How Music Got Free: What Happens When an Entire Generation Commits the Same Crime? - Hardcover

"Enthralling... A terrific, timely, informative book... Witt is an authoritative, enthusiastic, sure-footed guide, and his research and his storytelling are exemplary... How Music Got Free stands comparison to The Social Network" (Nick Hornby Sunday Times)

"Incredible, possibly canonical. . . . A story that's too bizarre to make up, but needed to be told. . . . Even if you're not a music geek, How Music Got Free is one of the most gripping investigative books of the year." (Vice)

"Like Bond meets 28 Days Later... Witt tells a thrilling tale, with a cast of music biz bigwigs, painstaking German boffins, and pirates and petty thieves. Witt’s writing reminded me of all my favourite modern essayists: Remnick, Franzen and John Jeremiah Sullivan. I loved it" (Colin Greenwood, Radiohead)

"Brilliant... Like many great works of investigative journalism it makes it clear that this is one of those stories you think you know until you realise you don’t" (John Niven The Spectator)

"A fantastic book and a scintillating achievement" (Felix Martin, author of Money: the unauthorised biography)

"[How Music Got Free] has the clear writing and brisk reportorial acumen of a Michael Lewis book" (Dwight Garner New York Times)

"Reads like an underworld crime story... Engaging even on the tech side of the story... Witt is concise and very funny" (Bob Stanley New Statesman)

"Closely reported and brilliantly written ... highly entertaining... Exemplary in its clarity... this story is full of surprises as well" (Steven Poole Guardian)

"This is the definitive history of a media revolution... I was hooked late into the night... There are lots of big lessons here... it is the story of all creative industries, and in the end, the internet itself" (Hugo Rifkind The Times)

"You need to get hold of Stephen Witt's jaundiced, whip-smart, superbly reported and indispensable How Music Got Free" (Washington Post)

For fans of The Social Network, the story of an accidental pirate, a mastermind, and a mogul.

How Music Got Free is a blistering story of obsession, music and obscene money. A story of visionaries and criminals, tycoons and audiophiles with golden ears. It’s about the greatest pirate in history, the most powerful executive in the music business, and an illegal website six times the size of iTunes.

It begins with a small-time thief at a CD-pressing plant, and a groundbreaking invention on the other side of the globe. Then pans from the multi-million-dollar deals of the music industry to the secret recesses of the web; from German audio laboratories to a tiny Polynesian radio station.

This is how one man’s crime snowballs into an explosive moment in history. How suddenly all the tracks ever recorded could be accessed by anyone, for free. And life became forever entwined with the world online.

It is also the story of the music industry – the rise of rap, the death of the album, and how much can rest on the flip of a coin. How an industry ate itself. And how the most successful music release group in history is one you’ve probably never heard of.

How Music Got Free is a thrilling, addictive masterpiece of reportage from Stephen Witt. It’s a story that’s never been told – but that’s written all over your hard drive.