Editing MP3 (section)

{{Short description|Digital audio format}}
{{Other uses}}
{{Distinguish|MPEG-3}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=August 2017}}
{{Use American English|date=September 2023}}
{{Infobox file format
| name          = MP3
| icon          = Mp3.svg{{!}}class=skin-invert
| icon_size     = 200px
| _noextcode    = on
| extension     = {{code|.mp3}}<br>{{code|.mpga}} (rarely)<ref>https://www.thebroadcastbridge.com/content/entry/20759/standards-part-16-about-mp3-audio-coding-id3-metadata</ref><br />{{code|.bit}} (before 1995)<ref name="mp3-name" />
| _nomimecode   = on
| mime          = {{plainlist|
* {{code|audio/mpeg}}<ref name="rfc3003" />
* {{code|audio/MPA}}<ref name="rfc3555" />
* {{code|audio/mpa-robust}}<ref name="rfc5219" />
}}
| type code     = 
| uniform type  = 
| owner         = [[Karlheinz Brandenburg]], Ernst Eberlein, Heinz Gerhäuser, [[Bernhard Grill]], Jürgen Herre and [[Harald Popp]] (all of [[Fraunhofer Society]]),<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.mp3-history.com/en/the_mp3_team.html|title=The mp3 team|website=Fraunhofer IIS|access-date=12 June 2020|archive-date=14 July 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200714004713/https://www.mp3-history.com/en/the_mp3_team.html|url-status=live}}</ref> and others
| released      = {{start date and age|df=y|1991|12|06}}<ref>{{Cite book |vauthors=Patel K, Smith BC, Rowe LA |title=Proceedings of the first ACM international conference on Multimedia - MULTIMEDIA '93 |chapter=Performance of a software MPEG video decoder |date=1993-09-01 |chapter-url=https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/166266.166274 |series=ACM Multimedia |location=New York City |publisher=Association for Computing Machinery |pages=75–82 |doi=10.1145/166266.166274 |isbn=978-0-89791-596-0 |s2cid=3773268 |access-date=15 December 2021 |archive-date=15 December 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211215125939/https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/166266.166274 |url-status=live }} Reference 3 in the paper is to Committee Draft of Standard ISO/IEC 11172, December 6, 1991.</ref>
| latest release version = ISO/IEC 13818-3:1998
| latest release date = {{Start date and age|1998|04|df=y}}
| type          = [[Lossy]] [[Audio file format|audio]]
| container for = 
| contained by  = [[MPEG-ES]]
| extended from = 
| extended to   = 
| standards     = {{ubl |[[ISO/IEC 11172-3]]<ref name="11172-3" /> |[[ISO/IEC 13818-3]]<ref name="13818-3" />}}
| open          = Yes<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.iis.fraunhofer.de/en/ff/amm/consumer-electronics/mp3.html|title=MP3 technology at Fraunhofer IIS|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210815043015/https://www.iis.fraunhofer.de/en/ff/amm/consumer-electronics/mp3.html |archive-date=2021-08-15 |website=Fraunhofer IIS|access-date=12 June 2020}}</ref>
| free          = Expired patents<ref>{{cite tech report |publisher=Library of Congress |location=Washington, D.C. |series=Sustainability of Digital Formats |type=Full draft |title=MP3 (MPEG Layer III Audio Encoding) |date=3 May 2017 |url=https://www.loc.gov/preservation/digital/formats/fdd/fdd000012.shtml |access-date=1 December 2021}}</ref>
| url           = 
}}

'''MP3''' (formally '''MPEG-1 Audio Layer III''' or '''MPEG-2 Audio Layer III''')<ref name="rfc5219" /> is a [[audio coding format|coding format]] for [[digital audio]] developed largely by the [[Fraunhofer Society]] in Germany under the lead of [[Karlheinz Brandenburg]].<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cuU16whZ-Fs|title=73. "Father" of the MP3, Karlheinz Brandenburg|date=13 July 2015 |via=www.youtube.com|access-date=2 January 2023|archive-date=2 January 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230102160404/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cuU16whZ-Fs|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.internethistorypodcast.com/2015/07/on-the-20th-birthday-of-the-mp3-an-interview-with-the-father-of-the-mp3-karlheinz-brandenburg/|title=On the 20th Birthday of the MP3, An Interview With The "Father" of the MP3, Karlheinz Brandenburg|access-date=2 January 2023|archive-date=2 January 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230102160403/https://www.internethistorypodcast.com/2015/07/on-the-20th-birthday-of-the-mp3-an-interview-with-the-father-of-the-mp3-karlheinz-brandenburg/|url-status=live}}</ref> It was designed to greatly reduce the amount of data required to represent audio, yet still sound like a faithful reproduction of the original [[uncompressed]] audio to most listeners; for example, compared to [[Compact Disc Digital Audio|CD-quality digital audio]], MP3 compression can commonly achieve a 75–95% reduction in size, depending on the [[bit rate]].<ref>{{cite web |date=27 July 2017 |title=MP3 (MPEG Layer III Audio Encoding) |url=https://www.loc.gov/preservation/digital/formats/fdd/fdd000012.shtml |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170814015755/https://www.loc.gov/preservation/digital/formats/fdd/fdd000012.shtml |archive-date=14 August 2017 |access-date=9 November 2017 |publisher=The Library of Congress}}</ref> In popular usage, ''MP3'' often refers to [[Computer file|files]] of sound or music recordings stored in the MP3 [[file format]] (<code>.mp3</code>) on consumer electronic devices.

Originally defined in 1991 as one of the three audio codecs of the [[MPEG-1]] standard (along with [[MPEG-1 Audio Layer II|MP2]] and [[MP1]]), it was retained and further extended—defining additional bit rates and support for more [[surround channels|audio channels]]—as the third audio format of the subsequent [[MPEG-2]] standard. MP3 as a [[file format]] commonly designates files containing an [[elementary stream]] of MPEG-1 Audio or MPEG-2 Audio encoded data, without other complexities of the MP3 standard. Concerning [[audio compression (data)|audio compression]], which is its most apparent element to end-users, MP3 uses [[lossy compression]] to encode data using inexact approximations and the partial discarding of data, allowing for a large reduction in [[file size]]s when compared to uncompressed audio.

The combination of small size and acceptable fidelity led to a boom in the distribution of music over the [[Internet]] in the late 1990s, with MP3 serving as an enabling technology at a time when [[Bandwidth (computing)|bandwidth]] and storage were still at a premium. The MP3 format soon became associated with controversies surrounding [[copyright infringement]], [[music piracy]], and the file-[[ripping]] and [[file sharing|sharing]] services [[MP3.com#Original version|MP3.com]] and [[Napster]], among others. With the advent of [[portable media player]]s (including "MP3 players"), a product category also including [[smartphones]], MP3 support became near-universal and it remains a [[De facto standard|''de facto'' standard]] for digital audio despite the creation of newer coding formats such as [[Advanced Audio Coding|AAC]].