The Juxtaposition of Good and Bad or: Legal and Illegal Downloads - The MP3 Format and its Chances for Musicians and Fans

Abstract

Since its invention by the Fraunhofer institute1 some years ago, the MP3format for wave file compression has stirred up musicians, recordcompanies, and the music business as a whole. Remember: One minuteof an audio file in wave format in stereo with 44,1 kHz sampling rate,which gives a CD-like quality, will take about 10 MB, thus a short songin wave file format uses 30 to 50 MB, a file size which is nearlyimpossible to transfer over the Internet unless there is a cable internetconnection, a cheap flat rate and still lots of time.