Music Streaming: Death of MP3?

 

Music accompanies people everywhere in life albeit in different forms. Music is an integral part of life, helping people tackle their lows and celebrate their highs. Usually listening to music meant it had to be played on a gramophone, then CDs came along and finally MP3 players arrived wherein people could store their music digitally and listen without the bulk of the previous devices. iPod revolutionized the entire music industry (1000 songs in your pocket). With all this innovation there was another trendsetter gaining momentum with serious pace, "Piracy”. Websites started ripping digital versions from CDs and other web sources and posted them on the Internet for free in MP3 or M4A formats. 

This led to serious losses for production houses and a solution was sought after. Many years went by and many music stores, production companies, and giants of the music CD and Vinyl businesses closed shop due to bankruptcy.

While all this was happening, Apple had launched its iTunes store, where people could purchase their music online and download it to their computers. It gained momentum at a serious pace but not as fast as those websites that were providing songs for free.

 Then came Spotify. Competitors were skeptical of their business model of letting users stream songs from their app or website either for free or by paying a subscription fee. Spotify struggled for a few years to gain momentum but once people understood the convenience of music streaming, the idea took off. Soon competitors like Google Play Music(Now being replaced by YouTube Music), Tidal, Apple Music, Amazon Prime Music, all started following suit. India too has its indigenous streaming services, Gaana, Hungama, Saavn(Now Jiosaavn), Wynk Music. While the international players took some time to increase their market share in the country, the indigenous ones had a very small catalog of songs. The idea of paying for music took time to sink in as people were used to getting their songs for free, but the difficulty, malicious nature and privacy concerns about the websites providing the songs for free made people realize the convenience of music streaming. That doesn't mean that people are not downloading songs for free these days, but the number has reduced. Certain people want only the highest Bit rate for their songs and only certain music streaming services seem to offer such high-quality audio. Tidal offers the highest quality music using FLAC format. Certain streaming services still use an MP3 codec, but it is far inferior to OGG(Spotify), FLAC(Tidal), AAC(Apple Music), and other newer formats. But TIDAL is not available in as many locations as Apple Music and Spotify. Also, the Indian streaming services may be cheaper when compared to their international counterparts, but they seriously lack the catalog of songs. They often tend to have a pretty good collection of local music but miss out on other songs available worldwide. 

 So, does this mean MP3 is dead?

 Kind of yeah. The institute that held the licensing rights for MP3 related patents stated that MP3 had become outdated when compared to far superior file codecs and terminated the rights. MP3 can still be used but it is not quite the star kid it used to be. Still, many people prefer downloading their songs for saving money and have higher quality audio. So, until all streaming services offer high-quality music and for an affordable cost, MP3 will live to see the light of day.

 

P.S. The videos linked below compare Spotify to Apple Music and Tidal.

Spotify vs Apple Music

Spotify vs Tidal (Certain artists mentioned to be missing from Spotify have returned to the platform).

 P.C: Business Insider India

VAMSI KRISHNAN A