Ogg Vorbis is a new audio compression format. It is roughly comparable to other formats used to store and play digital music, such as MP3, VQF, AAC, and other digital audio formats. It is different from these other formats because it is completely free, open, and unpatented.

Ogg is the name of Xiph.org's container format for audio, video, and metadata. Vorbis is the name of a specific audio compression scheme that's designed to be contained in Ogg.

Vorbis files can compress to a smaller file size and still sound fine; Vorbis' better compression will cut down on bandwidth costs and keep you from being a victim of your own popularity.

Vorbis' standardized, easily-edited comment header provides a space for you to scribble all sorts of notes about yourself to distribute with the music; this helps fans find you, your site, and where to buy your stuff.

If you decide to sell your music in MP3 format, you are responsible for paying Fraunhofer a percentage of each sale because you are using their patents. Vorbis is patent and license-free, so you will never need to pay anyone in order to sell, give away, or stream your own music.

For a given file size, Vorbis sounds better than MP3. This means: You can keep your music collection at about the same quality level, but it'll take up less space or you can have your music collection take up about the same amount of space, but have it sound better.

Vorbis already enjoys widespread player support and work is underway to play Vorbis files on portable hardware.