Rock of Pages: Ripped: How the Wired Generation Revolutionized Music

I’ve made no bones about my fandom for Sound Opinions, the program the Chicago Tribune‘s Greg Kot does with Jim DeRogatis of the Chicago Sun-Times. Kot’s new book, Ripped: How the Wired Generation Revolutionized Music, is much like Kot’s voice on that program — measured, calm, and full of well-reasoned thoughts and comments.

Ripped follows the rise of media piracy. Starting with the college students who first flocked to Napster, and continuing up through artists like Dan Deacon and Greg Gillis (Girl Talk) who’ve made their names via file-sharing, the book manages to provide a chronological version of events, while at the same time drawing comparisons between the Grateful Dead’s tape trading fans and Deacon’s BitTorrenting peers.

Kot also pulls off an amazing feat. Most books about Internet file-sharing are dated months before they hit the shelves. Kot’s Ripped reads like a multipart newspaper article, and everything in the book is as up-to-date as any blog. There’s a necessary amount of technological detail, but he manages to walk the line between vague generalities and overly complicated techno-babble about file formats and the like. If you’re unfamiliar with what the difference between MP3 bitrates of 128 and 320 is, you’ll know, and understand, but it’s not like Kot’s detailing the code that makes BitTorrent work.

Granted, this is not a book for anyone who regularly reads Wired or listens to Kot’s radio program. If you’ve got an RSS reader loaded with blogs, you know everything that’s in this book. Ripped does a fine job of presenting all the facts in the file-sharing debate in one volume, but doesn’t really bring anything new to the argument. If you want something to explain why you can get the complete Fleetwood Mac discography for your mom by this afternoon, this is what you want.