This book has the perfect balance of facts and intrigue. Never boring and perfectly paced, I was hooked from the start, especially as a kid growing up during this revolution.

Gripping look at the downfall of the CD, where my Soulseek library came from, and the personalities behind it all. Feels like it’s asking to become a movie.

A must-read for any tech geek or music nerd

Gaming directly in the author's age group and recalling this transitory period well, this was a gripping look at some of what transpired behind the scenes to change music forever. While it focuses on just three different people (and a 4th in Oink that helped replace Fraunhofer's role), the breath and complexity of the story woven felt complete.

I think one of the most fascinating elements of the book are the points where with 20-20 hindsight you see just how clueless folks can be about the opportunities in technology. Introducing the telephony jukebox, I immediately thought "Holy cramp, it's Spotify 30 years to early!" Or the hubris of the music industry.

I found myself being shamefully impressed with a music executive, despite my low opinion of the industry. And that's okay. This is a compelling read, with many layers.

I found this book to be fascinating, particularly because I am in that generation who was in college during the Napster years. Napster is not at all the focus of this book, because real piracy and audio technology are far from Napster, but it was interesting to see how songs got to file sharing websites and how the technology of the MP3 was developed.

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"What happens when an entire generation commits the same crime?"

The definition of crime in this case is up for debate.

Witt takes you from the invention of the MP3 to YouTube's inescapable Vevo videos. But he does this through research that lead to stories, a lot of them first hand, from individuals who shaped how the music industry came to where it is today. From a writing standpoint, he's concise when need be, but knows when to elaborate or give the sentence extra panache. The only thing that bothered me were the sometimes gimmicky cliff hanger chapter ending sentences. But hey, they worked on me.

He starts off with Brandenburg & his colleagues who first invented a form of audio coding that could compress the amount of data needed & still sound like the original. Moves on to Glover, "the greatest music pirate of all time," & also showcases, Morris, head honcho of each of the Big 3 music groups at one point or another. He paints a positive, yet truthful portrayal of these many personalities. Most of whom I knew about from their tech or accomplishments, but never took the time to think about the person behind these things.

In fact, the personal experience I had reading this might have been my favorite part. Most people my age & a bit older were technically all criminals. Nowadays, I mostly buy CD's because my car is old & won't let me play burned ones. But the music industry is still changing. This book should be added to each year.
It will forever be relevant reading. U2's experimental move to just force their album into your iTunes library could be added. Or even more recently, Taylor Swift's aggravation at Apple for not paying their artists royalties for the first three months.

But the future of music is always changing & Witt's in depth research has lead to an account of its history that's definitely worth reading. It opens the conversation for the pros & cons for news ways of improving an industry that clearly needs to take a new direction.

Great book. I'm not in the music industry or particularly interested in technology but Stephen Witt's writing pulled me right in and made me care about this story. Super compelling, endlessly fascinating. Up there with some of the great narrative nonfiction of our day.

As a denizen of the net in the time period covered, and a lover of music (for research purposes, of course) this book was amazing in bringing together the time and places and people that made that possible. From the invention of the mp3 to the bastard RIAA to Pirate Bay, these were times I too remember pretty fondly, especially as a lover of music and curious as to where technology was going. I didn't have the CD burner, or the job at a pressing plant, but I did have a fat T1 pipe (thanks, college!) and was on the periphery of the community detailed here.

The author does a great job at weaving the story with appropriate context and historical notes, and it is engaging and easy to follow. I've recommended it to the music heads I know, as well as the geeks, but that Venn diagram is pretty much a circle because of this time.