Karlheinz Brandenburg (Erlangen – Germany, 1954) has a double degree in Electronics (1980) and Mathematics (1982). His 1989 doctoral thesis in Electronic Engineering laid the groundwork for a coding system that has ushered in incredible change – the MPEG-Audio Layer 3, better known as MP3.
Brandenburg worked in this field from 1989 to 1990 at the prestigious AT&T Bell laboratories in New Jersey. After this, he returned to the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg to continue with his research, and in 1993 was appointed Head of the Audio/Multimedia Department of the Institute for Integrated Circuits in Erlangen.
Since 2000, Brandenburg has been a senior professor at the Technical University of Ilmenau and Director of the Fraunhofer Institute for Digital Media Technology (IDMT). He is also a member of the AES (Audio Engineering Society), the IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers), and the MPEG (Motion Pictures Experts Group), which is responsible for setting audio and video standards at world level.
Brandenburg is officially recognised as one of the masterminds of electronic engineering, and his numerous awards include the Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany, honorary doctorates from the universities
of Koblenz-Landau and Lüneburg, and he was an Ambassador for the European Year of Creativity and Innovation (2009)
HIS CONTRIBUTION
The MP3 has revolutionised the world of music – especially the music industry – and the way music is distributed, commercialised and consumed. The MP3 algorithm is based on the limitations of human hearing – the codec eliminates inaudible frequencies, preserving the essence of the sound. Greater compression gives lower quality, but the MP3 achieves a good balance. Since the MPEG adopted this technology as standard in 1992, and in particular since the boom of the internet put it in the place it deserved, music has been playing in the same league as emails, photo exchange or mobile phone calls.
This means we can now have entire sets of artists’ albums in our pockets, music can be transmitted easily and quickly via the internet, and enjoyed on any mobile telephone.
The MP3 format, dreamed up by Brandenburg, means we can
now have the entire works of musicians in our pockets, and
that music can be sent over the internet easily and quickly,
and be enjoyed on any mobile telephone.
The repercussions can be seen every day in the newspapers – this codec, developed out of the interests of a group of electronics geniuses, has led to laws being changed, social debates being opened up, new business models invented, and billions of euros of revenue being earned from MP3 players. As music connoisseurs lament, it has even changed users’ minds – in the olden days people would truly enjoy listening to each song, but now they just “compete” to see who can collect the most albums (many of which they will never even listen to).
THE INVENTOR
Karlheinz Brandenburg has been chosen as one of the representatives of the Science and Innovation Citizens’ Agenda as he is considered to be the father of the MP3. It is easy to see that the work of this mathematician, who enjoys trekking and science fiction, have changed our world in significant ways. His entrepreneurial personality led to him working, with little funding, on an enigma suggested by his professor, Dieter Seitzer, at the University of Erlangen. Seitzer was trying to find out how to transmit music via a telephone on the new 64-bit digital networks, but nobody seemed to be interested in the idea.
However, Brandenburg was drawn to the concept, and started to look at how to bring about a twelve-fold reduction in the amount of information without losing quality. The basis for the MP3 was already in his 1989 doctoral thesis in Electronic Engineering. In 1997, the MP3 was ready for its world launch. It didn’t create much of a stir at the outset, but the idea was well received in Silicon Valley. The first MP3 player appeared a year later, and after this nothing would be the same as it was before.
Karlheinz Brandenburg also shows how business can be done in a different way, and how knowledge can generate wealth. Met with incomprehension by the leading companies in the music industry when he presented his idea, his team changed strategy and it was launched on the internet. This meant everybody was able to see how a sound archive could be reduced 12 times in size without the listener perceiving any reduction in quality, and the word was spread by contacting experts in the sector. Brandenburg and the Fraunhofer Institute decided they would not sell the rights to the MP3 to anyone, and in 1995 sold an operating licence for the first time (a common format whereby the interested company pays the patent owners for use of the invention).
THE IMPLICATIONS
Little by little, the novelty of the MP3 spread all around the world. However, when the business started to get going, an Australian student was able to extract the decoder from a Microsoft application and made it available to the world. The creators reacted in time and turned what could have been their downfall to their advantage – they licensed it as shareware, meaning that anybody can develop applications to reproduce,
The world presentation of the MP3 in 1997 did not cause
much of a stir. However, sector experts were amazed by
Brandenburg’s work shortly afterwards showing that a
sound archive could be reduced 12 times in size without
any impact on quality.
copy or share it at a very affordable price, as long as the Fraunhofer Institute is duly credited. This flexibility, along with the technical achievement of the system itself, explains why the MP3 has been so successful and become universal. This licence has given rise to programmes such as Napster, WinAmp and innumerable others that helped to catapult culture in a way that made it accessible to the masses.
The rights to the system belong to the Institute, and the earnings it has generated have enabled the facility in Ilmenau (a town of 26,000 inhabitants) to become the largest of all the installations belonging to the Fraunhofer Institute. Brandenburg’s decision to stay at this research institute has had an enormous impact on the local economy of Ilmenau – it is compared with the MIT, which in turn is known for working closely with industry, generating spin-offs and contributing to development of the German economy.
Brandenburg says he is happy with his salary and seeing the benefits of his group’s work feeding in to research that will bring about a new revolution in digital media. For example, he is currently working on the Iosono 3D sound system, which could break down the barrier between reality and virtual reality.
Brandenburg says he is happy to see how the
benefits of his
team’s work is helping research that will br
ing about a new
revolution in digital media. He is currently
working on the
Iosono 3D sound system, which could wipe
out the barrier
between reality and virtual reality.
He has had plenty of offers to leave his homeland. Over the years he could have accepted any of the multi-million-dollar offers he has doubtlessly received from investors in Silicon Valley, but instead decided he wanted to devote his ingenuity to public research. This does not mean Brandenburg is cutting himself off from industry. In fact, a company founded by one of the MP3 pioneers, Dagfinn Bach, has recently introduced a new format that makes it possible to place songs within a musical ecosystem connected to the internet, and several record labels have already started to show an interest in this. Although Brandenburg is not part of this company, he is one of its investors, and he joined Bach at the public presentation of this format. Going back to the MP3, the fact that the institution where he works holds the rights to his research has stopped him from becoming a multimillionaire, but on the other hand it means he has access to the best equipment, the best students and the full backing of his government to make the most of any extraordinary development they may come up with. All this goes to show that sharing knowledge and making it grow can bring about global and personal benefits, although these may not necessarily include a bank account bulging at the seams.
