The Modern Musician Show with Colin Thomson

040: Stephen Witt: What Happens When an Entire Generation Commits the Same Crime? Author of "How Music Got Free"

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Stephen Witt was born in New Hampshire in 1979 and raised in the Midwest. He graduated from the University of Chicago with a degree in mathematics in 2001. He spent the next six years playing the stock market, working for hedge funds in Chicago and New York. Following a two-year stint in East Africa working in economic development, he graduated from Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism in 2011. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.

 

About The Book:

How Music Got Free is a riveting story of obsession, music, crime, and money, featuring visionaries and criminals, moguls and tech-savvy teenagers. It’s about the greatest pirate in history, the most powerful executive in the music business, a revolutionary invention and an illegal website four times the size of the iTunes Music Store.

 

 

Key Take Aways:
  • Almost all of the pirated music over the last 10 years can be traced back to one of three people
  • The effort to get leaked music out, before it was even available for purchase, was very purposeful on the part of a few guys close to the music industry, who had access to this material
  • Digital piracy really started to run rampant when the technology of bit torrent came into general use, which allows the digital information of the copyrighted material to be spread everywhere, so that it does not all have to reside in one server
  • The music industry was so addicted to the tremendous profits that were being made off of the CD that they were unwilling to accept the trend of the mp3, which provided far less room for profit, and their unwillingness to accept the future led to the upsurge in piracy
  • When the FBI started to investigate the rings and circles of groups who were leaking the content, they found it very difficult, because most of the interactions took place in chat-rooms and private forums, and no one really knew much of anything about anyone else involved
  • Motivation to participate often came, and continues to come, from the desire to be part of some sort of closed-off, special, not open to the public group. These groups of piraters really fulfilled this desire
  • There were so many inefficiencies in the music industry, that cutting away that extra fat was a necessity. However, it ended up being a very painful process, in many ways due to the music industries unwillingness to change with technology
  • Musicians have to be more creative now than ever, when it comes to building a following, and eventually monetizing their music
  • Keep in mind that any time you sign with a label, you are limiting your options as far as the possible ways to promote your music, because you will be bound to that label by whatever contract you sign
  • But, it seems that it still is very difficult to really get to the top 1% without the help of a label, eventually, in the process. The difficult question is at what point it is best to take this step

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    Mentioned:

    "The Creative Apocalypse That Wasn't" by Steven Johnson (article appearing in the New York Times)

     

    Learn more about Stephen Witt:

    The Book: "How Music Got Free: The End of an Industry, the Turn of the Century, and the Patient Zero of Piracy" by Stephen Witt

    Website: StephenWittBooks.com

    Twitter: @stephenwitt

    FaceBook: FaceBook.com/StephenRWitt

    Instagram: @StephenWittBooks

     

     

    Featured Artist: Atlas Genius

     

    Song: "Molecules"

     

    Learn more about Atlas Genius:

    Website: AtlasGenius.com

    Instagram: @AtlasGenius

    FaceBook.com/AtlasGenius

    Twitter: @AtlasGenius

    SoundCloud

    YouTube

     

     

    If you would like to be considered for featured artist, email music submissions [email protected]

     

    Shownotes: modernmusician.co/040

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    The Modern Musician Show with Colin ThomsonBy Colin Thomson interviews musicians and entertainers like Bryan Callen and Bobby Owsinski , to get advice on what musicians should be doing today. Tim Ferriss, Seth Godin, and Justin Timberlake should also come on the show, as well as Taylor Swift, Justin