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The ARQ newsletter. Helpful tips for your Internet experience.

MP3 and the Controversy
By David Ryan
Technical Support

With companies like Napster in the news lately, you may have been hearing about the music format MP3.
If you talk to the record industry they call it evil. If you talk to some of the artist they see it as freedom from the record companies.

What is MP3?

MP3 is simply a file format for sound or music. It is designed to reduce the size of the file needed for songs through compression. The smaller size of the files makes them much quicker to download off the net. For example, if a 4-minute song were recorded in standard WAV format on your PC it would take about 40MB of disk space. The same song with the same quality would only take about 3MB of disk space in the MP3 format. The smaller size of the MP3 is achieved by leaving out the parts of the sound that the ear cannot detect.

MP3s' are created by programs called encoders that take a sound file and convert it in to the smaller MP3 format. Some of the programs called "Rippers" have the ability to take the music directly off of a music CD and make an MP3 file. This is where the record industry got worried because now full CDs' can be easily posted on the Internet and downloaded. They are especially worried now that there are portable and car stereos that can play the MP3 files directly. This makes the sharing of the song they sell much easier.

Napster comes in to the controversy because they are a web site that helps people share their song files. To use Napster you install their program that will act as a server so others can download the music files off your own computer. The files are then listed in a directory on the Napster site so others can search for the songs they want. The record industry is suing Napster saying they are enabling the pirating of copyrighted music. Napster says it's legal since nobody is charging for the songs they are only being shared. Whichever way the courts decide it looks to have a major impact on the way music is distributed online.

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