How Music Got Free is a compelling story that traces the development of the MP3 to it's utilization by a number of underground early-internet-adopter audiophiles who created music-piracy groups and ultimately caused the adaption of the music industry to the post-cd era. Despite a scope that largely fails to investigate the impact on actual music artists nor the advent of streaming, the story Witt tells is pretty remarkable. Dell Glover, the antihero of the story, is a fascinating, if somewhat tragic, character, who defies and ultimately is brought to heel by the multibillion dollar recording industry.

However, within this fascinating story, Witt smuggles in several ideas/themes that i just can't agree with. The first is his uncritical analysis and overt defense of the efficacy of IP Law. Secondly is his general omission of actual musicians experiences with music piracy or the changing dynamics of the recording industry in the 2000's. To this point, Witt fails to address the deep inequities created by the recording industry and their cynical weaponization of public resources to stamp out competition. Thirdly, Witt continuously speaks about the drastic economic losses caused by piracy but fails to address the question of "to whom".

With those critiques in mind, I would still recommend How Music Got Free due to the compelling nature of the overall story and Witt's dedication to approaching this phenomenon from the perspectives of (almost) all the major players.