Napster - making piracy popular. (Week 3)

The second task for this week was to research an 'old' internet community/medium - one that has faded from popularity for whatever reason. Given the popularity of downloading media from the internet, I thought I'd take a look at Napster.

Napster was created by 19 year old college dropout Shawn Fanning, in 1999. It was a program that allowed users to transfer data (specifically .mp3 music files) between computers, and enabled them to find each other via a centralised directory. Basically, it gave users access to free music. While it seems obvious that this would have serious legal repercussions, John Fanning, Shawns uncle and co-owner, contacted lawyers in Napsters initial stages and obtained advice that gave him the confidence to keep going with the business - and that if they were sued, they'd have a good chance at winning.
Meanwhile, Napster was popular. In 2000 and 2001, some 60 million people around the globe were exchanging music, and in some university campuses in America, Napster was taking up 75-80% of their bandwidth.
Naturally, this level of popularity drew the eyes of artists whose songs were being freely given, and the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), who took Napster to court for copyright infringement. Then, in February of 2001, a judge ruled that Napster had to cease the distribution of copyrighted materials, and remove a list of over 250000 song titles. Despite this, in July, a judge further ruled that Napster had to block all files that infringed copyright, effectively shutting it down completely.

 Despite its fall, Napster had a huge influence on the way the web is used today. People from all over the world can, and still do, download .mp3 files from the internet, skirting the law and venturing into areas the record labels deem as 'piracy.' It inspired Limewire, a similar program that was similarly shut down due to legal action, and kicked off the age of media download from the internet and P2P file sharing.

References:
- 'This week in history: The death spiral of Napster begins' 2001, viewed 11 August 2011, http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/the-death-spiral-of-napster-begins

- Ante, S, 2000, 'Inside Napster,' Bloomburg Businessweek, viewed 11 August 2011, http://www.businessweek.com/2000/00_33/b3694001.htm

- McManus, S, 2003, A short history of file sharing, viewed 11 August 2011, http://www.sean.co.uk/a/musicjournalism/var/historyoffilesharing.shtm