MP3 support in SL why not...?

We are musicians and Dab is the engineer, he explained to us that the .WAV format is actually "notorious" for internet streaming and he doesn't understand why SL is still not supporting MP3 or something similar (for upload). To make this short, what do you thing if we all gathered together and try to make this an official request? After all, everyone should benefit from it, even the servers at Linden Labs! Unless they are doing this on purpose because they don't want to encourage people uploading MP3s/sound files... Any ideas or constructive advice? For instance I wanted to have birds and waterfall sounds in the background, but now that I understand a bit more, I won't use a .WAV file(s), because if you wanted it too sound realistic and avoid using an obvious loop, it would require a big file(s). That's a shame. Oh btw, I hope this is the right place to post.

Uploaded sounds are limited to 10 seconds, so you can't upload a big loop.

Not sure what format the sound is sent to the client in, but it might be compressed as an MP3 after upload anyway in the same way that some images are compressed to JPG.
With a wav file, LL has the freedom to change what format they send to the client in without losing quality. If you upload MP3, and they later decide to send to the client as OGG, you would lose quality.

This link will explain why... MP3 licensing is not cheap, and why on earth would LL want to pay that just so we can hear a 10 second MP3 instead of a 10 second .WAV?

Especially when they have perfectly good patent-free open source alternatives?

So, exactly who has to pay the license fee?

If, I wanted to produce and audio Player that supports MP3...I have to pay 90k down and 15k a year to the coding company for the privledge to sell this audio player with MP3 Support?

OR, do I have to pay 90k Down and 15k a year to host a streaming mp3 player on my site?

While .WAV files are free on both?

I can chop these files down manually for free by cutting every 4th frequency out of the mix...then pay some coder to make it automatic for all files there after.
Which is basically what an Mp3 is.

Thanks to the first and second reply, I understand what you are saying. Well, I know 10 seconds is not much, but apparently a 10 second .WAV file is not that small in size, and then if you multiply it by 10 or 20 (birds, insects, effects etc...) it can go up Anyway, as far as LL trying to save money on the license as one of you mentioned... no comments.
Thanks for the links too, I'll have a look if I get a chance.

That's a funny one I didn't know that

I do it in soundforge(a music mastering software) for game files.
So they get smaller in size but retain most of the quality, like a gunshot.
I can chop as much or as little as I want.

But, for music files its more tricky. You need a few anylizing tools to adjust parameters during a song, as music is so variable.

MP3 does a few more processes in the way it cuts the files down automatically.

sl's client uses wav files so it can compress them into ogg format before sending them up to the servers, just like textures its compressed before leaving your computer

Thank you, I "kinda" understand Well, I hope it's for the best they are doing that.