An excellent documentary of a tale that may initially conclude as the music industry's final straw with musicians and fans alike. Unfortunately, author John Alderman might have jumped the gun with timing the release of this book, because the war over 'all things MP3' is just now starting to heat up. With that being said, "Sonic Boom" is surely your best bet for research on music copyright and the conflict over its piracy. More importantly, however, this book explicitly warns the music industry about repeating mistakes of the past: ignoring technological advances, and the Internet's definite position in the future of music sales. It covers the twists and turns of the over-celebrated court case against Napster, while underlining how the collapse of traditional economics of the music industry was not completely inevitable. Alderman repeatedly returns to the notion that if different decisions had been made at particular moments, it might have been possible to preserve copyright within cyberspace. According to the author, the failure to create a virtual marketplace for selling music was a fatal error. Instead of using all their lobbying power and legal resources to attack the Net, the industry's corporate leaders should have been working out qualms in developing technologies, so that the fan and musician would prosper in today's rapid Internet growth. However, copyright laws were strengthened, Napster was prosecuted, and blocking software was developed to "kill" Peer2Peer sharing. Alderman argues that despite these triumphs, all these efforts only delay the inevitable.
Good book, quick read, and definitely a few years ahead of its time. As legal action against copyright infringement and Peer2Peer sharing heats up ($17,000 settlements among colleges and their students), intelligence of John Alderman's caliber is as necessary today as it has ever been.