How Music Got Free
What Happens When an Entire Generation Commits the Same Crime?
Published on 18. June 2015
Book
Hardback
304 pages
978-1-84792-282-3 (ISBN)
Description
For fans of The Social Network, the story of an accidental pirate, a mastermind, and a mogul.
How Music Got Free is a blistering story of obsession, music and obscene money. A story of visionaries and criminals, tycoons and audiophiles with golden ears. It's about the greatest pirate in history, the most powerful executive in the music business, and an illegal website six times the size of iTunes.
It begins with a small-time thief at a CD-pressing plant, and a groundbreaking invention on the other side of the globe. Then pans from the multi-million-dollar deals of the music industry to the secret recesses of the web; from German audio laboratories to a tiny Polynesian radio station.
This is how one man's crime snowballs into an explosive moment in history. How suddenly all the tracks ever recorded could be accessed by anyone, for free. And life became forever entwined with the world online.
It is also the story of the music industry - the rise of rap, the death of the album, and how much can rest on the flip of a coin. How an industry ate itself. And how the most successful music release group in history is one you've probably never heard of.
How Music Got Free is a thrilling, addictive masterpiece of reportage from Stephen Witt. It's a story that's never been told - but that's written all over your hard drive.
How Music Got Free is a blistering story of obsession, music and obscene money. A story of visionaries and criminals, tycoons and audiophiles with golden ears. It's about the greatest pirate in history, the most powerful executive in the music business, and an illegal website six times the size of iTunes.
It begins with a small-time thief at a CD-pressing plant, and a groundbreaking invention on the other side of the globe. Then pans from the multi-million-dollar deals of the music industry to the secret recesses of the web; from German audio laboratories to a tiny Polynesian radio station.
This is how one man's crime snowballs into an explosive moment in history. How suddenly all the tracks ever recorded could be accessed by anyone, for free. And life became forever entwined with the world online.
It is also the story of the music industry - the rise of rap, the death of the album, and how much can rest on the flip of a coin. How an industry ate itself. And how the most successful music release group in history is one you've probably never heard of.
How Music Got Free is a thrilling, addictive masterpiece of reportage from Stephen Witt. It's a story that's never been told - but that's written all over your hard drive.
Reviews / Votes
Enthralling... A terrific, timely, informative book... Witt is an authoritative, enthusiastic, sure-footed guide, and his research and his storytelling are exemplary... How Music Got Free stands comparison to The Social Network -- Nick Hornby * Sunday Times * Incredible, possibly canonical. . . . A story that's too bizarre to make up, but needed to be told. . . . Even if you're not a music geek, How Music Got Free is one of the most gripping investigative books of the year. * Vice * Like Bond meets 28 Days Later... Witt tells a thrilling tale, with a cast of music biz bigwigs, painstaking German boffins, and pirates and petty thieves. Witt's writing reminded me of all my favourite modern essayists: Remnick, Franzen and John Jeremiah Sullivan. I loved it -- Colin Greenwood, Radiohead Brilliant... Like many great works of investigative journalism it makes it clear that this is one of those stories you think you know until you realise you don't -- John Niven * The Spectator * A fantastic book and a scintillating achievement -- Felix Martin, author of Money: the unauthorised biography [How Music Got Free] has the clear writing and brisk reportorial acumen of a Michael Lewis book -- Dwight Garner * New York Times * [How Music Got Free] has the clear writing and brisk reportorial acumen of a Michael Lewis book -- Dwight Garner * New York Times * Reads like an underworld crime story... Engaging even on the tech side of the story... Witt is concise and very funny -- Bob Stanley * New Statesman * Closely reported and brilliantly written ... highly entertaining... Exemplary in its clarity... this story is full of surprises as well -- Steven Poole * Guardian * This is the definitive history of a media revolution... I was hooked late into the night... There are lots of big lessons here... it is the story of all creative industries, and in the end, the internet itself -- Hugo Rifkind * The Times * You need to get hold of Stephen Witt's jaundiced, whip-smart, superbly reported and indispensable How Music Got Free * Washington Post * Fascinating... An engrossing story... surely the year's most important music book * Independent * Astonishing * Guardian * Astonishing * Guardian * Enthralling * Sunday Times * An accomplished first book... So compelling * Economist * Lucid, page-turning, engaging... A cross between a nail-biting true-crime story and the type of blow-by-blow books penned by Bob Woodward... Deeply sourced and dramatic -- Scott Timberg * Literary Review * Witt's first book has great strengths - primarily that he is a natural storyteller, with an eye for character and the ability to digest large amounts of technical detail, and turn it into a colourful tale * Financial Times * Scorching investigative history of how the music industry found itself staring catastrophe in the face... Full of colourful characters... Essential reading for anyone who cares about the future of our creative industries * The Bookseller * This is a riveting account of greed, huge characters and the collapse of a kind of empire, and will be the benchmark by which future books are judged -- Jamie Atkins, 4 stars * Record Collector *More details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Vintage Publishing
Target group
College/higher education
Professional and scholarly
Dimensions
Height: 240 mm
Width: 162 mm
Thickness: 29 mm
Weight
543 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-84792-282-3 (9781847922823)
Copyright in bibliographic data is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or its licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
E-Book
06/2015
1st Edition
Vintage Digital
€10.99
Available for download
Person
A member of what he calls the 'pirate generation', Stephen Witt has been bootlegging music since the mid-1990s. While amassing an archive of hundreds of thousands of pirated mp3s, he became obsessed with the subject of digital piracy, and eventually changed careers to write this thrilling investigative history.
He was born in New Hampshire in 1979, raised in the Midwest and graduated from the University of Chicago with a degree in mathematics. He spent the next six years working for hedge funds in Chicago and New York. Following a spell in East Africa working in economic development, he graduated from Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism in 2011.
He lives in Brooklyn, New York. How Music Got Free is his first book.
He was born in New Hampshire in 1979, raised in the Midwest and graduated from the University of Chicago with a degree in mathematics. He spent the next six years working for hedge funds in Chicago and New York. Following a spell in East Africa working in economic development, he graduated from Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism in 2011.
He lives in Brooklyn, New York. How Music Got Free is his first book.