[tubemonkey]

Your MP3s are going to be just fine

Let us now praise old music-file formats, and the music cultures that begat us.

The Internet is spilling many pixels over the fact that the MP3, the music file used on the original iPod, has been abandoned by its inventors at the Fraunhofer Institute. The German organization, a division of the group that helped develop the MP3, is letting its licensing hold on the format expire. The group is also responsible for the MP3's successor, the AAC file format used widely by services such as iTunes.

But the “death” of the MP3 is really not much of a death at all. The files will not spontaneously combust. You'll still be able to buy and use MP3s. They will not suddenly stop playing. (Your ripped Hootie & the Blowfish tracks are safe.) All this really does is move the classification of MP3 from being recognized as a file format of the moment to being a file format of the past.

Still, some nostalgia is understandable. The MP3 was, in its day, the spark of a revolution. The file format, created in 1993, changed the way we listened to music as it liberated people from tapes and compact discs.