Performance of a software MPEG video decoder". Proceedings of the first ACM international conference on Multimedia - MULTIMEDIA '93. ACM Multimedia. New York City: Association for Computing Machinery. pp. 75–82. doi:10.1145/166266.166274. ISBN 978-0-89791-596-0. S2CID 3773268. Archived from the original on 15 December 2021. Retrieved 15 December 2021. Reference 3 in the paper is to Committee Draft of Standard ISO/IEC 11172, December 6, 1991.
  7. ^ Cite error: The named reference 11172-3 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  8. ^ Cite error: The named reference 13818-3 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  9. ^ "MP3 technology at Fraunhofer IIS". Fraunhofer IIS. Archived from the original on 15 August 2021. Retrieved 12 June 2020.
  10. ^ MP3 (MPEG Layer III Audio Encoding) (Full draft). Sustainability of Digital Formats. Washington, D.C.: Library of Congress. 3 May 2017. Retrieved 1 December 2021.
  11. ^ "73. "Father" of the MP3, Karlheinz Brandenburg". 13 July 2015. Archived from the original on 2 January 2023. Retrieved 2 January 2023 – via www.youtube.com.
  12. ^ "On the 20th Birthday of the MP3, An Interview With The "Father" of the MP3, Karlheinz Brandenburg". Archived from the original on 2 January 2023. Retrieved 2 January 2023.
  13. ^ "MP3 (MPEG Layer III Audio Encoding)". The Library of Congress. 27 July 2017. Archived from the original on 14 August 2017. Retrieved 9 November 2017.