The last step in this history removed the object altogether. First the file shrank enough to send; then you stopped needing the file at all.
The MP3
MP3, formally MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III, was developed largely by the Fraunhofer Society in Germany under Karlheinz Brandenburg. It was defined in 1991 as one of three audio codecs in the MPEG-1 standard, published in 1993 as ISO/IEC 11172-3. It uses lossy compression: it discards data a listener is unlikely to miss, so a file is far smaller than CD audio yet sounds faithful to most ears.
Small files travelled. The MP3 became tied to controversies over copyright and piracy, and to file-sharing services such as MP3.com and Napster.
Streaming
In December 2001 Rhapsody, launched by Listen.com, became the first service to offer subscription streaming of a music library. Daniel Ek and Martin Lorentzon founded Spotify in Sweden in 2006; it launched in 2008 as a legal alternative to file sharing. Through the 2010s streaming grew fast: in 2015 it overtook download stores as the largest source of revenue for the US music industry, and from 2016 it accounted for the majority.
| Year | Event |
|---|---|
| 1991 | MP3 defined in the MPEG-1 standard |
| 1993 | Published as ISO/IEC 11172-3 |
| 2001 | Rhapsody: subscription streaming |
| 2008 | Spotify launches |
| 2015 | Streaming becomes US music's largest revenue source |
| 2016 | Streaming is the majority |
Why it matters to a producer
The listener now hears your track through a streaming service, on whatever device is at hand. Mastering for streaming is a lesson of its own: see Rigs for what a mastering desk looks like.
Sources
Every date, name, tempo and origin on this page comes from these pages, read on 2026-10-24.