This volume, the first in a three-volume compendium, examines the origins and first wave of digital disruption in the music industry, beginning with the CD and the technological conditions that enabled the shift from physical formats to fully digital consumption. It explores how MP3 compression, broadband adoption, and P2P networks ignited an unprecedented crisis for record labels and reshaped consumer expectations. By analyzing Napster, second-generation file-sharing systems, and the industry’s legal countermeasures, the volume shows how structural change became unavoidable. It also documents how Amazon, Apple, Google, and social media platforms emerged as powerful intermediaries, redefining distribution, discovery, and monetization of music. Combining economic, technological, and cultural analysis, this volume provides a foundational understanding of how digital networks dismantled and rebuilt the recorded-music value chain.

Peter Tschmuck is Associate Professor of Cultural Institutions Studies at the Department of Popular Music (iPOP), mdw—University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna (Austria). He researches the music economy and also teaches at WU Vienna and the SAE Institute in Vienna.