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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The c.e.o. of Faber has released a statement supporting Booker Prize shortlisted author Tsitsi Dangarembga, ahead of her trial in Harare today (Friday 18th September). Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2020-09-17 14:45:34 UTC ]
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Jonathan Cape has acquired Swedish musician Neneh Cherry’s memoir, A Thousand Threads, in a 14-way auction. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2020-09-16 11:56:22 UTC ]
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A federal judge in Washington has issued a preliminary injunction against a major e-book piracy operation known as the KISS Library, after the operators of the site failed to show up at a hearing or to file any response to a lawsuit filed in July by the Authors Guild, Amazon Publishing, Penguin... Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2020-09-01 04:00:00 UTC ]
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Kellie D. Brown writes that music brought some hope to Nazi concentration camps. Continue reading at The Washington Post
[ The Washington Post | 2020-08-28 12:00:00 UTC ]
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In Hope Larson’s graphic novel “All Together Now,” an eighth-grade singer-songwriter struggles to find her voice after the band she started breaks up. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2020-08-15 14:56:16 UTC ]
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Review of ‘Hatemonger: Stephen Miller, Donald Trump, and the White Nationalist Agenda’ by Jean Guerrero Continue reading at The Washington Post
[ The Washington Post | 2020-08-07 12:00:30 UTC ]
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Stephen Hawking's Brief Answers to the Big Questions (John Murray) has rocketed to the top of the Amazon Charts' Most-Sold: Non-Fiction chart, as Val McDermid's A Place of Execution (HarperCollins) cleaved into the Most-Sold: Fiction number one. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2020-08-04 16:57:32 UTC ]
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Stephen King is publishing a new crime novel, Later, with Titan Books imprint Hard Case Crime in March 2021. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2020-08-04 01:17:41 UTC ]
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Bonnier Books UK is launching a new music publishing list, with Pete Selby joining as publishing director. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2020-08-03 13:16:22 UTC ]
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Lana Del Rey is releasing her forthcoming poetry collection, Violet Bent Backwards Over The Grass, on Tuesday, July 28 in digital form. In case you prefer your celebrity poetry spoken aloud, though, she has also recorded an audio version of the book, which will be released on vinyl, CD,... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2020-07-24 16:04:22 UTC ]
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Hachette UK has created a new "Guide to Publishing toolkit" in partnership with the Stephen Lawrence Charitable Trust, to make careers in the industry more accessible to young people from disadvantaged backgrounds. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2020-07-17 15:02:01 UTC ]
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Music streaming service Deezer has partnered with the International Booker Prize to produce a soundtrack for each shortlisted book. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2020-07-13 04:08:44 UTC ]
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Bonnier Books UK's Templar will publish Raising the Roof: The Colourful Characters of Classical Music by composer Jack Pepper. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2020-07-12 20:00:10 UTC ]
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Top-visibility Authors Guild members join with Amazon Publishing and Penguin Random House in a suit alleging KISS is pirating a wide range of books. The post Grisham, Child, Amazon, PRH Headline Lawsuit of KISS Library for Piracy appeared first on Publishing Perspectives. Continue reading at Publishing Perspectives
[ Publishing Perspectives | 2020-07-08 14:52:12 UTC ]
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Former Mexican diplomat Jorge G. Castañeda warns that the U.S. is starting to crumble. Continue reading at The Washington Post
[ The Washington Post | 2020-07-03 12:00:00 UTC ]
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The new startup Koji wants you to be able to remix digital content without having to code. Is it the next evolutionary leap after TikTok? While most social platforms have found new ways to democratize content creation, TikTok represented a paradigm shift in how content can be repurposed.Read... Continue reading at Fast Company
[ Fast Company | 2020-06-30 09:00:34 UTC ]
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By bringing moral exactitude to a story long silenced for American profit, “A Silent Fury” joins that most vital of canons, the literatures of witness. Continue reading at The Washington Post
[ The Washington Post | 2020-06-18 06:26:49 UTC ]
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Alexandra Petri’s new essay collection makes our current sociopolitical dumpster fire not just very funny but stingingly poignant. Continue reading at The Washington Post
[ The Washington Post | 2020-06-15 08:18:15 UTC ]
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Husband and wife duo Polly Samson and David Gilmour of Pink Floyd have teamed up to work on the audiobook of Samson's novel A Theatre for Dreamers. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2020-06-11 22:58:40 UTC ]
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When libraries around the US began closing their doors due to the coronavirus pandemic, the Internet Archive (IA) responded by creating a “National Emergency Library,” a collection of 1.4 million books from its free e-book repository Open Library. Pu... Continue reading at Engadget
[ Engadget | 2020-06-01 19:33:58 UTC ]
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