WHO: Author Robert Levine
Music and Technology Journalist, Former Executive Editor of Billboard
WHAT: Will Discuss His New Book
Free Ride: How Digital Parasites Are Destroying the Culture Business and
How The Culture Business Can Fight Back
WHEN: Tuesday November 8, 2011 at Noon
WHERE: USC/Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism
Annenberg Room 207
About Free Ride
On the Internet, “information wants to be free.” This memorable phrase shaped the online business model, but it is now driving the media companies on which the digital industry feeds out of business. Publications are pressured to give away content; music sales have fallen by more than half since file-sharing became common; movies still in theaters are available for free online; and publishers have been forced to take a stand on the price of digital books. As profits tumble, declines in investment and quality become inevitable.
Free Ride moves from the corridors of Congress, which passed the law that unwittingly legalized YouTube, to the dorm room of Shawn Fanning, who founded Napster; from bargain-pricing dramas involving iTunes and Kindle to Google’s fateful decision to digitize first and ask questions later. Levine charts how the media industry was taken for a ride and suggests innovative ways it can resist the pull of zero. Fearless in its reporting and analysis, Free Ride is the business history of the decade and a compelling call to action.
About Author Robert Levine:
Robert Levine has been covering pop culture, technology, and the awkward dance between them for 15 years. Most recently, he was the executive editor of Billboard, charged with running the influential music business trade magazine. He has also been a features editor at New York magazine and Wired. His first job was at HotWired.com, the Web publication of Wired, where he was hired several months after it sold the first banner ad on the Internet.
His writing has appeared in Vanity Fair, Fortune, Rolling Stone, and the arts and business sections of the New York Times. He has offered commentary on the media business for CNN, CNBC, and VH-1, and spoken at the CMJ music conference and the World Copyright Summit in Brussels. He holds a B.A. in politics from Brandeis and an M.S.J. from Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism.
NorthStar Entertainment is working in association with Jaybird Communications on media for this appearance.
