Summary of Stephen Richard Witt's How Music Got Free

By IRB Media

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Book Preview:

#1 The death of the mp3 was announced in a conference room in Erlangen, Germany, in the spring of 1995. The technology had failed to secure a single long-term customer. Its inventors knew it was over. They were running out of state funding, and their corporate sponsors were abandoning them.

#2 The body of research the committee was dismissing went back decades, and engineers had been theorizing about something like the mp3 since the late 1970s. Now, from this murky scientific backwater, something beautiful had emerged.

#3 In the digital age, information is stored in binary units of zero or one, termed bits, and the goal of compression is to use as few of these bits as possible. CD audio used more than 1. 4 million bits to store a single second of stereo sound. Seitzer wanted to do it with 128,000.

#4 The auditory system cancels out noise following a loud click. You can assign fewer bits to the first few milliseconds following the beat. Relying on decades of auditory research, Brandenburg was able to figure out how to compress the audio and preserve fidelity.

• Language: English
• Publisher: IRB Media
• Release date: May 13, 2022
• ISBN: 9798822515451

IRB Media

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Insights on Stephen Richard Witt's How Music Got Free

Contents

Insights from Chapter 1

Insights from Chapter 2

Insights from Chapter 3

Insights from Chapter 4

Insights from Chapter 5

Insights from Chapter 6

Insights from Chapter 7

Insights from Chapter 8

Insights from Chapter 9

Insights from Chapter 10

Insights from Chapter 11

Insights from Chapter 12

Insights from Chapter 13

Insights from Chapter 14

Insights from Chapter 15

Insights from Chapter 16

Insights from Chapter 17

Insights from Chapter 18

Insights from Chapter 19

Insights from Chapter 20

Insights from Chapter 1

#1

The death of the mp3 was announced in a conference room in Erlangen, Germany, in the spring of 1995. The technology had failed to secure a single long-term customer. Its inventors knew it was over. They were running out of state funding, and their corporate sponsors were abandoning them.

#2

The body of research the committee was dismissing went back decades, and engineers had been theorizing about something like the mp3 since the late 1970s. Now, from this murky scientific backwater, something beautiful had emerged.

#3

In the digital age, information is stored in binary units of zero or one, termed bits, and the goal of compression is to use as few of these bits as possible. CD audio used more than 1. 4 million bits to store a single second of stereo sound. Seitzer wanted to do it with 128,000.

#4

The auditory system cancels out noise following a loud click. You can assign fewer bits to the first few milliseconds following the beat. Relying on decades of auditory research, Brandenburg was able to figure out how to compress the audio and preserve fidelity.

#5

Brandenburg’s method was complex, and required several computationally demanding mathematical operations to be conducted simultaneously. 1980s computing technology was barely up to the task, and algorithmic efficiency was key. He needed a virtuoso, a caffeine-addled superstar who could translate graduate-level mathematical concepts into flawless computer code.

#6

In the world of audio, Grill stood out. He was Bavarian, and had a relaxed, wonkish nature. He was the sort of person who, had he lived in America, might have