"The closing down of Napster did nothing to dampen the spirit of music lovers trading MP3 encoded music and audio files. Dozens of peer-to-peer derivatives sprang up to take its place. But now, the future of the format is itself under threat.
"Under the awkward name of Ogg Vorbis (OV), this open standard music compression format is emerging as a major contender in the race. It is an open source system, supposedly superior to MP3s. What's more attractive is the fact that it has no associated licensing fee.
"Christopher Montgomery of MIT started Ogg Vorbis since he disliked the licensing fees imposed by the patent holder for MP3 technology, the Fraunhofer Institute.
"Here is a lowdown on the new kid on the block..."
