How Music Got Free televises the music streaming revolution

A new docuseries called How Music Got Free explores the massive disruption of digital pirating and how it almost ruined the record business — but also birthed a digital music revolution.

The two-part Paramount+ documentary is narrated by Method Man, and features interviews with Eminem, 50 Cent, Timbaland, Steve Stoute, and even the music pirates themselves.

Today on Commotion, culture writer Niko Stratis and musician Rollie Pemberton join guest host Amil Niazi to chat about the doc and the story of how music changed forever.

We've included some highlights below, edited for length and clarity. For the full discussion, listen and follow Commotion with Elamin Abdelmahmoud on your favourite podcast player.

Amil: Niko, we know the effects now, but it's been many decades since this phenomenon first began. Why do you think they're telling this story now?

Niko: I think the context is almost starting to be washed away the further we get from this source, right? We can look at Napster, LimeWire and Soulseek, all these programs as the genesis of all these things that were to come — that sort of nascent era of the internet. But we're so far afield from that now that you do almost get this idea, especially the younger generation, that music is sort of a commodity that is borderline free for them, and not really understanding how we got here puts that art in a precarious place.

Artists fighting for better compensation and all of these conversations that are very real and very urgent right now, the context for those is kind of missing a little bit. So it's important to put it in perspective and to go back and say, this is where we were and this is what happened…. So now more than ever, it feels very prescient.

Amil: Yeah, Gen Z will never know what it's like to carry a bag full of CDs around.

Niko: We should force them to. You know when you get a bag of flour and you're like, "This is a kid, care for it."? Everybody should have one stack of CDs to carry everywhere they go, or a Case Logic CD wallet.

Amil: Rollie, can we get into some of the ways that this movement actually did affect the music industry?

Rollie: For sure. I think the illegal downloading is what led to things like Apple Music and iTunes, where they saw that this was actually a pretty good idea. People wanted faster distribution of music online. People wanted to be able to download whatever they wanted, so let's make it easy for them. And the industry did a really good job of reorienting the flow of the technology, because it was originally just pirates, nerds, random school students. And then they flipped it around, and now we have streaming companies like Spotify that are partly owned by the labels. So they found a way, and now the music industry is doing okay again.

Amil: Yes. Well, TBD, I guess. Rollie, going back to you as an artist, how do we ensure that artists are protected despite the fact that things have really sort of irrevocably changed?

Rollie: Artists have a different problem now. It used to be we were scared of our albums leaking, but now I'm kind of like, damn, I wish people wanted to download my music so bad that they would leak it and steal it. Now it's just hard to get it in front of people and in the attention economy, actually have people listen to your record. So I don't know what the answer is with streaming because it's a thorny issue for other reasons. But I do think we have to go back, mentally, to that spirit of downloading and that era where everyone was obsessed with downloading as much music as they possibly could, because I think that was a really good time for music fans.

Amil: Niko, what do you think about how we protect artists in this new age?

Niko: That is sort of the missing middle, right? We don't really talk enough about how we are supporting artists in this landscape where it's harder than ever to make an income from your music being available online. There's not a digital storefront the way there used to be. It is a lot of streaming, and streaming revenue's harder than ever for artists to access. So how are we doing this in a way where we can uplift careers, but also make sure that everybody has access to music?

These things are all really important, and whenever people talk about it they always talk about, "Oh, the labels need to be making more money," or whatever. Like, no, we need to be bolstering artists' careers in order to be able to lift up the system and ensure that it can keep going, because otherwise these things are going to start to dwindle, and the 1 per cent of artists that we always talk about are going to be the only ones that are really left. That's kind of a sad musical landscape, right? We need to make room for everybody. So how do we do it in an egalitarian way? The best time that we had for that is when feral music stans were stealing whatever they could.

You can listen to the full discussion from today's show on CBC Listen or on our podcast, Commotion with Elamin Abdelmahmoud, available wherever you get your podcasts.

Panel produced by Ryan Chung.