Millions of consumers use MP3s as their main source of music. It has all but replaced WAV files (found on current audio CDs) as the new audio format.

MP3s are quickly becoming the new format for playing music. Many companies that formerly had no stake in the portable music market, including Apple, Creative Labs, iRiver, and Rio, are now among the top competitors. Following suit are the veterans of the portable music market, including Sony and RCA.

Without data reduction, digital audio signals typically consist of 16 bit samples recorded at a sampling rate more than twice the actual audio bandwidth (e.g. 44.1 kHz for Compact Discs). So you end up with more than 1.400 Mbit to represent just one second of stereo music in CD quality. By using MPEG audio coding, you may shrink down the original sound data from a CD by a factor of 12, without losing sound quality. Factors of 24 and even more still maintain a sound quality that is significantly better than what you get by just reducing the sampling rate and the resolution of your samples. Basically, this is realized by perceptual coding techniques addressing the perception of sound waves by the human ear.

By exploiting stereo effects and by limiting the audio bandwidth, the coding schemes may achieve an acceptable sound quality at even lower bitrates. MPEG Layer-3 is the most powerful member of the MPEG audio coding family. For a given sound quality level, it requires the lowest bitrate - or for a given bitrate, it achieves the highest sound quality

Some typical performance data of MPEG Layer-3 are:

In all international listening tests, MPEG Layer-3 impressively proved its superior performance, maintaining the original sound quality at a data reduction of 1:12 (around 64 kbit/s per audio channel). If applications may tolerate a limited bandwidth of around 10 kHz, a reasonable sound quality for stereo signals can be achieved even at a reduction of 1:24.

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11/19/03	Mike Robertson on MP3.com
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Pros and Cons
All of the sudden, the music world has been turned upside down. With the greatly reduced size of MP3 files, storing music on consumer grade hard drives is now a feasible option. Computer users can now store thousands of readily accessible songs, virtually eliminating the need for Compact Discs.

Combined with the Internet, MP3 files create a very powerful tool for aspiring recording artists who wish to get their name out. Nowadays, practically anyone with an Internet connection can upload his music in the form of an MP3, allowing users and record labels alike to audition you with the single click of a mouse.

However, one of the most useful (and controversial) purposes of MP3 compression is to be able to copy copywrited songs from one user to another over the Internet: User A uses a special "CD Ripping" program, which takes raw audio data (WAV files) from audio CDs, compresses it into an MP3 file, and saves it on the hard drive. User A makes the file available for download via a file sharing program, where User B discovers it, double clicks it, and has it downloaded in five minutes. Controversial, because a law has just been broken.

One could debate for hours on end on the ethics of "file sharing," which is actually "a euphemism for stealing." (according to Dr. Mike Gerhard) Those that argue against file sharing cite that record labels lose millions of dollars every year from digital piracy, and that this piracy also causes the artists to lose lots of money, not to mention violation of copyrighted material distribution laws.

Those who argue for file sharing say that sharing is a way to preview music before buying a CD (although this would imply that the users delete the music after they listen to it, which most don't). They also cite claims that artists make the bulk of their money from concert ticket and merchandise sales. Some people even go so far as to say that "record companies jack up the prices of their CDs, and they've had this coming for a while." (Source: Aaron King)

Whatever your stance on this matter is, the indisputable facts are that MP3 file sharing is a hugely popular trend, CD sales are suffering as a result, and it is illegal. By February of 2000, Napster's original program received a barrage of lawsuits from recording artists crying foul play.

Regulation An artist's cartoon satires Metallica's lawsuit against Napster as a battle of comic book characters: the meek protagonist versus the tyrannical antagonist.

Regulation is a huge issue concerning MP3 technology. With the worldwide spread of users sharing literally hundreds of millions of audio files, the question to ask is whether or not MP3 technology can be regulated. MP3s are intangible and easily duplicated. These two combinations create a virus-like chain reaction when dealing with music. If I were to share a file of Eminem's new unreleased single, it would be all over America within two weeks. This is unethical and illegal, and regulation is needed to prevent this sort of thing from happening. Because regulation is largely unenforced (not for lack of trying), some companies have resorted to tactics of putting false files on the Internet, slowing the spread of the real copyrighted material. However, this is never enough, as the real files do eventually find their way across the world. The issue of regulation is wide open for debate, and almost no conclusions are concrete. [MP3 Legal Issues]

MP3 is a technology that is here to stay, no doubt about it. At this point, restraining this technology's popular illegal use is like trying to fight a drug war: it just can't be done effectively using current battle methods.

A newer technology, MP3Pro (developed by Coding Technologies), allows even further compression of music files, maintains high quality sound, and the files are backwards-compatible with current MP3 players.

Social use of MP3s will take over the market, pushing CDs out within the next decade or so. The new business of legal MP3 sales will most likely become the new way for music to be marketed.