People today consume music in a vastly different way compared to just two decades ago. Pretty much any song you can to name can be heard for free on the internet, and sales of CDs are way down (but live music seems to still be going strong). Stephen Witt’s How Music Got Free explores how this shift happened. Witt chooses to alternate from chapter to chapter between three phenomenon that started gaining speed in the mid-1990s: 1) the development of the MP3 format at the Fraunhofer research institute in Germany, 2) Doug Morris’ stint as CEO of Universal Music during a time of incredible expansion and then contraction, until he ultimately saved the day by linking music to advertisement revenue, and 3) the Rabid Neurosis group of filesharers, who managed to leak many new releases with the help of members working at a North Carolina CD pressing plant.

I found this a very informative book. I started filesharing in 2000 during the days of Napster, and I thought I had got in early, but Witt reveals that an internet filesharing scene had already existed for years at that point, just under the radar. The focus on North Carolina leaker Dell Glover and music mogul Doug Morris give us two protagonists with challenges to overcome, so that the book almost reads like a suspenseful novel.

However, How Music Got Free also reads like a magazine article expanded to a full book instead of the more detailed study that many readers might have appreciated. Furthermore, as I was reading the book, I was constantly thinking how this isn't the whole story, this is just Witt's focus on just a small slice of what was going on. The book lacks an international perspective, though interesting things have always been happening with regard to filesharing outside the United States. Most of Witt's examples of how filesharing changed music are almost entirely drawn from hip-hop, and while the author having his own favourite genre is fine, one does wish for some mention of filesharing’s impact on other kinds of music.

A fascinating look at the beginnings of digital piracy and the end of several old ways of copyright. I grew up in the time piracy was still coming of age, and it was strangely nostalgic to read about sites such as napster or programs such as limewire now.

Like most people, I imagined that the gradual dismantling of the music industry through filesharing was largely the result of the collective pirating conducted by hordes of music lovers/looters across the world. So while I enjoy music and books on the subject (and even still buy CDs for some inexplicable reason), I wasn't expecting any earth-shattering insights from Stephen Witt's How Music Got Free. As Witt points out in the introduction to the book, however, this massive change was actually largely driven by surprisingly few actors. In fact, he is able to chronicle the entire saga from the early 80s through the birth of Spotify by focusing on three individuals. How Music Got Free provides an incredibly entertaining account of the birth of the mp3 and the cultural and financial impact of everybody's favorite compressed audio file type.

Witt's three subjects run the gamut: Doug Morris, a top record label executive, Karlheinz Brandenburg, the German researcher largely responsible for developing the mp3, and Dell Glover, a humble "black redneck" from North Carolina who leveraged his job at a CD factory to become perhaps the most prolific leaker in music industry history. He deftly weaves between these threads in a large chronological fashion in chronicling the creation of the mp3, its fight for file-type supremacy, and how it turned the profit model of the music industry upside-down.

This approach keeps things fresh and allows Witt to dive deeply into a variety of diverse topics. How Music Got Free is almost three books in one: an analysis of psychoacoustics and file compression and how Brandenburg and his German research team were able to create the mp3, a case study on the business impact of the file-sharing revolution and how music executives (very, very, slowly) adjusted to the sea change in listening habits, and a thoughtful profile on Glover's leaking pursuits and a true-crime tale of the rise and fall of his circle of leakers. The book greatly benefits from extensive interviews with most major players, allowing Witt to really flesh out major characters and get some deep insights. How Music Got Free focuses extensively on Glover, and Dell's story is both engrossing and presented in a thoughtful and objective matter. The pirates aren't lionized as class-warrior heroes sticking it to the big record execs, and the big record execs aren't vilified as cruel and heartless automatons (well at least not all of them anyway). Witt is remarkably thoughtful and objective throughout, despite a few moments of snark (I guess I'm just angry he described Björk as a "scene queen").

Witt is a journalist with a mathematics degree from the University of Chicago and actually once worked as a hedge fund trader. That last fact probably explains why he is able to go into such lucid detail on the business strategies of major record labels. Witt also has a journalism degree from Columbia, which is likely why all of his descriptions, from how compressed files take advantage of neurological quirks of how the brain listens to music to lower file sizes to the legal messes the leakers got themselves into, manage to strike the difficult balance between being clear and detailed.

While the prose suggests a Wired feature, How Music Got Free doesn't ever feel like a bloated article. Unlike some of the insipid commercial full-lengths released in the 90s and early 00's that contributed to the death of the album, there is no filler here.There is definitely enough material to justify its length, and I almost wish that music took a bit longer to self-destruct so How Music Got Free could add a few more chapters, though I don't want to suggest that the book isn't comprehensive. Overall, How Music Got Free is a great read that will probably go down as my favorite book published in 2015. If you have any interest in music or business or even just want to read an entertaining story about one of the biggest culture shifts over the past 20 years you should definitely pick this book up.

9/10

It was interesting to learn so many details about internet music piracy. Witt defiantly writes like a journalist, especially with how he describes the different 'characters' in the book.