Robert Levine

Robert Levine is the author of Free Ride, which the New York Times Book Review called “a book that should change the debate about the future of culture.” The book, his first, was also praised byBusinessweek, Fortune, and the Financial Times.

He has covered pop culture, technology, and the awkward dance between them for 15 years. Most recently, he was the executive editor ofBillboard; he has also been a features editor at New York magazine and Wired. His first job was at HotWired.com, the Web publication ofWired, where he was hired several months after it sold the first banner ad on the Internet.

His writing has appeared in Vanity Fair, Rolling Stone, and The New York Times. He has offered commentary about the media business for NPR, the BBC, and CNN, and given keynote speeches at the World Copyright Summit in Brussels, the Canadian Media Production Association’s Prime Time conference, and other music and media business events. He holds a B.A. in politics from Brandeis and an M.S.J. from Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism. He now covers the culture business from New York and Berlin.