Red Book is the standard

Standardization

Standardization is the process of developing and implementing technical standards.The goals of standardization can be to help with independence of single suppliers , compatibility, interoperability, safety, repeatability, or quality....

 for audio CDs

Compact Disc

The Compact Disc is an optical disc used to store digital data. It was originally developed to store and playback sound recordings exclusively, but later expanded to encompass data storage , write-once audio and data storage , rewritable media , Video Compact Discs , Super Video Compact Discs ,...

 (Compact Disc Digital Audio system, CDDA or CD-DA). It is named after one of the Rainbow Books

Rainbow Books

The Rainbow Books are a collection of standards defining the formats of Compact Discs.Red BookYellow BookThe Rainbow Books are a collection of standards defining the formats of Compact Discs.Red Book...

, a series of books (bound in different colors) that contain the technical specifications

Specification (technical standard)

A specification is an explicit set of requirements to be satisfied by a material, product, or service. Should a material, product or service fail to meet one or more of the applicable specifications, it may be referred to as being out of specification;the abbreviation OOS may also be used...

 for all CD and CD-ROM

CD-ROM

A CD-ROM is a pre-pressed compact disc that contains data accessible to, but not writable by, a computer for data storage and music playback. The 1985 “Yellow Book” standard developed by Sony and Philips adapted the format to hold any form of binary data....

 formats.

The first edition of the Red Book was released in 1980 by Philips

Philips

Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V. , more commonly known as Philips, is a multinational Dutch electronics company....

 and Sony

Sony

, commonly referred to as Sony, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan and the world's fifth largest media conglomerate measured by revenues....

; it was adopted by the Digital Audio Disc Committee and ratified as IEC

International Electrotechnical Commission

The International Electrotechnical Commission is a non-profit, non-governmental international standards organization that prepares and publishes International Standards for all electrical, electronic and related technologies – collectively known as "electrotechnology"...

 60908 (published in 1987).