On today’s show, our guest is Stephen Witt, author of How Music Got Free: The End of an Industry, the Turn of the Century, and the Patient Zero of Piracy (Viking, June 2015). Witt traces the lives of three men on all different sides of the music industry: the creator of the mp3, a music industry executive, and a factory worker who pirated more than 2,000 albums in the (relatively) early days of the Internet. Later in the hour, we talk to staff writer Josh Hrala about why it’s so hard—actually, impossible—to remember dreams.

Music this hour:

• “Soldiertype (militarised)” by Ketsa, from the album What’s Without’s Within
• “Elle va au Japon” by Nic Bommarito, from the album A Quiet Age
• “get out” by Jahzzar, from the album Sketches