MP3 stands for MPEG-1 layer 3 that means Motion Pictures Expert Group1 Layer3. MP3 is a encoded wave file, it has sound quality nearly the same as audio CDs, but the size of the file is much smaller than the CD format. The size of a MP3 file comparing to a wave file is about 1:10, but the sound quality is around 95% of the wave file.
Are MP3s legal?
MP3s are both legal or illegal, it is legal when the song's copyright holder has grant permission to download and play the song. It's still legal if you encode the mp3 for personal use, however it is illegal to distribute or trade MP3s without permission from the song's copyright holder.
How do I play MP3 files?
There are many ways in playing mp3-files. What you need to have for playing mp3s are a computer which has speakers and a sound card. If you have all these stuff you need a software to play the mp3-files, the best mp3-player out there is Winamp, but there are many other players to use. When you've downloaded and installed Winamp you need to load it with mp3-files. You can do that in many ways, the easiest way is to click on the mp3-file on your computer and it'll detect that you have Winamp and play it. You can also add mp3s to a playlist in Winamp, but that's a more advanced. What you do now is to push the "play" button... listen and enjoy!
How do I make MP3s?
First of all, copy the song (track) from the CD to your hard disk in ".wav" format (to do this you need to use a program called CD Ripper or grabber). After you have copied the song, in .wav format, to your hard disk, you must use a program called encoder to convert it to the mp3 file. We recommend to use LAME MP3 Encoder.