The PROS and CONS of MP3s

New standard format produces very compressed files without losing audio quality

The digitized track is compressed to approximately 8% of its original size (or a compression ratio of 12:1). Basically, this means that a CD used to store MP3 tracks can contain up to 12 hours of music, much greater than the conventional format, which allows for only 74 minutes of recording time on a normal CD.

MP3 files can be easily played while still performing other tasks on your computer with the aid of the Pentium Processor.

You can sample artists before buying the album

You can download one song instead of buying the whole album for just the one song that you like.

Save money on high priced albums

MP3 format audio can be broken into pieces, which are still playable separately.

Easily transferable across the Internet because of size.

Enables musical artists to express their talent without signing to a record label

Requirement of variety of software

Despite the large amount of processing power needed to encode and play the files, a sound card, player, encoder, and decoder are also required.

When downloading from Internet there is the chance of getting a virus.

There is legal issues

 Loss in sales for record labels/companies.

Loss in sales for recording artists