"Steve Knopper’s book “Appetite for Self-Destruction: The Spectacular Crash of the Record Industry in the Digital Age” is an entertaining, well-written attempt to chronicle the economic decline of record companies, but his thesis echoes conventional wisdom that numerous tech-friendly journalists have expressed in recent years. It is heavy on schadenfreude and ridicule of record executives and light in grappling with the major questions raised by the digital world’s damage to the economic value of all intellectual property. The damage to record companies coincided with a convergence of the interests of venture capitalists, avaricious Internet entrepreneurs and techie philosophers and fans, who combined to create a popular philosophy that brandished the phrase “information wants to be free” like a sword of futuristic wisdom. The Internet explosion made this argument irresistibly hip to many young opinion leaders, and the enormous profits of the Internet bubble gave political power to the companies that were benefiting." - Steven Perez from Bookmarklet

I've really gotta pick up this book. - Steven Perez

I used to go to school with the author. - Derek Coward