MP3 Audio

MP3 is a digital audio file format that uses lossy compression to create reasonably sized computer files—while maintaining near-CD-quality sound. A typical three-minute song in MP3 format takes up about 3MB of disk space.

It's not an exaggeration to say that MP3 has taken the music industry by storm. Music fans love MP3—even though most record companies (and many artists) despise it. In particular, the recording industry fears that unauthorized copying of their music in the MP3 format is depriving them of revenues from traditional CD sales. Whether or not that's the case, MP3 quickly became the standard for music on the Web.

Developed (and patented) by Thomson Multimedia and the Fraunhofer Institute, the MP3 digital audio format is ...

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