Time trip - sound recording history - Brief Article

Current Events, Oct 10, 2003

* The debate over file sharing is only the latest episode in the ever-changing, but relatively short, history of the recording industry.

* 1857--Edouard-Leon Scott de Martinville, a French inventor, built a phonoautograph. The machine traced wavy lines, representing sound, on a rotating cylinder. Unfortunately, he could not make the device play back recorded sounds.

* 1877--U.S. inventor Thomas Edison tested a recording machine that he called a phonograph Edison shouted "Mary had a little lamb" into the machine, which played back the words in a recognizable way. It was the first time the human voice had been recorded. Edison's phonograph (see ad above) was simply built. Vibrations from the voice of a person speaking into a mouthpiece caused a needle to move and scratch a piece of tinfoil wrapped around a rotating cylinder. To play back the sound, the needle was once again run around the cylinder, causing mechanical vibrations. The machine transformed the vibrations into electrical signals and then into sound waves.

* 1887--Emile Berliner, a German inventor in the United States, produced the gramophone. The device played phonograph discs, which were later called records.

* 1948--Columbia Broadcasting System introduced the first 12-inch vinyl records that played at 33 1/3 evolutions per minute, allowing for 23 minutes of music per side.

* 1982--The first digital 5-inch compact discs were sold. By 1988, CD sales topped record sales.

* 1999--Shawn Fanning, a 1-year-old college student founded Napster, allowing for the easy transmission and location of MP3 files. The RIAA sued Napster for copyright violation later that year. In 2001, a federal court ordered Napster to shut down.