HowMusicGotFree

"How Music Got Free" is a riveting story that delves into the world of obsession, crime, money, and music. The book features a cast of visionaries, criminals, moguls, and tech-savvy teenagers. It is centered on the greatest pirate in history, the most powerful executive in the music business, a revolutionary invention, and an illegal website that was four times the size of the iTunes Music Store.

Journalist Stephen Witt masterfully traces the secret history of digital music piracy, starting from the German audio engineers who invented the mp3 format, to the North Carolina-based CD manufacturing plant where factory worker Dell Glover leaked nearly two thousand albums over a decade. The book also takes readers to the high-rises of midtown Manhattan, where music executive Doug Morris cornered the global market on rap, and finally, into the darkest recesses of the internet.

Through these interwoven narratives, Witt has created a thrilling book that depicts the moment in history when ordinary life became forever entwined with the world online. Suddenly, all the music ever recorded was available for free. In the page-turning tradition of writers like Michael Lewis and Lawrence Wright, Witt’s deeply-reported first book introduces unforgettable characters – inventors, executives, factory workers, and smugglers – who revolutionized an entire art form.

This never-before-told story of greed, cunning, genius, and deceit, reveals the secret underworld of media pirates that transformed our digital lives. How Music Got Free is an irresistible must-read that not only documents the music industry but also serves as an illuminating history of the internet itself.

作者简介

StephenWittwasborninNewHampshirein1979andraisedintheMidwest.HegraduatedfromtheUniversityofChicagowithadegreeinmathematicsin2001.Hespentthenextsixyearsplayingthestockmarket,workingforhedgefundsinChicagoandNewYork.Followingatwo-yearstintinEastAfricaworkingineconomicdevelopment,hegraduatedfromColumbiaUniversity’sGradua...