Book Review of
"Appetite for Self-Destruction: The Spectacular Crash of the Record Industry in the Digital Age" by Steve Knopper, Via New York Times:
When Labels Fought the Digital, and the Digital Won:
"Mr. Knopper, a contributing editor at Rolling Stone, provides a wide-angled, morally complicated view of the current state of the music business.
He doesn’t let those rippers and burners among us — that is, those who download digital songs without paying for them, and you know who you are — entirely off the hook.
But he suggests that with even a little foresight, record companies could have adapted to the Internet’s brutish and quizzical new realities and thrived...
It’s too bad his interesting arguments and observations are wedged into such an uningratiating book. The prose in “Appetite for Self-Destruction” is undercooked, packed with clichés (the stakes are always high, people constantly take the fall, one-two punches are thrown) and awkward descriptions...
What’s more, Mr. Knopper apparently did not get access to many of the major players in this tale, including Mr. Jobs. His account rehashes material covered in earlier, better books, including “Hit Men” by Fredric Dannen and “The Perfect Thing” by Steven Levy."
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/07/books/07garn.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=when%20labels%20fough%20digital&st=cse
