Source: Paramount+ / Paramount+
A new documentary on the unknown story behind the rise of digital piracy produced by Eminem & LeBron James debuts in June.
Source: Paramount+ / Paramount+
One of the more obscured stories behind the rise of digital piracy and how it transformed the music industry into what it is today, is on display in a new documentary series, entitled How Music Got Free. The two-episode series is based on the best-selling 2016 book by Stephen Witt. Eminem and LeBron James are executive producers along with Maverick Carter, Paul Rosenberg, and Steve Stoute. The series is directed by Alexandria Stapleton, a veteran who recently was at the helm of the Amazon Prime documentary Reggie, about New York Yankees Hall-of-Famer Reggie Jackson.
How Music Got Free focuses in part on the life of Dell Glover. Glover, a man from Shelby, North Carolina, worked at the Universal Music compact disc pressing plant and used his access and ingenuity to leak music as part of the disruption that upended the music industry in the late 1990s and early 2000s. The series shows how his efforts and others led to the rise of Napster and other downloading sites. As Stapleton expresses in the press release, “The real visionaries, rebels, and anti-heroes of the era were a ragtag group of young people hidden behind online aliases. They leveraged tech and proved to the world how fans really wanted to consume music in the 1990s, 2000s, and beyond. The music industry was too busy raking in profits from CDs to see the digital tsunami that was about to swamp them. When the flood came, the industry didn’t build better boats, they blamed the pirates riding the wave and tried to put them in federal prison.”
How Music Got Free is narrated by Method Man, and features interviews with Eminem, 50 Cent, Steve Stoute, Timbaland, Jimmy Iovine, Rocsi Diaz, Rhymefest, and more. Also involved in the series’ production is Warner Bros. Unscripted Television/Telepictures, in association with SpringHill, Interscope Films, and Shady Films. How Music Got Free will make its premiere on Paramount Plus on June 11.
Source: Paramount+ / Paramount+