In the summer of 1997, Karlheinz Brandenburg, a gifted German mathematician and electrical engineer, made his way to a meeting in Washington, D.C. that – although few realized it at the time – would arguably change the music business more than any other in history. Brandenburg, often referred to as the "Father of the MP3", was among the first outside of those steeped in mid-90's Internet Relay Chat culture to realize that his seemingly defunct invention – the MPEG Layer 3 audio format, w...

In the summer of 1997, Karlheinz Brandenburg, a gifted German mathematician and electrical engineer, made his way to a meeting in Washington, D.C. that – although few realized it at the time – would arguably change the music business more than any other in history. Brandenburg, often referred to as the "Father of the MP3", was among the first outside of those steeped in mid-90's Internet Relay Chat culture to realize that his seemingly defunct invention – the MPEG Layer 3 audio format, w...