4 days ago
30 years of the MP3: The story of a breakthrough that changed music
ERLANGEN: It turns out the invention of the MP3 format was a combination of vision, overtime and stubbornness – as well as a good dose of luck.
Thirty years ago, on July 14, 1995, a new file format called MP3 emerged, aiming no less than to revolutionise the world of music listening and the music business with it.
On that day, researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits in the southern German city of Erlangen decided to give their audio compression invention the file extension ".mp3".
Now, audio streaming from similar audio files is everywhere. But 30 years ago, it was the compression technology invented in Erlangen that first made it possible to listen to music on the Internet.
The origins of the MP3 project date back to 1982. At the time, the goal was to make music files small enough to transmit in decent quality over a digital telephone line (ISDN).
Karlheinz Brandenburg had made this seemingly unsolvable task the subject of his doctoral thesis when he was an electronics student in Erlangen.
Used by billions of people
Brandenburg was initially unsure about the significance of his research, as one statement from him in 1988 reflects: "Either my dissertation will gather dust in the library, or the technology will become a standard used by millions of people."
In fact, the "MPEG Layer-3" (MP3) standard, which he played a key role in developing, has influenced the listening experience of billions of music fans.
The development work by Brandenburg and other researchers was intended not only to fundamentally renew broadcasting technology but also to mark the beginning of the end for CDs in the music industry.
The success continues to this day: Whether in streaming, digital radio, digital television or video calls like Apple's FaceTime – a form of MP3's successor, AAC, is used everywhere.
How does MP3 work?
But how was it even possible to significantly reduce the size of music files without making them sound noticeably worse to the human ear?
The researchers in Erlangen exploited the fact that the human ear does not perceive many details in music or other complex sounds. Some tones are too quiet or are masked by louder tones. For example, an alarm clock continues to tick even when it rings, but the ticking is no longer heard.
When converting to an MP3 file, precisely those parts of the music that humans probably would not hear anyway are removed or simplified. Only what is important for human hearing is retained.
A music file can thus shrink to about one-tenth of its original size without the sound becoming noticeably worse for most people. However, music purists, such as Canadian singer Neil Young, dispute this.
Newer versions hardly distinguishable from analogue sound
MP3 co-inventor Brandenburg can still somewhat understand the criticism of the original MP3. However, he said that the new MP3 codecs, such as AAC, are now so good at higher data rates that the human ear can't distinguish them from analogue sound, such as those from vinyl records. This has also been proven by blind tests with trained listeners.
However, it took countless hours of experimentation before the sound of an MP3 file could even remotely compete with that of a CD or vinyl record in the 1990s.
Ironically, a record shop in Erlangen was the first to benefit from MP3 research. Brandenburg would bought dozens of records from here. "Simple pieces, complex pieces, music from all genres across the board," Brandenburg recalled in a 2020 newspaper interview.
"We didn't know what would work and, more importantly, what wouldn't."
As Brandenburg was nearing the completion of his doctoral thesis, he read in an audio trade magazine that the song "Tom's Diner" by Suzanne Vega was often used for sound tests in the hi-fi trade.
A colleague quickly got the CD. Experiments with an a cappella version of the song from 1982 were initially sobering: the first attempt with "Tom's Diner" reportedly sounded "as if someone was scratching at your left and right ear," Brandenburg said when the New York singer visited the institute in Erlangen in 2007.
The inventor was not deterred by the setback. He listened to the song thousands of times to continuously improve the MP3 algorithm. One solution was to transmit the lower frequencies very precisely – much more so than the higher tones, where storage space could be saved.
A cybercriminal aids the breakthrough
After the official naming, the format initially took off slowly. The Fraunhofer Institute in Erlangen had actually planned to license the software for converting to MP3 to interested entertainment companies.
However, a young cybercriminal thwarted this plan: in 1997, an Australian student used a stolen credit card number to purchase the encoder software and made the programme freely available online. Word spread quickly. "Ripping" CDs – converting them into MP3 files – became a popular pastime.
The online file-sharing platform Napster caused significant damage to the music industry and artists from 1999 onwards. The software allowed millions of users to easily and freely share their MP3 files with one another.
The idea was simple: Napster searched users' hard drives for MP3 files and then facilitated direct exchanges between computers via the Internet.
Entire record collections could suddenly be swapped with just a few clicks. Napster effectively made the MP3 format the standard for digital music overnight and ensured its worldwide adoption.
Napster not only changed how people consumed music but also forced the music industry to engage with digital distribution channels. The platform demonstrated how simple and appealing the exchange of music in MP3 format could be, paving the way for later legal music services and the digitisation of the entire industry.
With the success of the iPod (2001), the iTunes Music Store from 2003 and legal streaming services like Spotify from 2008, the music industry slowly recovered.
Who profited financially from MP3?
With the emergence of legal MP3 usage scenarios, the Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits (IIS) also began to generate revenue.
Brandenburg estimates that his then-employer earned €50 to €100 million annually in fees from manufacturers of MP3 players, music platforms and other licensees until the last MP3 patent in the United States expired in 2017.
Overall, all technologies surrounding MP3 are said to have generated at least half a billion to €1bil (RM4.9bil) in revenue. Fraunhofer IIS stated that marketing over the entire patent period generated "revenues in the high hundreds of millions."
However, the real big business was not made by Fraunhofer but by the commercial users of MP3 technology, including manufacturers of MP3 players such as Apple, Sony, SanDisk, Creative, iRiver and Archos.
Apple alone is estimated to have generated US$60 to US$70bil (RM255bil to RM298bil) in revenue and at least US$15bil (RM63.9bil) in profit from the iPod between 2001 and the discontinuation of the product line in 2022.
To this day, the iPhone still includes a note that the audio coding technology MPEG Layer-3 was licensed from the Fraunhofer IIS. – dpa
