Image: Wikimedia Commons

MP3 Audio

Open standard lossy compression format for digital audio

Entitylossy audio coding format lossy compression audio compressionQ42591

Also known as Moving Picture Experts Group Audio Layer 3 · MPEG-2 Audio Layer 3 · MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III · Moving Picture Experts Group Audio Layer III · MP3 File · MP3 Files

Instance of: lossy audio coding format
, lossy compression
, audio compression
+3 more
Part of: MPEG-1
, MPEG-2 Part 3

Overview

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia · Read full article · Text CC BY-SA 4.0

MP3 is an audio coding format developed largely by the Fraunhofer Society in Germany under the lead of Karlheinz Brandenburg. It was designed to greatly reduce the amount of data required to represent audio, yet still sound like a faithful reproduction of the original uncompressed audio to most listeners; for example, compared to CD-quality digital audio, MP3 compression can commonly achieve a 75–95% reduction in size, depending on the bit rate. In popular usage, MP3 often refers to files of sound or music recordings stored in the MP3 file format (.mp3) on consumer electronic devices.

Overview

All data

89 statements · 16% with external sources · numbers in brackets are citations

File extension: mp3
1
Sources
1.file-extension.info/format/mp3
View statement on Wikidata ↗
Media type: audio/mpeg
2
Sources
1.Stated in RFC 3003: The audio/mpeg Media Type
2.iana.org/assignments/media-types/audio/mpeg
View statement on Wikidata ↗
audio/MPA
1
Sources
1.Stated in RFC 3555: MIME Type Registration of RTP Payload Formats
View statement on Wikidata ↗
audio/mpa-robust
1
Sources
1.Stated in RFC 5219: A More Loss-Tolerant RTP Payload Format for MP3 Audio
View statement on Wikidata ↗
audio/mpg
audio/x-mpeg
audio/x-mp3
Developer: Fraunhofer Society
Karlheinz Brandenburg
Heinz Gerhäuser
Bernhard Grill
Harald Popp
Released: August 1993
1
Sources
1.iso.org/standard/22412.html
View statement on Wikidata ↗
Public domain date: April 16, 2017 applies to jurisdiction: United States
December 2012 applies to jurisdiction: European Union
File format identification pattern: 494433 offset: 0 byte · encoding: hexadecimal
1
Sources
1.Stated in Gary Kessler's File Signature TableRetrieved 2017-08-08
View statement on Wikidata ↗
Uses: ID3
APE tag
Different from: MPEG-3

On other databases

44 identifiers linking MP3 Audio across the web's reference databases

Data quality

statements

16%

externally sourced

Source last edited October 8, 2026. AIDB refreshes this page daily.

Suggest a fact or correction

Links

Use this data

curl https://aidb.si/api/v1/entities/Q42591

API docs, limits & keys

Cite this page

AIDB. (2026). MP3 Audio (Q42591). Retrieved from https://aidb.si/e/mp3-audio-Q42591