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 ]
News tagged with:
#cd sales
#balance sheets
The founder of a folk festival has commissioned eight musicians to create a body of music based on The Lost Words, the illustrated book that celebrates lost nature words by Robert Macfarlane and Jackie Morris (Hamish Hamilton). Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2019-01-04 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with:
#lost words
#illustrated book
#robert macfarlane
Ladies and gentlemen, start your weeping. “The Notebook,” Nicholas Sparks’ beloved romance novel, is getting a Broadway adaptation, with music and lyrics by singer-songwriter Ingrid Michaelson. The artist announced the news while serving as a guest co-host opposite Hoda Kotb on NBC’s “Today”... Continue reading at Los Angeles Times
[ Los Angeles Times | 2019-01-03 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with:
#musical adaptation
#nicholas sparks
#broadway adaptation
On this date in 2018, we didn’t know that Kanye West would visit the White House or that Beyoncé would blow up Coachella. We didn’t know about Kendrick Lamar’s Pulitzer Prize or Childish Gambino’s “This Is America.” And though we might’ve suspected that BTS would release an album (or two), we... Continue reading at Los Angeles Times
[ Los Angeles Times | 2019-01-03 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with:
#kanye west
#pop music
#white house
#kendrick lamar
#pulitzer prize
Former President Barack Obama weighed in on the best pop culture of 2018 on Friday, posting his favorite books, movies and music of the year on his official Facebook page. Sorry, television. Better luck next year. “As 2018 draws to a close, I’m continuing a favorite tradition of mine and sharing... Continue reading at Los Angeles Times
[ Los Angeles Times | 2018-12-29 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with:
#pop culture
Edtech startup KalamTech has created an app series about great thinkers from history, voiced by Stephen Fry. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2018-12-13 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with:
#great thinkers
#stephen fry
Virago has acquired pop culture critic and author Amy Raphael’s book, A Seat at the Table, seeking to address gender imbalance at all levels of the music industry. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2018-12-08 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with:
#shed light
#music industry
What can book publishers learn from the music industry? A lot, says Digital Perspectives columnist Bill Rosenblatt. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2018-12-07 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with:
#book business
#music industry
We’d like to hear from people who have downloaded books illegally and those affected by book piracyAccording to the Intellectual Property Office’s latest study of online copyright infringement, 17% of ebooks read online are now pirated – around 4m books. While stereotypes persist that young... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2018-11-27 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with:
#latest study
#stephen lotinga
#publishers association
#research shows
BuzzFeed, Group Nine Media and other big digital publishers are floating the idea of merging to get better terms from Google and Facebook. It won't work. The post ‘Thinking along the wrong trajectory’: Digital media mergers won’t solve the duopoly problem appeared first on Digiday. Continue reading at Digiday
[ Digiday | 2018-11-20 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this |
William Goldman famously penned the words “Nobody knows anything” in his Hollywood memoir “Adventures in the Screen Trade.” But in the wake of his passing, it is clear that the film industry does know one thing: how much Goldman will be missed. The Oscar-winning screenwriter of “All the... Continue reading at Los Angeles Times
[ Los Angeles Times | 2018-11-17 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with:
#william goldman
#stephen king
#lin-manuel miranda
#screen trade
#film industry
New reporting in the Russian news media say that the educational sector's large runs and distribution to the provinces help make textbooks attractive to organized crime. The post Russia Textbook Piracy Is In the News: 160,000 Copies Reported Seized appeared first on Publishing Perspectives. Continue reading at Publishing Perspectives
[ Publishing Perspectives | 2018-11-13 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with:
#educational sector
PRH division Puffin Books will next year publish a ‘musical’ edition of Tom Fletcher’s The Creakers with a CD and prompts telling readers when to listen to the songs. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2018-11-01 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with:
#tom fletcher
#year publish
At an event organized by Byte the Book and the Frankfurt Book Fair, publishers looked at how social pressures influences publishing. The post Frankfurt: Self-Censorship and Morality in Publishing Today appeared first on Publishing Perspectives. Continue reading at Publishing Perspectives
[ Publishing Perspectives | 2018-10-12 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with:
#post frankfurt
#publishing today
Transworld has pre-empted an “uplifting, heart-warming and accessible” reading group novel by debut author and musician Hazel Prior, born out of a passion for harps. Touching on love, friendship, kindness and generosity, according to Transworld Ellie and the Harp-maker will appeal to readers of... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2018-09-10 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with:
#lost things
#debut author
#eleanor oliphant
#completely fine
#bantam press
Hodder has acquired a new book from thought leader and Rabbi Jonathan Sacks about the "outsourcing" of morality and what needs to be done to recover it. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2018-08-30 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with:
#hodder acquires
#seminal work
#thought leader
The 1970s brought about the idea that rock was important – and needed a canon of greatest albums to match. But in a digital age, is definitive musical excellence a ridiculous notion?Rock’s flight into seriousness in the 1970s had many ill effects. There was prog rock, jamming, not releasing... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2018-08-29 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with:
#bob dylan
OceanOfPDF.com, a website that was giving away pirated ebooks, has returned under a .net domain name. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2018-08-23 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this |
Although magazine media got plenty of attention earlier this year due to the blockbuster deals made by Meredith and Hearst to acquire Time Inc. and Rodale, respectively, as well as the ripple effects each deal caused, the months that followed were relatively quiet. And as the expression goes, no... Continue reading at Folio Magazine
[ Folio Magazine | 2018-08-16 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with:
#increasingly important
#york mag
Jeff Tweedy, the alternative country pioneer and frontman of the band Wilco, has written a memoir that's slated for release in November. Tweedy's "Let’s Go (So We Can Get Back): A Memoir of Recording and Discording With Wilco, Etc." is scheduled for publication on Nov. 13 by Dutton. In a news... Continue reading at Los Angeles Times
[ Los Angeles Times | 2018-08-14 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with:
#jeff tweedy
#news release
Oceanofpdf, a website that was illegally giving away ebooks for free, has been taken down. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2018-08-02 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this |