How music lost its value

A new documentary from Eminem explores how the internet changed music forever. And diving into a vintage collection of CDs reveals just how much we lost in the process.

A new documentary from Paramount+, How Music Got Free, tells the inside story of how albums shed their exoskeletons and became something more ethereal and less profitable. Produced by LeBron James and Eminem, who rode the tail end of the CD boom to stratospheric heights, the film explores the music industry’s spectacular implosion about two seconds later. But while it traces the overarching business story in forensic detail, How Music Got Free doesn’t quite capture what it felt like to be a music fan living through this extraordinary moment as it unfolded.