Don’t panic.
The sad news is that the MP3 format which was popularized in the 90s and early 2000s is officially dead.
What does this mean? Well, it doesn’t really mean much actually. The Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits (The German agency that invented the audio format and licenses some patents for it) has terminated its licensing program.
So what happens to the MP3s which are currently on your music devices and computers? Nothing to worry about. You can continue to play your music and download MP3s from the internet. But you shouldn’t expect new devices to support the format in the future.
The German institute noted that while MP3 is still popular among some consumers, newer formats like AAC can deliver more features and a higher audio quality at much lower bitrates.
Growing up, the best way to get music was to go to the internet and download MP3 files. CDs were overpriced and so the best way to listen to music was on your computer. If you needed the music on the go, you would burn it on a CD to listen to it on your CD player.
RIP MP3. Thanks for the help with the music in my youth.
Source: NPR
