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MP3 is an audio coding format developed largely by the Fraunhofer Society in Germany under the lead of Karlheinz Brandenburg. 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. In popular usage, MP3 often refers to files of sound or music recordings stored in the MP3 file format (.mp3) on consumer electronic devices.

History
The Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG) designed MP3 as part of its MPEG-1, and later MPEG-2, standards. MPEG-1 Audio (MPEG-1 Part 3), which included MPEG-1 Audio Layer I, II, and III, was approved as a committee draft for an ISO/IEC standard in 1991, which has origins in the work of Fumitada Itakura (Nagoya University) and Shuzo Saito (Nippon Telegraph and Telephone) in 1966. In 1978, Bishnu S. Atal and Manfred R. Schroeder at Bell Labs proposed an LPC speech codec, called adaptive predictive coding, that used a psychoacoustic coding-algorithm exploiting the masking properties of the human ear. Further optimization by Schroeder and Atal with J.L. Hall was later reported in a 1979 paper. did not immediately influence the mainstream of psychoacoustic codec-development. The discrete cosine transform (DCT), a type of transform coding for lossy compression, proposed by Nasir Ahmed in 1972, was developed by Ahmed with T. Natarajan and K. R. Rao in 1973; they published their results in 1974. This led to the development of the modified discrete cosine transform (MDCT), proposed by J. P. Princen, A. W. Johnson and A. B. Bradley in 1987, following earlier work by Princen and Bradley in 1986. The MDCT later became a core part of the MP3 algorithm. Ernst Terhardt and other collaborators constructed an algorithm describing auditory masking with high accuracy in 1982. who chaired the ISO MPEG Audio group for several years. In December 1988, MPEG called for an audio coding standard. In June 1989, 14 audio coding algorithms were submitted. Because of certain similarities between these coding proposals, they were clustered into four development groups. The first group was ASPEC, by Fraunhofer Gesellschaft, AT&T, CNET(France Telecom) and Thomson. The second group was MUSICAM, by Matsushita, CCETT, ITT and Philips. The third group was ATAC (ATRAC Coding), by Fujitsu, JVC, NEC and Sony. And the fourth group was SB-ADPCM, by NTT and BTRL. after having worked on MUSICAM with Matsushita and Philips since 1989. with Radio Canada and CRC Canada during the NAB show (Las Vegas) in 1991. The implementation of the audio part of this broadcasting system was based on a two-chip encoder (one for the subband transform, one for the psychoacoustic model designed by the team of G. Stoll (IRT Germany), later known as psychoacoustic model I) and a real-time decoder using one Motorola 56001 DSP chip running an integer arithmetics software designed by Y.F. Dehery's team (CCETT, France). The simplicity of the corresponding decoder together with the high audio quality of this codec using for the first time a 48 kHz sampling rate, a 20 bits/sample input format (the highest available sampling standard in 1991, compatible with the AES/EBU professional digital input studio standard) were the main reasons to later adopt the characteristics of MUSICAM as the basic features for an advanced digital music compression codec. During the development of the MUSICAM encoding software, Stoll and Dehery's team made thorough use of a set of high-quality audio assessment material selected by a group of audio professionals from the European Broadcasting Union, and later used as a reference for the assessment of music compression codecs. The subband coding technique was found to be efficient, not only for the perceptual coding of high-quality sound materials but especially for the encoding of critical percussive sound materials (drums, triangle,...), due to the specific temporal masking effect of the MUSICAM sub-band filterbank (this advantage being a specific feature of short transform coding techniques). As a doctoral student at Germany's University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, Karlheinz Brandenburg began working on digital music compression in the early 1980s, focusing on how people perceive music. He completed his doctoral work in 1989.), with relatively minor contributions from the MP2 branch of psychoacoustic sub-band coders. In 1990, Brandenburg became an assistant professor at Erlangen-Nuremberg. While there, he continued to work on music compression with scientists at the Fraunhofer Society's Heinrich Herz Institute. In 1993, he joined the staff of Fraunhofer IIS in Erlangen. was chosen due to its simplicity and error robustness, as well as for its high level of computational efficiency. This song was chosen because of its nearly monophonic nature and wide spectral content, making it easier to hear imperfections in the compression format during playbacks. This particular track has an interesting property in that the two channels are almost, but not completely, the same, leading to a case where Binaural Masking Level Depression causes spatial unmasking of noise artifacts unless the encoder properly recognizes the situation and applies corrections similar to those detailed in the MPEG-2 AAC psychoacoustic model. Some more critical audio excerpts (glockenspiel, triangle, accordion, etc.) were taken from the EBU V3/SQAM reference compact disc and have been used by professional sound engineers to assess the subjective quality of the MPEG Audio formats. Going public A reference simulation software implementation, written in the C language and later known as ISO 11172-5, was developed (in 1991–1996) by the members of the ISO MPEG Audio committee to produce bit-compliant MPEG Audio files (Layer 1, Layer 2, Layer 3). It was approved as a committee draft of the ISO/IEC technical report in March 1994 and printed as document CD 11172-5 in April 1994. were available for digital broadcasting (radio DAB, television DVB) towards consumer receivers and set-top boxes. On 7 July 1994, the Fraunhofer Society released the first software MP3 encoder, called l3enc. Further versions } The ISO standard ISO/IEC 11172-3 (a.k.a. MPEG-1 Audio) defined three formats: the MPEG-1 Audio Layer I, Layer II and Layer III. The ISO standard ISO/IEC 13818-3 (a.k.a. MPEG-2 Audio) defined an extended version of MPEG-1 Audio: MPEG-2 Audio Layer I, Layer II, and Layer III. MPEG-2 Audio (MPEG-2 Part 3) should not be confused with MPEG-2 AAC (MPEG-2 Part 7 – ISO/IEC 13818-7). using uncompressed audio files, this archive started to deliver on the native worldwide low-speed Internet some compressed MPEG Audio files using the MP2 (Layer II) format and later on used MP3 files when the standard was fully completed. The popularity of MP3s began to rise rapidly with the advent of Nullsoft's audio player Winamp, released in 1997, which still had in 2023 a community of 80 million active users. In 1998, Windows Media Player 5.2 and later added support for MP3 format, and the first portable solid-state digital audio player MPMan, developed by SaeHan Information Systems, which is headquartered in Seoul, South Korea, was released and the Rio PMP300 was sold afterward in 1998, despite legal suppression efforts by the RIAA. In November 1997, the website mp3.com was offering thousands of MP3s created by independent artists for free. The small size of MP3 files enabled widespread peer-to-peer file sharing of music ripped from CDs, which would have previously been nearly impossible. The first large peer-to-peer filesharing network, Napster, was launched in 1999. The ease of creating and sharing MP3s resulted in widespread copyright infringement. Major record companies argued that this free sharing of music reduced sales, and called it "music piracy". They reacted by pursuing lawsuits against Napster, which was eventually shut down and later sold, and against individual users who engaged in file sharing. Napster later returned as a legitimate music streaming service. Unauthorized MP3 file sharing continues on next-generation peer-to-peer networks. Authorized services, such as Amazon.com, Beatport, Bleep, eMusic, Juno Records, and the reincarnated Napster, sell unrestricted music in the MP3 format. == Design ==
Design
File structure An MP3 file is made up of MP3 frames, which consist of a header and a data block. This sequence of frames is called an elementary stream. Due to the "bit reservoir", frames are not independent items and cannot usually be extracted on arbitrary frame boundaries. The MP3 Data blocks contain the (compressed) audio information in terms of frequencies and amplitudes. The diagram shows that the MP3 Header consists of a sync word, which is used to identify the beginning of a valid frame. This is followed by a bit indicating that this is the MPEG standard and two bits that indicate that layer 3 is used; hence MPEG-1 Audio Layer 3 or MP3. After this, the values will differ, depending on the MP3 file. ISO/IEC 11172-3 defines the range of values for each section of the header along with the specification of the header. Most MP3 files today contain ID3 metadata, which precedes or follows the MP3 frames, as noted in the diagram. The data stream can contain an optional checksum. Joint stereo is done only on a frame-to-frame basis. MP3 also allows the use of shorter blocks in a granule, down to a size of 192 samples; this feature is used when a transient is detected. Doing so limits the temporal spread of quantization noise accompanying the transient (see psychoacoustics). Frequency resolution is limited by the small long block window size, which decreases coding efficiency. Decoding, on the other hand, is carefully defined in the standard. Most decoders are "bitstream compliant", which means that the decompressed output that they produce from a given MP3 file will be the same, within a specified degree of rounding tolerance, as the output specified mathematically in the ISO/IEC high standard document (ISO/IEC 11172-3). Therefore, the comparison of decoders is usually based on how computationally efficient they are (i.e., how much memory or CPU time they use in the decoding process). Over time this concern has become less of an issue as CPU clock rates transitioned from MHz to GHz. Encoder/decoder overall delay is not defined, which means there is no official provision for gapless playback. However, some encoders such as LAME can attach additional metadata that will allow players that can handle it to deliver seamless playback. Quality When performing lossy audio encoding, such as creating an MP3 data stream, there is a trade-off between the amount of data generated and the sound quality of the results. The person generating an MP3 selects a bit rate, which specifies how many kilobits per second of audio is desired. The higher the bit rate, the larger the MP3 data stream will be, and, generally, the closer it will sound to the original recording. With too low a bit rate, compression artifacts (i.e., sounds that were not present in the original recording) may be audible in the reproduction. Some audio is hard to compress because of its randomness and sharp attacks. When this type of audio is compressed, artifacts such as ringing or pre-echo are usually heard. A sample of applause or a triangle instrument with a relatively low bit rate provides good examples of compression artifacts. Most subjective testings of perceptual codecs tend to avoid using these types of sound materials, however, the artifacts generated by percussive sounds are barely perceptible due to the specific temporal masking feature of the 32 sub-band filterbank of Layer II on which the format is based. The MPEG-1 standard does not include a precise specification for an MP3 encoder but does provide examples of psychoacoustic models, rate loops, and the like in the non-normative part of the original standard. MPEG-1 frames contain the most detail in mode, the highest allowable bit rate setting, with silence and simple tones still requiring . MPEG-2 frames can capture up to 12 kHz sound reproductions needed up to . A sample rate of 44.1 kHz is commonly used for music reproduction because this is also used for CD audio, the main source used for creating MP3 files. A great variety of bit rates are used on the Internet. A bit rate of is commonly used, Early MPEG Layer III encoders used what is now called constant bit rate (CBR). The software was only able to use a uniform bit rate on all frames in an MP3 file. Later more sophisticated MP3 encoders were able to use the bit reservoir to target an average bit rate selecting the encoding rate for each frame based on the complexity of the sound in that portion of the recording. A more sophisticated MP3 encoder can produce variable bit rate audio. MPEG audio may use bit rate switching on a per-frame basis, but only layer III decoders must support it. VBR is used when the goal is to achieve a fixed level of quality. The final file size of a VBR encoding is less predictable than with constant bit rate. Average bit rate is a type of VBR implemented as a compromise between the two: the bit rate is allowed to vary for more consistent quality, but is controlled to remain near an average value chosen by the user, for predictable file sizes. Although an MP3 decoder must support VBR to be standards compliant, historically some decoders have bugs with VBR decoding, particularly before VBR encoders became widespread. Layer III audio can also use a "bit reservoir", a partially full frame's ability to hold part of the next frame's audio data, allowing temporary changes in effective bit rate, even in a constant bit rate stream. Internal handling of the bit reservoir increases encoding delay. There is no scale factor band 21 (sfb21) for frequencies above approx 16 kHz, forcing the encoder to choose between less accurate representation in band 21 or less efficient storage in all bands below band 21, the latter resulting in wasted bit rate in VBR encoding. Ancillary data The ancillary data field can be used to store user-defined data. The ancillary data is optional and the number of bits available is not explicitly given. The ancillary data is located after the Huffman code bits and ranges to where the next frame's main_data_begin points to. Encoder mp3PRO used ancillary data to encode extra information which could improve audio quality when decoded with its algorithm. Metadata A "tag" in an audio file is a section of the file that contains metadata such as the title, artist, album, track number, or other information about the file's contents. The MP3 standards do not define tag formats for MP3 files, nor is there a standard container format that would support metadata and obviate the need for tags. However, several de facto standards for tag formats exist. As of 2010, the most widespread are ID3v1 and ID3v2, and the more recently introduced APEv2. These tags are normally embedded at the beginning or end of MP3 files, separate from the actual MP3 frame data. MP3 decoders either extract information from the tags or just treat them as ignorable, non-MP3 junk data. Playing and editing software often contains tag editing functionality, but there are also tag editor applications dedicated to the purpose. Aside from metadata about the audio content, tags may also be used for DRM. ReplayGain is a standard for measuring and storing the loudness of an MP3 file (audio normalization) in its metadata tag, enabling a ReplayGain-compliant player to automatically adjust the overall playback volume for each file. MP3Gain may be used to reversibly modify files based on ReplayGain measurements so that adjusted playback can be achieved on players without ReplayGain capability. == Licensing, ownership, and legislation ==
{{anchor|Licensing and patent issues}}Licensing, ownership, and legislation
The basic MP3 decoding and encoding technology is patent-free in the European Union, all patents having expired there by 2012 at the latest. In the United States, the technology became substantially patent-free on 16 April 2017 (see below). MP3 patents expired in the US between 2007 and 2017. In the past, many organizations have claimed ownership of patents related to MP3 decoding or encoding. These claims led to several legal threats and actions from a variety of sources. As a result, in countries that allow software patents, uncertainty about which patents must have been licensed to create MP3 products without committing patent infringement was common in the early stages of the technology's adoption. The initial near-complete MPEG-1 standard (parts 1, 2, and 3) was publicly available on 6 December 1991 as ISO CD 11172. and administered by Technicolor, expired. As a result, many free and open-source software projects, such as the Fedora operating system, have decided to start shipping MP3 support by default, and users will no longer have to resort to installing unofficial packages maintained by third party software repositories for MP3 playback or encoding. Technicolor (formerly called Thomson Consumer Electronics) claimed to control MP3 licensing of the Layer 3 patents in many countries, including the United States, Japan, Canada, and EU countries. They, along with its United States subsidiary Audio MPEG, Inc. previously sued Thomson for patent infringement on MP3 technology, had all expired in 2015. The three exceptions are: , expired February 2017; , expired February 2017; and , expired 9 April 2017. As of around the first quarter of 2023, Sisvel's licensing program has become a legacy. In September 2006, German officials seized MP3 players from SanDisk's booth at the IFA show in Berlin after an Italian patents firm won an injunction on behalf of Sisvel against SanDisk in a dispute over licensing rights. The injunction was later reversed by a Berlin judge, but that reversal was in turn blocked the same day by another judge from the same court, "bringing the Patent Wild West to Germany" in the words of one commentator. In February 2007, Texas MP3 Technologies sued Apple, Samsung Electronics and Sandisk in eastern Texas federal court, claiming infringement of a portable MP3 player patent that Texas MP3 said it had been assigned. Apple, Samsung, and Sandisk all settled the claims against them in January 2009. Alcatel-Lucent has asserted several MP3 coding and compression patents, allegedly inherited from AT&T-Bell Labs, in litigation of its own. In November 2006, before the companies' merger, Alcatel sued Microsoft for allegedly infringing seven patents. On 23 February 2007, a San Diego jury awarded Alcatel-Lucent US $1.52 billion in damages for infringement of two of them. The court subsequently revoked the award, however, finding that one patent had not been infringed and that the other was not owned by Alcatel-Lucent; it was co-owned by AT&T and Fraunhofer, who had licensed it to Microsoft, the judge ruled. That defense judgment was upheld on appeal in 2008. == Alternative technologies ==
Alternative technologies
Other lossy formats exist. Among these, Advanced Audio Coding (AAC) is the most widely used, and was designed to be the successor to MP3. There also exist other lossy formats such as mp3PRO and MP2. They are members of the same technological family as MP3 and depend on roughly similar psychoacoustic models and MDCT algorithms. Whereas MP3 uses a hybrid coding approach that is part MDCT and part FFT, AAC is purely MDCT, significantly improving compression efficiency. ETRI, JVC Kenwood, Philips, Microsoft, and NTT. Microsoft created and promoted their own competing standard, Windows Media Audio (WMA) with the claim that it is better than MP3. When the digital audio player market was taking off, MP3 was widely adopted as the standard hence the popular name "MP3 player". Sony was an exception and used their own ATRAC codec taken from their MiniDisc format, which Sony claimed was better. Following criticism and lower than expected Walkman sales, in 2004 Sony for the first time introduced native MP3 support to its Walkman players. There are also open compression formats like Opus and Vorbis (OGG) that are available free of charge and without any known patent restrictions. Besides lossy compression methods, lossless formats are a significant alternative to MP3 because they provide unaltered audio content, though with an increased file size compared to lossy compression. Lossless formats include FLAC (Free Lossless Audio Codec), Apple Lossless and many others. ==See also==
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