I remember the _weirdest_ news cycle where like >4 news sites (including The Guardian iirc) ran articles calling MP3 a "dead" format now that the patents expired.
Definitely felt like a "wet streets cause rain" story.
Re:AV1 and the Video Wars of 2027
by tialaramex on Monday August 20, 2018 @08:43AM
(#17799426)
A large proportion of all "news" is placed by PR companies, essentially advertising but with maybe some light fact checking. It's cheaper than buying advert space.
Fraunhofer essentially wrote these stories, complete with the plug for its newer (patented) audio formats so that's why they say MP3 is dead rather than hooray it's free.
The insidious bit about patents licensed to device makers or big content generators is the consumer never sees a bill. The devices or professionally produced content cost more to cover the fee, but the users never see it. There never is a choice to pay or choose an alternative. How would they know to care?
Even now Wikipedia's audio pages don't link to the MP3s directly. You have to click through to Wikimedia Commons and find the transcodes at the bottom.
Because nobody cared about the patent in the first place.
I think that's mostly true. The licensing fees were much lower and ignored by anybody that couldn't afford them. Because they charged a maximum per company, the cost for most products was under 1 euro.
I scoured the web looking for others talking about it. I brought it up on Reddit, no one seemed to care. I still don't hear it talked about often.