Stephen Witt: ‘Music piracy is illegal – but morally, is it wrong?’

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

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Alice Sebold Apologizes to Man Wrongly Convicted of Raping Her

Anthony Broadwater spent 16 years in prison after the author identified him as her attacker in an assault she described in her memoir “Lucky.” Continue reading at The New York Times

[ The New York Times | 2021-11-30 23:51:15 UTC ]
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Alice Sebold's memoir, 'Lucky,' pulled as she apologizes to man wrongly convicted of her rape

Sebold apologized to Anthony Broadwater, convicted of her rape in 1982 and exonerated last week. Her publisher announced a pause to consider revisions. Continue reading at Los Angeles Times

[ Los Angeles Times | 2021-11-30 22:41:08 UTC ]
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Library of Congress to Replace ‘Aliens,’ ‘Illegal Aliens’ Subject Headings

The decision was announced on November 12, at the regularly scheduled meeting of the LC's Policy and Standards Division, which maintains Library of Congress Subject Headings and comes after a long-running advocacy campaign—and a conservative political backlash against the effort. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly

[ Publishers Weekly | 2021-11-12 05:00:00 UTC ]
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Amid Radical Changes, David Edmonds Examines ‘Future Morality’

In his new book, 'Future Morality,' David Edmonds collects writings of contemporary philosophers focused on the moral issues we may face in the near future, including changes to medicine, communication, and humans’ relationship to machines. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly

[ Publishers Weekly | 2021-11-10 05:00:00 UTC ]
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YouTube admits deleting Novara Media the ‘wrong call’

The independent publisher was reinstated on YouTube following a backlash, but questions remain. Continue reading at Media Week

[ Media Week | 2021-10-26 15:58:53 UTC ]
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Questlove puts his obsessive music expertise on full display

In “Music Is History,” Questlove examines pivotal songs from each of the last 50 years, creating a hybrid of American history, musicology and memoir. Continue reading at The Washington Post

[ The Washington Post | 2021-10-20 13:45:00 UTC ]
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Scholastic sniffs out two more from Stephen and Anita Mangan

Scholastic UK has picked up a two more middle-grade titles from brother-sister duo Stephen and Anita Mangan.  Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2021-10-20 02:47:45 UTC ]
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Goldman Sachs, Ozy Media and a $40 Million Conference Call Gone Wrong

The digital media company has raised eyebrows for its claims about its audience size for years. Then came the strange voice on the phone. Continue reading at The New York Times

[ The New York Times | 2021-09-27 02:20:46 UTC ]
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Listen to the musical stylings of Shel Silverstein and Johnny Cash.

This is a Shel Silverstein appreciation post. He has given us so much over the years! Most famously, we have The Giving Tree, a twisted children’s book about a benevolent tree that gives up its whole self for an unappreciative little boy. By extension, we can also thank Shel Silverstein for Ryan... Continue reading at Literrary Hub

[ Literrary Hub | 2021-09-24 14:00:42 UTC ]
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Algoriddim's djay iOS app uses Shazam to recognize and sync with live music

Algoriddim has been working closely with Apple for years on its djay apps and regularly appears in the company's keynotes. Now, it's integrating another Apple product, Shazam, into its latest iOS djay app with the release of iOS 15. The new feature lets you can scan your surroundings and... Continue reading at Engadget

[ Engadget | 2021-09-20 14:00:01 UTC ]
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How the Australian and the IPA’s attack on the ABC went horribly wrong | The Weekly Beast

A report into how many times the ABC mentioned News Corp or Murdoch had some embarrassing flaws. Plus: campaign to release Myanmar fixerThe Australian newspaper often gleefully reports the work of the rightwing thinktank the Institute of Public Affairs in an effort to undermine the ABC.Like the... Continue reading at The Guardian

[ The Guardian | 2021-09-10 02:44:13 UTC ]
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Stephen Graham Jones’s ‘My Heart Is a Chainsaw’ will delight horror movie fans

The novel is a paean to slasher films, a devotional about an acolyte written by an obsessive. Continue reading at The Washington Post

[ The Washington Post | 2021-08-30 09:42:40 UTC ]
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Stephen B. Oates, historian and biographer of Lincoln and King, dies at 85

After publishing well-received historical studies, his career was tainted by charges of plagiarism. Continue reading at The Washington Post

[ The Washington Post | 2021-08-28 08:22:08 UTC ]
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White Rabbit scores 'stellar' collection on pioneering women in music

White Rabbit has acquired This Woman’s Work: Essays on Music, an essay collection edited by founding member of band Sonic Youth Kim Gordon, and former music journalist Sinéad Gleeson. Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2021-08-26 12:37:21 UTC ]
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AI startup Boomy looks to turn the music industry on its ear

Music publishers have been on a spending spree in recent years, buying the catalogs and copyrights for songs of famous musicians at a frantic pace. Last December, Universal Music Publishing Group bought up Bob Dylan’s entire discography in a deal estimated at more than $300 million. Similarly,... Continue reading at Engadget

[ Engadget | 2021-08-22 16:00:37 UTC ]
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404 Ink 'strikes jackpot' with music writer's fiction debut

Indie 404 Ink has landed The Arena of the Unwell, the fiction debut of music writer Liam Konemann, due to publish next April.  Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2021-08-16 02:03:01 UTC ]
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An all-Black musical was a Broadway smash — and then was mostly forgotten

“Shuffle Along” brought Black and White audiences together, writes Caseen Gaines. Continue reading at The Washington Post

[ The Washington Post | 2021-07-30 12:00:00 UTC ]
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Barack Obama’s summer reading pick ‘Intimacies’ is an unsettling novel about moral dilemmas

Katie Kitamura’s new novel follows an interpreter in The Hague who’s involved with a married man. Continue reading at The Washington Post

[ The Washington Post | 2021-07-13 05:17:24 UTC ]
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Laura Lippman’s suspense novel ‘Dream Girl’ takes its cue from Stephen King

In Lippman’s 25th novel, a bedridden novelist is haunted by a woman who claims to be one of his characters. Continue reading at The Washington Post

[ The Washington Post | 2021-07-11 12:00:00 UTC ]
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Yusef Komunyakaa again brings his distinctive music to the page

The Pulitzer-winning poet’s latest work, “Everyday Mojo Songs of Earth,” showcases his nimble touch with form, rhythm and theme. Continue reading at The Washington Post

[ The Washington Post | 2021-06-29 14:00:00 UTC ]
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