How Music Got Free
What happens when an entire generation commits the same crime?
1st Edition
Published on 18. June 2015
320 pages
978-1-4481-9067-6 (ISBN)
Description
Meet Dell Glover - the accidental pirate
Meet 'Kali' - the mastermind
And meet Karlheinz - the man who made it all possible
How Music Got Free is a blistering story of obsession, music and obscene money. A story of visionaries, criminals and tycoons. It's about the greatest pirate in history, the most powerful exec 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 darkest corners of the web; from German audio laboratories to a tiny Polynesian radio station.
This 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 the fate of artists like Kanye West, Jay-Z and 50 Cent were being controlled by a guy no one had ever heard of. How suddenly all the tracks ever recorded could be accessed by anyone, for free. And the industry imploded.
Meet 'Kali' - the mastermind
And meet Karlheinz - the man who made it all possible
How Music Got Free is a blistering story of obsession, music and obscene money. A story of visionaries, criminals and tycoons. It's about the greatest pirate in history, the most powerful exec 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 darkest corners of the web; from German audio laboratories to a tiny Polynesian radio station.
This 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 the fate of artists like Kanye West, Jay-Z and 50 Cent were being controlled by a guy no one had ever heard of. How suddenly all the tracks ever recorded could be accessed by anyone, for free. And the industry imploded.
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 *More details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Vintage Publishing
Target group
College/higher education
Professional and scholarly
File size
0,90 MB
ISBN-13
978-1-4481-9067-6 (9781448190676)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Book
04/2016
Vintage
€16.50
Available immediately
Book
06/2015
The Bodley Head Ltd
€44.76
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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.
