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.