"Widespread
copyright infringement is like a generational shift and ignorance of existing
law, similar to massive experimentation with illegal drugs in the 1960s," says
Stephen Witt, author of How Music Got Free: The End of an Industry, The Turn of
the Century and the Patient Zero of Piracy. The book was named on the "Best of
the Year" lists of The Washington Post, Forbes, Slate, The Atlantic, Financial
Times and others.
In an interview with Reason TV, Witt discussed talked
about the quirky German engineers who invented the MP3, and why he thinks
they're hypocrites for claiming to be against piracy when they owe their own
personal fortunes to it.
Also discussed were the lawsuit which led to the
legalization of the MP3 player and the subsequent devastation to the industry's
bottom line, as well as the North Carolina factory worker who personally leaked
thousands of the biggest albums of the 2000s.
Runtime about ten and a
half minutes.
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