Imagine a world where you did not go to the music store and buy a CD. You would have $15 extra in your pocket every time. Now you ask ‘why would I not go out and buy CD’s? I like to hear groups I like’. The answer is simple. There is something new out there in the world that makes it possible for you to never buy a CD again. There is only one catch: it’s illegal.Illegal in the sense that you are committing copyright infringement every time you participate in this new format. Mp3 is this file format. Ever since CD drives were put into computers, people have recorded songs into their computers to listen to while they worked. The quality was decent to horrible, depending on the format. Then along comes this mp3 format. What makes this format special is the fact that it keeps the quality of the song from when it is recorded in. This near-CD quality is one of the reasons that this format is flourishing. The main reason though, is that this format also compresses the file size to a tenth of its original size. Consider this: a recorded song on a computer can run anywhere from 30-60 megabytes (or mb). Compare that to any regular computer file, regardless of its format or use (IE word processor, CD player, database) which runs from 10 kilobytes (1,000 kilobytes (kb) = 1 mb) to 1 or 2 mb. A mp3 file can compress this huge 30-60 mb file to a small and manageable 3 to 4 mb. What all this means is that you have now gone from a huge low quality music track to a small, high quality, and very manageable file with your favorite song on it. This is the appeal of mp3.Mp3 was not supposed to be a big deal. It was originally developed as a file format that was able to compress files. David Weiss of Musician goes on to explain. “A standard that was originally developed as a simple storage application, mp3, didn’t begin its electronic life suggesting that it would eventually put Billy Idol and the Beas...
