The mighty MP3

When asked what MP3 stands for most people would think it was something like music player 3 or something like that. It actually stands for Moving Pictures Expert Group, Audio Layer 3. It was developed by the Moving Pictures Expert Group who created the MPEG video technology. The humble mp3 along with its friend the internet has caused major upset in the music industry. Here's how. The internet has revolutionised the way the world communicates. Email is now essential for business and social media is a hugely popular way of interacting with friends. Music has been dragged along for the ride but not so successfully. Music was safe for a while as was video. Slow broadband speeds and large file sizes meant that downloading a 3 minute took an age.

Then came compression which is what an mp3 is. A compressed version of an audio file. An average audio file that you would find on a C.D would be about 40 megabytes (MB) but once its compressed into an mp3 it ends up at about 3 – 8 MB. This makes it much easier to up and down load. The compression works by removing some frequencies which are not essential or noticed by the human ear. Purists will say that they can tell the difference and if a file has been compressed too much it will lose some of its clarity. For the average listener however an mp3 music download will sound much the same as a C.D.

If you were unaware of the music piracy problem which is posing a threat to the music industry you might be surprised to hear that the main record companies never fully embraced this new technology but instead preferred to stick with the tangible product of C.D's. This doesn't make much sense to me. By selling music in a digital format you can do away with expensive packaging and distribution. Instead of offering satisfactory alternatives to downloading music illegally from torrent sites the music industry has put most of its resources into stopping piracy. If they had just focused early on to provide music to on-line consumers they would have sold a lot of music. Instead consumers now expect music to be free and it has lost its worth.

Now the industry is struggling to maintain its racket and all because of the MP3.