How Music Got Free: A Story of Obsession and Invention

When CDs first came out, the promise was “Perfect Sound Forever”. However, viewed differently, CDs were a “maximalist repository of irrelevant information, most of which was ignored by the human ear.”Research into hearing showed inherent flaws that make it possible to record high-fidelity music with very small amounts of data. This is because the human auditory system discards most of the data anyway.The other consequence of the reduced size needed for high-fidelity music, was that the whole process of pressing millions of compact discs and selling them through stores, could be avoided. It was possible to save everything you might wish to hear in a single electronic database that could be accessed as needed.After decades of research into acoustic physics and human anatomy, it was now possible to combine these insights with basic principles of information theory and complex higher mathematics. In the mid-80s, at the Fraunhofer Society, (a German research organization,) the young and brilliant Karlheinz Brandenburg, was leading a team doing just this. Essentially, Brandenburg had produced a compression algorithm that would reduce the data requirement to one-twelfth the size of a CD, with no loss in the quality a person could hear.In 1987, Fraunhofer committed to creating commercial products based on Brandenburg’s algorithm. The products would be able to be used to both stream and store music.History has shown that universal standards are not always based on the best technology, but on the aggressiveness of the technology owners. This has been true for the AC/DC “Current Wars” of the late nineteenth century, and to the VHS-Betamax battle of the 1980s.In five straight head-to-head competitions for the standards for digital FM radio, interactive CD-ROMs, Video Compact Disc (the predecessor to the DVD), Digital Audio Tape, and the soundtrack to over-the-air HDTV broadcasting, mp3 lost to its competitors. The regulatory committees in each of these categories favoured mp2 despite the fact that mp3 offered substantial improvements in audio quality.At the opposite side of the music industry were those who recorded and produced the CDs. By 1994 their revenues had tripled to above $2 billion.At the same time, the Fraunhofer team were attending industry trade shows across Europe and America to promote the mp3 standard. Philips was backing the mp2, and at the trade shows the mp2 booths were three times the size of those of mp3. Then an independently refereed head-to-head listening test between the mp2 and mp3, judged mp3 to be significantly better, again. This attracted two clients, Telos, the first enterprise-scale customer and the National Hockey League for whom the mp3 had been specifically calibrated to the sound of the fast action of the game.In 1993 Intel had introduced its powerful new Pentium chips, the first processors capable of playing back an mp3 without stalling. The new generation of hard drives were coming out with what was then enormous storage capacity of nearly a gigabyte that could store almost 200 songs.Other new technologies enabled consumers to create their own mp3 files, then play them from their home PCs. “January 20, 1995 (was) the official start date of the mp3 revolution in North America.”AT&T and Thomson acted as the corporate sponsors of the mp3, and by late 1995 they had invested more than a million dollars in the project. With the file compression capability of the mp3, it was soon possible to download music directly over the Internet, and dispense with the compact disc entirely.Mp3 had been the leading technology of its kind in the world, and was producing substantial earnings. The format war was over, mp3 had won. However, the mp3 was caught between a music industry that wouldn’t license the technology without a critical mass of mp3 players, and the electronics industry that wouldn’t manufacture the players without a critical mass of mp3 users.Piracy had always been a problem for the music industry ever since people were able to duplicate audio cassettes and CDs. The ability to put music on websites and underground file servers across the world, led to an explosion of the number of mp3 files in existence. College students filled their hard drives filled to capacity with pirated mp3s.The stellar earnings of the biggest recording companies in the world in the last part of the 20th century, were disrupted by Shawn Fanning, an 18-year-old Northeastern University dropout. He developed a new piece of software to up- and download pirated music using mp3, that he called Napster. Almost immediately, the freely available Napster became one of the most popular applications in software. By early 2000 there were almost twenty million users, and by mid-year over 14,000 songs were being downloaded every minute.The Recording Industry Association of America’s CEO Hilary Rosen, understood the danger and the potential of digital technology. She privately pushed for Napster and the major labels to cut a deal, but the industry chose to “sue mp3 out of existence.” The industry won against Napster, but not against mp3, which continued to grow. The industry had won the wrong lawsuit.Napster had made file sharing easy. Previously you could find apps on the internet, but they were difficult to use, limiting the number of participants. Using Napster, anyone could type the word “mp3” into Yahoo!, and have a hard drive full of pirated albums in minutes.In late 2001, the success of the iPod caught everyone by surprise, including Apple. The firm had underestimated the volume of pirated mp3s available. Apple actively encouraged paid, legitimate downloading, but landed up making money from the illegal activities of Napster.In 2002 the music industry’s losses were the largest in American history. Eventually, with little help from the recording industry, the iTunes Store was established to sell songs for 99 cents. As the iPod became ubiquitous, the mp3 was no longer seen as inferior to the compact disc, and iTunes produced a seamless Web sales experience. Steve Jobs promised the recording industry 70 cents of each dollar for every mp3 song downloaded.By the end of 2010 the recording industry contracted to less than half its 2000 size. In 2012, North American sales of digital music surpassed sales of the compact disc. After 17 years of psychoacoustic chaos, only a third of the U.S. music industry’s income still came from physical album sales, and slightly more globally. In 2013, revenues from subscription and advertiser-supported streaming passed $1 billion for the first time. However, artists with millions of plays, only earned royalties in the hundreds of dollars.“How music got free” – is a multifaceted tale with many winners (the consumers,) and many losers (the recording companies and the artists.) The book has been thoroughly researched, and is an enjoyable read.Readability Light -+--- SeriousInsights High ---+- LowPractical High ----+ Low*Ian Mann of Gateways consults internationally on leadership and strategy and is the author of Strategy that Works.

This was one of those books I purchased (for Kindle) as an impulse buy, but found to be a really good one. Stephen Witt does a great job telling the story of the mp3 and how it revolutionized (for better and worse, I suppose) the music industry. He does this through very well-informed alternating chapters told from the vantage point of different characters - one of the inventors of the mp3, a hacker from North Carolina, a music executive at Universal Music, and some bit players like Steve Jobs and a representative from the Recording Industry Association of America.In brief, the story is this: a fledgling technology, the mp3, is basically losing out to the industry's preferred mp2 and the Compact Disc... until music hackers discover the amazing potential for ripping music from CDs and keeping them on their computer. This, obviously, affects the music industry, who never anticipated (or didn't know how to think about) the mp3's rise to prominence. So, the music industry needed a way to stop this technology or incorporate it into their fold, which eventually they did with the rise of the mp3 player (which had questionable legality in its early years, as mp3s were primarily associated with hacking). Now, the music industry deals almost exclusively in selling digital media via the mp3, but even now, the music industry is a shell of its former self in terms of sales. The mp3 basically nudged them to monetize in less profitable ways; not only do they sell songs cheaper than via compact disc (and can't rely on selling whole albums), but venues like Spotify monetize music by selling advertising along with it.So, this is a story ab out how the mp3 had huge effects all over the music industry; not bad for a technology that was largely declared dead in the water during its development. One thing Witt does really well - besides pacing the story like an expert journalist - is that he doesn't moralize too much. Was the mp3's rise because it allowed easy theft so that people could enjoy the fruits of others' labor for free? Or was it a natural and understandable reaction to the cartelization of the music industry (which, during the mp3's rise, was found guilty of collusion to keep the price of CD's up)? Witt doesn't say. If I had to guess, he sympathizes more with the latter (and suggests in the intro that he was one of the kids who got all his music by file sharing services). But he seems to keep the story a bit neutral, allowing each to come to their own conclusions (or read their existing conclusions in).This was just a FUN book to read. It is about entrepreneurship, economics, hacking, and technology's capability to disrupt (not to mention... MUSIC) all in one. I found it gripping. Any music fan - and especially those who think the medium is the message - will too.

From the extensive list of sources at the back of the book, economic journalist Stephen Witt has set out to create the definitive accounting of the shift from physical (or paid) to digital (or “free”) music – but this fascinating read is no encyclopaedia. Witt interviews or profiles a record executive, an accidental pirate and the team behind the mp3 in an essential read for lovers of music, technology and the intersection between them. Despite me being a couple of years younger than Witt and the first wave of music pirates, it felt a bit like reading my own history too – although nothing made me feel older than realising just how many years ago Napster was shut down.

This is a really interesting and well written book on the impact of the MP3 and it's becoming a means of free music distribution. The author basically focuses on the inventor of the MP3, one music business CEO (Morris) and some low level workers at a CD plant that leaked erly releases. While each story is spell binding it does not really address the fact that many people in regard to music do not want to understand the concept of intellectual property. Indeed music being a non material object is not understood to have to be translatable into income to the performers for them and the industry to survive. The industry also failed to foresee that digitalization meant eventual endless copying. Also there is a lot of mystery surrounding a certain Kali who we do not know who he is and he also probably did not play as important a role as the author believes. Nevertheless an interesting study into how people do not see their wrongdoings.

This book is all about how the mp3 file format for compressed audio took over the world, eventually leading to music becoming, effectively, free.On the surface, this may sound like a dull topic. However, the book reads like an action thriller. It's fast paced, skips forwards and backwards in the narrative and generally keeps you turning pages without popping up for air.And the thing is, it's all based on true events. We learn all about the CD pressing plants and how discs were smuggled out and released before being officially on sale. We learn all about the nascent torrent sites plus a little bit about Justin Frankel of Reaper and WinAmp fame. And then there is the tale of the record label moguls, the lawsuits against individuals for copyright infringement. Breath-taking stuff.And did I mention a complete potted history of how rap became a dominant musical force?. . . . . it's all true!A superb book and heartily recommend to anyone who like a thriller about a file format!

Some books are hard to put down. Some - like this one - are impossible to put down. If you have an interest in music and technology, this will keep you coming back for more. The author is even-handed and shows equal disdain for a music industry that couldn't see how the seeds of its demise were being sown in the late 90's and for the MP3 geeks who were sowing the seeds. The unfairness of the American legal system doesn't miss his scrutiny either.The list of sources is as impressive as it is comprehensive. If you've ever wondered why "no-one buys CDs any more", you should read this.

The book started off a bit slow but about two chapters in, I was always eager to get back to it after putting it aside. Having grown up during the years that took music consumption from tapes to streaming services with my attention focused mainly on acquiring the music itself, learning about what was going on in the music industry around this time was indeed fascinating! The three perspectives applied in the book for narration were well-chosen by the author, and he paints a comprehensive picture giving one an opportunity to reflect on one's own place in it.