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MP3 is a standard for compressing audio sounds or music on a computer. It is better than other standards mainly because it has a high compression ratio (12:1) and can output CD-quality sound (44kHz, 128kbits/sec). So where a full 5 minute song would normally take up ~60Mb at a 44kHz sampling rate, it only takes ~5Mb using MP3 compression, with no noticeable loss in quality.
What this means is that a 3 minute song on a CD which would take up 30-40 Mb in normal .WAV format can now be squashed down to 3-4Mb in Full 44khz Stereo. It will take about 15-20 minutes to download a file of this size, based on 28k Modem speed. How does it work? It makes use of the characteristics of the human ear, in that we can't distinguish between signals of relatively similar frequency. By removing these redundancies, and doing some fancy compiling, we get the best compression:quality ratio to date. To play or create MP3 files, you will need to download the appropriate software. Then creating your own MP3s is easy! First you Rip the Audio from the CD with a CD Ripper, which will create a .Wav file on your hard drive. Next, you Encode the .Wav into a MP3 file with an MP3 Encoder. Finally, you play the MP3 with a MP3 Player. Downloading MP3s from Websites: Although you can click the link to the mp3 file you want to download after you search, this is NOT reccomended. 9 times out of 10 you'll get an error saying that the site returned extended information, or the site is busy, or it could not find the specified file. These errors can be avoided if you use an FTP Client, such as CuteFTP. Just take the site IP and port, and enter it into your ftp client insead, and browse through the directories until you find the file you want to download |
But... despite the potential of MP3, record companies in the U.S. have tried to get the DoJ to ban the distribution of MP3 encoders on the internet. The main reason is because the industry thinks it could potentially lose millions of dollars through piracy.
Read: Heat Turned Up on Digital Music Pirates from Wired Magazine 12 Feb 98 and also... Why the Music Industry Is To Blame For MP3 Piracy from MP3.com The Recording Industry Association of America has been working aggressively on behalf of member companies since early '97. Armed with a new federal law, the No Electronic Theft Act, the association is trying to track down the biggest MP3 piracy sites, even going after sites that aren't profiting from the piracy. The trade group employs three full-time staffers to chase pirates - and has shut down more than 250 in the last year. Geffen Records has expanded an offensive to shut down FTP sites engaged in the trade. Jim Geffen began sending letters to more than 100 listed sites, informing owners that their FTP sites were illegal and requesting the removal of all full-length songs. This culminated in a mass shutdown Feb '98 when the majority of the sites were taken down by network administrators - in some cases university officials - also contacted by Geffen. Read a conversation with Geffen Records on the popular MP3.com site. Here's a couple of MP3 articles from the Guitar Newsletter: Web TV Gets MP3 ESS Technology announced a new chipset designed specially for WebTV. The chipset allows users to download and play MP3 format music from the Internet, as well as performing more familiar tasks such as web browsing and email. On the 8th January 1999 at the Las Vegas Consumer Electronics show, ESS Technology Inc. announced its latest chipset - ESS4280 - for internet set-top-box applications. Of crucial importance to the MP3 community is the fact that the chipset is able to download and play MP3 files, as well as performing more traditional tasks such as web-browsing and e-mail. The chipset also supports the playing of MP3-encoded compact disks - a format which is becoming popular in Asia. more... |
| ...and from the pro-mp3 camp at mp3.com:
Top 10 Things Everyone Should Know About MP3 opinion by Michael Robertson - summarised as:
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"MP3 Bootlegging is wrong. There can be no doubt about that. No matter whether you're emailing a copy of your favorite song to a friend or setting up an FTP site with your entire collection of albums all MP3ed available for download, it's an infringement of copyright law. Unless, of course, you have legal permission to do so..." continued...
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