The emergence of MP3 technology
Journal of Historical Research in Marketing
ISSN: 1755-750X
Article publication date: 26 October 2010
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to produce a critical history of MP3 technology in an effort to show how its stature as the digital music format of choice had nothing to do with music or associated industries and that its configuration as a product to be bought and sold was unintended.
Design/methodology/approach
The approach is reminiscent of Michel Foucault's critical histories, which sought to problematise our current understanding of existing cultural arrangements by unearthing the conditions that made the production of knowledge and their accompanying artefacts possible.
Findings
The paper documents how MP3s emerged by outlining the conditions that made its production viable, showing how before MP3s were profiled as commodities to be bought and sold online, the composite of technologies making up the standard MPEG1‐Layer III were objects of knowledge within the fields of electrical engineering and psychoacoustics, and later a process of compression used mainly by audio broadcasting professionals. The paper concludes by examining MPEG1‐Layer III's reconstitution as MP3: its formal configuration and valuation, first as a license for the broadcasting industry to compress sound and then as a “free‐ware” application distributed online.
Originality/value
The paper problematises the taken for granted status of commodities, in this case, MP3s, as digital music to be bought and sold, by revealing how they emerged. At a more parochial level, it produces a competing history of MP3 technology which until now has not been told.
Keywords
Citation
Denegri‐Knott, J. and Tadajewski, M. (2010), "The emergence of MP3 technology", Journal of Historical Research in Marketing, Vol. 2 No. 4, pp. 397-425. https://doi.org/10.1108/17557501011092466
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2010, Emerald Group Publishing Limited