Kitty Empire talks to Stephen Witt about his eagerly awaited book charting the rise of the MP3 file, the online pirates who exploited it and the record industry that ignored its cultural impact until it was far too lateExtract: Going for a song: the hidden history of music piracy How Music Got Free is in essence the gripping tale of three men: Karlheinz Brandenburg, the German scientist whose lab cobbled together the MP3; Doug Morris, the old-school record company executive who presided over the rap boom and began the fight-back against piracy; and Bennie Lydell “Dell” Glover, the North Carolina CD pressing plant worker, whose light fingers and computer skills singlehandedly led to a haemorrhage of A-list rock and hip-hop releases – Eminem, Kanye West, Queens of the Stone Age, Björk – being freely available on the internet two weeks before release.The three men never met, but Witt reveals how their lives overlapped and irrevocably changed those of anyone who listens to music. Brandenburg’s genius lay in shrinking sound files down so that they could easily be sent over the internet, back when most files were huge and modems still dialled up. Owing to the bitter internecine rivalries within acoustic engineering, no one recognised the scope of Brandenburg’s technology; the inferior MP2 kept winning industry accolades and commercial applications. Universal executive Morris presided over an industry rich from the obscene profits generated by CD sales, until the secretive... Continue reading at 'The Guardian'
[ The Guardian | 2015-06-07 00:00:00 UTC ]
Jonathan Rosenberg recalls the musicians who stirred public debate, outrage and pride. Continue reading at The Washington Post
[ The Washington Post | 2020-01-24 02:42:42 UTC ]
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On the heels of the hygge craze, a rush of new books delve into fika, ichigo ichie and other lessons from around the globe. Continue reading at The Washington Post
[ The Washington Post | 2020-01-15 14:00:00 UTC ]
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Here's all you need to know about Harry Potter music, including who wrote it, where you can buy it, and where to see it live. Continue reading at Book Riot
[ Book Riot | 2019-12-17 11:34:55 UTC ]
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A new history book shows how entanglements of race, gender, class and sexuality in South Africa flow from the moral contradictions of the settler colonial state. Continue reading at The Conversation
[ The Conversation | 2019-12-08 07:14:51 UTC ]
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George Witte has been promoted to senior v-p and editor-in-chief of the St. Martin's Publishing Group, effective immediately. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2019-12-06 05:00:00 UTC ]
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Comic book creators search for ways to combat the rise of illegal digital sharing of their work. Continue reading at BBC World
[ BBC World | 2019-11-29 13:41:32 UTC ]
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Film historian Jeanine Basinger brings zeal to her decades-spanning survey “The Movie Musical!” Continue reading at The Washington Post
[ The Washington Post | 2019-11-27 15:55:30 UTC ]
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In “The Story of a Goat,” animals articulate their own curious perspectives on their lives — and ours. Continue reading at The Washington Post
[ The Washington Post | 2019-11-26 12:00:00 UTC ]
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A bookseller’s version of ‘The Sound of Music’ for the busy, exhausting 4th quarter. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2019-11-25 13:00:38 UTC ]
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We must grapple with tough questions about artificial intelligence before it’s too late, Susan Schneider says. Continue reading at The Washington Post
[ The Washington Post | 2019-11-22 01:43:20 UTC ]
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A "musical circus show" based on Pippi Longstocking is in the works, with ABBA's Björn Ulvaeus on board as executive producer, as part of celebrations to mark the 75th anniversary of the children's classic. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2019-11-18 06:48:24 UTC ]
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Stephen Dixon left us yesterday. The author of Frog (1991) and Interstate (1995) two National Book Award finalists, published some thirty other books, including collections of his over 500 short stories. I first met Dixon on the final day of a class in my junior year of college called “Short... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2019-11-07 20:03:05 UTC ]
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In “Indulge Your Senses,” the Knitting Factory mastermind talks about cracking the code on catering to serious music fans. Continue reading at The Washington Post
[ The Washington Post | 2019-10-18 15:49:40 UTC ]
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Facebook is bringing its music and related interactive video features to more markets in Europe. Music publishing business development lead for Europe, the Middle East and Africa Ella Kirby said in a blog post that music on Facebook and Instagram is now available in Denmark, Finland, Iceland,... Continue reading at AdWeek
[ AdWeek | 2019-10-17 15:45:27 UTC ]
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Ted Gioia’s sweeping history is as subversive — and immersive — as his title suggests. Continue reading at The Washington Post
[ The Washington Post | 2019-10-16 16:20:10 UTC ]
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Oneworld has acquired the memoir of the woman who raised seven extraordinarily talented musical children, the Kanneh-Masons, exploring parenting, music education and the boundless potential of all children. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2019-10-16 16:07:07 UTC ]
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In this excerpt from her memoir “Home Work,” Andrews looks back at one of her most iconic scenes. Continue reading at The Washington Post
[ The Washington Post | 2019-10-12 13:00:00 UTC ]
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The author, filmmaker, and provocateur’s latest book looks back on his long career and offers some hard earned advice for misfits and weirdos. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2019-10-11 04:00:00 UTC ]
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We had a new monster every night. I had this book I loved, Bring on the Bad Guys. It was a big, chunky paperback collection of comic-book stories, and as you might guess from the title, it wasn’t much concerned with heroes. It was instead an anthology of tales about the worst of the worst, […] Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2019-10-10 08:49:26 UTC ]
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Translating one medium into another is tricky. Music is music and art is art and dance is dance; to try to convey the power of another art in fiction is its own sleight-of-hand. My own first novel takes on that challenge. In A Song For A New Day, musician Luce Cannon was on the cusp […] The post... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2019-10-07 11:00:15 UTC ]
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