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How MP3 Was Born

Posted by kdawson on from the race-to-encode dept.

Actual Reality points us to an interview in BusinessWeek.com with the man most often cited as the inventor of the MP3 format — though Karlheinz Brandenburg credits many for the development, including in particular Suzanne Vega.

3 of 108 comments (clear)

  1. More cutting-edge innovation? by terrencefw · · Score: 4, Interesting

    From TFA:

    As director of the Fraunhofer Institute for Digital Media Technology, Brandenburg continues to be involved in the cutting edge of digital music. Researchers under his supervision are working on technology that would, for example, analyze a user's tastes based on music he or she has already downloaded, search the Internet for other tunes in the same genre, and automatically assemble a playlist. Brandenburg is also involved in research to deliver more realistic, true-to-life media than anything now available. Perhaps he'll even help touch off another revolution.

    Er, nothing like audioscrobbler/last.fm then?

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  2. extended and changed by Bizzeh · · Score: 5, Interesting

    the mp3 format has been extended and changed so much, and had stuff added and removed (vbr, abr, and tagging.... tagging shouldnt have even been there, since mp3 is a datastream not a container), over time. its hardly the same format now.

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  3. Fraunhofer: The people who made piracy possible by BillGatesLoveChild · · Score: 5, Interesting

    What isn't mentioned in Herr Brandenburg's interview is that Fraunhofer have been playing both sides. If you've bought an MP3 capable player, you've paid Fraunhofer royalties. But Fraunhofer have been playing both sides: developing tools to track MP3s using watermarks so record companies crack down on piracy:

    http://www.computerworld.com/securitytopics/securi ty/story/0,10801,108506,00.html
    http://p2pnet.net/index.php?page=reply&story=878

    They've been expanding their IP business too: Next time you run BitTorrent or eMule (they do both), run it with a network tracker. You'll see computers from Fraunhofer affiliates all over the world taking a peek at what you're downloading.

    http://greatinca.net/blog/emule-ip-blocker-hits-04 022006/

    Does this mean Fraunhofer's merry band of teutonic scientists can be both co-defendants and expert-witnesses in your case?