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 ]
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With sales of vinyl and print on the up, British artist Mark Vessey celebrates the joy of personal, physical collections• Read an interview with Mark Vessey here Continue reading... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2017-11-26 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The Bone Season author Samantha Shannon has expressed her frustration with the attitude of those who pirate her work, with some fans openly committing piracy and saying authors "should be grateful [they] even have readers". Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2017-11-07 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Hanif Abdurraqib, author of "They Can't Kill Us Until They Kill Us," shares 10 essential music books. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2017-11-03 00:00:00 UTC ]
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McFly band member turned children's author Tom Fletcher has claimed a "world first" with a musical edition of his highly successful middle-grade novel The Christmasaurus. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2017-11-01 00:00:00 UTC ]
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'We have to be realistic about the European market,' says the Publishers Association's Stephen Lotinga. 'It's been declining over the last five years.' The post Brexit Viewpoint: Stephen Lotinga, UK Publishers Association appeared first on Publishing Perspectives. Continue reading at Publishing Perspectives
[ Publishing Perspectives | 2017-10-19 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Stephen King celebrates his 70th birthday on 21st September, a day his UK publisher Hodder & Stoughton is marking with a campaign called King for a Day. King for a Day includes screenings of adaptations of King's books at the BFI and the very first author-based Twitter emoji - a typewriter... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2017-09-22 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Facebook is said to be offering hundreds of millions of dollars to music publishers and record labels to avoid having to take down user-generated videos that feature copyrighted music. Bloomberg cites "people familiar with the matter" as saying Facebook's payments will allow for the legal use of... Continue reading at Betanews
[ Betanews | 2017-09-06 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Facebook is offering major record labels and music publishers hundreds of millions of dollars so the users of its social network can legally include songs in videos they upload, according to people familiar with the matter.The posting and viewing of video on Facebook has exploded in recent... Continue reading at Advertising Age
[ Advertising Age | 2017-09-06 00:00:00 UTC ]
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William Collins is set to launch its music list with a book by Harvard classics professor Richard F Thomas on why Bob Dylan matters. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2017-08-12 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Russia's book piracy problem seems to be getting worse: in a new survey, two out of three respondents say they believe downloading pirated content is legal. The post Russian Government Figures Put Book Piracy at 25 to 30 Percent appeared first on Publishing Perspectives. Continue reading at Publishing Perspectives
[ Publishing Perspectives | 2017-08-08 00:00:00 UTC ]
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A career in music journalism is described with verve mixed with nostalgiaSylvia Patterson used to plaster her bedroom walls with pages from NME and Sounds, then at the zenith of taking themselves deadly seriously, and absorbed the ethos of music as revolution (as well as fun and frenzy). What a... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2017-08-05 00:00:00 UTC ]
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In the history of information technologies, Gutenberg and his printing press are (understandably) treated with the kind of reverence even the most celebrated of modern tech tycoons could only imagine. So perhaps it will come as a surprise that Europe’s literacy rates remained fairly stagnant for... Continue reading at Slate
[ Slate | 2017-08-04 00:00:00 UTC ]
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A discussion on how watermarking ebooks plays into publishers' overall DRM strategies, and its effectiveness. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2017-07-21 00:00:00 UTC ]
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PW's Louisa Ermelino reports on the robust book culture scene in and around the Glastonbury festival. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2017-07-21 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Contract clauses giving publishers the right to drop authors who act "immorally" are becoming more common, The Bookseller has been told. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2017-07-18 00:00:00 UTC ]
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In his keynote at Frankfurt's The Markets, the arch-agent Andrew Wylie will address the forces of nationalism: 'The publishing world is in opposition.' The post Andrew Wylie and the Internationalist Imperative: ‘A Profound Moral Question’ appeared first on Publishing Perspectives. Continue reading at Publishing Perspectives
[ Publishing Perspectives | 2017-06-16 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The furthest thing from Ben Blum’s mind in August 2006 was that his 19-year-old cousin Alex Blum, whom Ben was very close to and admired for his loyalty, his intelligence, and respectful nature, would become an armed bank robber in Tacoma, Wash. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2017-06-01 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Speaking at Hay festival, writer accuses ‘aggregating news agencies’ of not taking responsibility for their contentStephen Fry has called for Facebook and other “aggregating news agencies” to be reclassified as publishers in order to stop fake news and online abuse spreading by making social... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2017-05-29 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Jessica Kingsley is to publish a "very timely" book exploring the need for moral courage in public life this summer. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2017-04-22 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Part of the reason Stranger Things hit Netflix like an atom bomb last year is because it was an aggressive assault of 1980s nostalgia. Homages to John Carpenter and Steven Spielberg lay just around every spooky corner. Perhaps the most specific nod the show made to that era, however, was the big... Continue reading at Fast Company
[ Fast Company | 2017-04-19 00:00:00 UTC ]
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