The death of MP3 is final. It was announced by the Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits, a division of the state-funded German research institution that “On April 23, 2017, Technicolor’s mp3 licensing program for certain mp3 related patents and software of Technicolor and Fraunhofer IIS has been terminated.”

The audio codec has had a good long 2 decade run and it’s about time to retire it finally.

mp3 first developed in the late 80s, at Fraunhofer IIS, based on previous development results at the University Erlangen-Nuremberg. Although there are many audio codecs that are more efficient and gives far superior quality and mp3 remains highly popular. However, various industry from music to broadcasting is gradually moving to a more modern ISO-MPEG codecs such as the AAC family or in the future MPEG-H. “Those can deliver more features and a higher audio quality at much lower bitrates compared to mp3.” the founders said.

Well, it’s not going to suddenly disappear. While many people will still use mp3, we probably should start paying attention about opting for newer formats. AAC is probably the successor – and the default setting for bringing CDs to iTunes. There are plenty other formats that are far superior, but they do eat up storage for breakfast though.

According to NPR’s report, “the engineers who developed the MP3 were working with incomplete information about how our brains process sonic information, and so the MP3 itself was working on false assumptions about how holistically we hear. As psychoacoustic research has evolved, so has the technology that we use to listen. New audio formats and products, with richer information and that better address mobile music streaming, are arriving.”

It’s a bit like Windows XP, 1080i and USB 2.0  (on totally unrelated notes, but you get the idea) – they were popular, but times are a-changing and definitely people need to look at new tech.

NPR has a very comprehensive view on the history of mp3, if you’re interested.