WHAT IS AN MP3?

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FIRST things first: If you read this, you are not necessarily a dummy, and it doesn't necessarily make me a genius. You just might be one of those curious enough to know more about MP3.

So you've decided to take the plunge and check out MP3. You've also probably decided to junk your Walkman in favor of a portable MP3 player, or probably even those cool in-car MP3 players that don't skip, unlike CDs which do everytime your car hits a pothole. Or, you're probably just curious enough to try them on for size by downloading some samples from the Internet.

Whatever your motivation, the shift to MP3 is the easy part. You have to find out what MP3 is first. MP3 is short for Moving Picture Experts Group Audio Layer 3. MPEG is a bunch of guys who are making our lives easier by giving us all these nifty compression technologies (like DVD) to make our lives easier. The other geeky stuff about them are not worth mentioning.

So, MP3 is the name for a digital music format that manages to compress large audio files into incredibly small, yet almost CD-quality, files. This allows users to store music on their computers, upload and download them over the Internet, and even e-mail them to friends and enemies.

To give you an idea how good MP3 compression is, consider the song "My Way," the national anthem of karaoke patrons who end up stabbing each other after fighting over the right to use the mike. As a standard CD file, it would fill up about 25 Mb of hard disk space. This one track would take almost two hours to download with a 56K modem. When converted to MP3 format, this same file becomes a little more than 3Mb, or about a tenth of the original size.

Okay, that would still take about 10 minutes to download from the Internet via modem, but that's a heck of a lot faster than the original two-hour wait. In addition, you'll end up with more songs since you can make them all fit in your hard drive.

But what is all this brouhaha we're hearing about MP3.com and Napster? Why are people saying that it's illegal? And if it is illegal, what the heck is the Inquirer doing teaching its readers how to download from the Internet something that is illegal?

Well, although MP3 is currently surrounded by controversy, they are in no way illegal. The same way you can make a tape of a CD you own, you can make unlimited MP3 copies of any CD you purchased, for your own, personal use. Distributing MP3s, though, is illegal (unless you own the copyright, or the songs are public domain). So before you e-mail MP3s to friends or post them on a website, make sure you're doing so legally.

In other words, the technology of MP3 itself is not illegal. There are just some complications you could encounter once you distribute them.

But what about those free MP3s you see in some websites? Well, some of them are from unsigned artists, meaning they are not yet under any recording label, and if the unknown band gives its consent to the site to distribute their work online, well then that's legal.

To play MP3s, the first thing you need is an MP3 player. There are dozens available on the market today, and your computer may already have one pre-installed. Winamp and MusicMatch Jukebox are popular players, and these software are downloadable from the Net. If you're connected to the Web over a slower modem, you should download and install Winamp. It's generally considered the best stand-alone player and is just a brief download (only 573 Kb). MusicMatch Jukebox is a larger file (7.25 Mb), but instead of just playing MP3s, this program also lets you make MP3s from CDs, catalog your songs and even create audio CDs.

If you have one of the later versions of Windows, chances are you can already play MP3 files.

MP3 programs base their interfaces on stereo interfaces and are remarkably easy to use. Once they're installed, you should be ready to go out and find some MP3s.

The next step is to find some MP3s. Only a year ago, there were very few places to find MP3s on the Web. Today, they're everywhere. But before you start looking for songs, be aware that many MP3s available on the Web are illegal, offered without the consent of the band or its label. Download these only at your own moral discretion.

You can also listen to streaming MP3 online radio stations. RadioSpy is a downloadable program that makes it easy. You simply select the type of music you want to hear, and the program automatically seeks out the stations playing that type of music.

Finally, there's Napster. But I suggest you go there yourself, at www.napster.com, and find out why it's become so controversial.