The creation of the MP3 was a fight against technical and industrial challenges. Officially known as MPEG-1 Audio Layer III, the format was based on psychoacoustics—the science of how people perceive sound. The algorithm works by discarding audio data that is inaudible to most human ears, allowing for massive file size reductions of up to 95%. Despite this innovation, the format faced significant resistance. Industry competitor Philips was heavily promoting its own MP2 format. However, Karlheinz