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 ]
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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From Standard Digital: ‘Piracy discourages authors who want to make a contribution to society,’ says Kenya Publishers Association chief David Waweru. By Dennis Abrams | @DennisAbrams2 ‘Knowledge Lost to the Rest of Us’ t Kenya’s Standard Digital, Protus Onyango recently has reported on what the... Continue reading at Publishing Perspectives
[ Publishing Perspectives | 2017-04-12 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Hachette, in partnership with startup Novel Effect, has created an app that relies on voice recognition technology to sync music and sound effects to text, as it's read aloud from select picture books. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2017-03-13 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The Penderyn Music Book Prize has announced its 2017 shortlist which includes titles from music journalists Hattie Collins, Stuart Cosgrove and David Hepworth. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2017-03-09 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Waylon Jennings’s wife Jessi Colter, Steven Curtis Chapman, and Rory Feek are some of the singers sharing their life stories in titles publishing this season. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2017-03-08 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Neuroscientist and author of This Is Your Brain On Music Daniel Levitin talks about information overload. Neuroscientist and author of This Is Your Brain On Music Daniel Levitin talks about information overload.When it comes to music and the human brain, Daniel Levitin's... Continue reading at Fast Company
[ Fast Company | 2017-02-17 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Sir Elton John and Paul Rudnick are writing a Broadway musical based on Lauren Weisberger’s novel The Devil Wears Prada (HarperCollins). Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2017-01-28 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Influx Press is to publish Hold Tight, a book about black masculinity and Grime music written by Jeffrey Boakye, in July 2017. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2017-01-23 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Steven Hall, m.d. of science publisher IOP Publishing, is to join the Bloomsbury board as a non-executive director, replacing Faber m.d. Stephen Page, who stands down after three years. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2017-01-21 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Pearson's c.e.o. John Fallon has been forced to defend his position after admitting the company "got it wrong" last year, resulting in revisions to its 2017 forecast and dividend, and the withdrawal of its ambitious £800m profit target for 2018. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2017-01-19 00:00:00 UTC ]
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British music writer and political theorist Mark Fisher, also known as K-Punk, has died, aged 48. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2017-01-17 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Author E L James has reportedly been in talks with theatre bosses to turn Fifty Shades of Grey into a musical. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2017-01-17 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Simon & Schuster has given the Breitbart writer a $250,000 deal – so I decided the Chicago Review of Books would not cover any of its authors in 2017Last week, the literary world gasped when one of the largest publishers in the United States, Simon & Schuster, rewarded America’s most... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2017-01-04 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Stephen Lustig, business development director of marketing, sales and distribution company Eurospan Group, will be retiring at the end of December. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2016-12-17 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Sorry to be a grinch, but that viral Facebook post going around about a gift exchange is against the law. You've probably seen something like this in your newsfeed: Sometimes the message varies: You're sending a bottle of wine or a book or it includes the men on the holiday fun. But the gist is... Continue reading at Los Angeles Times
[ Los Angeles Times | 2016-12-15 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Hodder Children’s Books, part of Hachette Children’s Group (HCG), has bought the UK and Commonwealth rights to Charlie the Choo-Choo, the picture book written by Stephen King under the pen name of Beryl Evans. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2016-12-06 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Previewing the audiobook track at the FutureBook conference, we look at sales statistics and predictions from Michele Cobb at the Audio Publishers Association. The post Golden Headsets: Audiobooks’ Growth Is Music to Publishers’ Ears appeared first on Publishing Perspectives. Continue reading at Publishing Perspectives
[ Publishing Perspectives | 2016-11-28 00:00:00 UTC ]
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