MP3 to be discontinued as a sound format

The MP3 era is officially over. The early digital audio codec developer announced this week that the licensing agreement has ended thereby giving way to more adept formats as the new standard for audio files. According to Gizmodo, the organization that licensed MP3 patents to developers: Fraunhofer Institute, said that newer MPEG codecs such as AAC delivers more features and a superior audio quality at much lower bitrates as opposed to MP3. The digital audio industry won’t have any major impact with this decision since most streaming and other services already use newer formats. The fading usage of MP3 has however had an enormous and lasting impact on the world of digital sound. The MP3 format was among the first to enable users to download music easily and it helped Apple become a dominant force in the area of music devices and distribution. MP3 was a revolutionary innovation that made audio portable and shareable. However poor quality compression makes it archaic unlike some of the other vintage analog formats such as vinyl which have been revived and hence are surviving.