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A review by alysynhardt
How Music Got Free: The End of an Industry, the Turn of the Century, and the Patient Zero of Piracy by Stephen Richard Witt
4.0
Click here for my full review.
"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.
"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.