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'How Music Got Free' tells the story of record profits to online pirates
The music industry hit its peak in 1999, making $39 billion in global profits. After that, everything changed when the MP3 was created and groups of mostly teenagers in underground online chat rooms started sharing copyrighted music online for free.
The new documentary "How Music Got Free" tells the story of how these online pirates and a man who worked inside a CD pressing plant and smuggled out CDs before their release dates changed the music industry forever. The recording artists and industry executives were slow to understand what was happening and how to stop it.
The two-part documentary premieres June 11 on Paramount+. Director Alexandria Stapleton joins Here & Now's Tiziana Dearing.
This segment aired on June 11, 2024.