How a file format brought an industry to its knees

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In the late '90s, a German acoustics engineer, Karlheinz Brandenburg, discovered that an audio file could be compressed down to one-twelfth of its original size without distortion.

Engadget | How a file format brought an industry to its knees


Joe Mobley
  • Profile picture of the author seasoned
    Yeah, it's unfair to blame THAT. ZIP can reduce a lot of files by a LOT! Many songs are repetitive, and ZIP can reduce MEGABYTES of repetitive data to just a couple bytes. And ZIP was perhaps the third major variant of what did much the same.

    Steve
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    • Profile picture of the author lanfear63
      Ironic that now you can download an uncompressed song (about 20 megs) in the blink of an eye with current internet speeds and have a huge capacity but small device to keep them on.

      Coupled with the ability to produce your own music in a garage using inexpensive digital capture and mixing devices, this also led to the demise and dependance on the getting a contract with the music moguls.

      So many bands do that now and create social networking, youtube and other awareness projects to get their music heard via the net. Levelled the playing field a lot.
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