PC Pro reports that French company Thomson, is trying to make MP3 into a legitimate format and ward of competition from more secure formats.

While MP3 remains the favourite compression format of the P2P file sharer, its lack of DRM controls means that AAC (as used by Apple’s iTunes Music Store) and WMA (favoured by Napster, amongst others) are leading the race to become the de facto standard. Add to this Real Networks’ and Sony’s own codecs and the potential for confusion is considerable.