It's the end of an era: The MP3 is effectively done.
That's according to the company that developed the audio medium. It recently announced the termination of its licensing program for MP3 patents and software.
The once-controversial audio format ushered the music industry into the digital age.
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MP3 made it easy to share music digitally, which usurped record companies and led to widespread piracy. Some companies like Apple were able to succeed.
It also innovated the way people listened to music by making it possible to download and store thousands of songs on portable devices much smaller than CD players.
MP3's successor, Advanced Audio Coding — also known as AAC — is the new de facto audio format that's already used by many streaming services.
