| Napster was an online music file sharing service created by Shawn Fanning and operating between June 1999 and July 2001 while he was attending Northeastern University in Boston. It was the first widely-used peer-to-peer sharing service, and it made a major impact on how people, especially university students, used the Internet. Its technology allowed music fans to easily share MP3 format song files with each other, thus leading to the music industry's accusations of massive copyright violations. Although the original service was shut down by court order, it paved the way for decentralized peer-to-peer file-sharing programs, which have been much harder to control. The service was named Napster after Fanning's nickname.
Napster's brand and logo continue to be used by a pay service.
Shawn Fanning along with volunteer Sean Parker first released the original Napster in June of 1999. Fanning wanted an easier method of finding music than by searching IRC or Lycos. John Fanning of Hull, Massachusetts, who is Shawn's uncle, ran all aspects of the company's operations for the first year from their office on Nantasket beach. The final agreement gave Shawn 30% control of the company, with the rest going to his uncle. It was the first of the massively popular peer-to-peer file sharing systems, although it was not fully peer-to-peer since it used central servers to maintain lists of connected systems and the files they provided, while actual transactions were conducted directly between machines. This is very similar to how instant messaging systems work. Although there were already media which facilitated the sharing of files across the Internet, such as IRC, Hotline, and USENET, Napster specialized exclusively in music in the form of MP3 files and presented a friendly user-interface. The result was a system whose popularity generated an enormous selection of music to download.
Although the recording industry denounced music sharing as equivalent to theft, many Napster users felt justified in using the service for a number of reasons. Many believed that the quality of new albums had decreased by the mid-1990s, with the typical bestselling album containing only one or two good songs bundled with many low-quality "filler" songs. People praised Napster because it enabled them to obtain hit songs without having to buy an entire album. Napster also made it relatively easy for music enthusiasts to download copies of songs that were otherwise difficult to obtain, like older songs, unreleased recordings, and songs from concert bootleg recordings. Some users felt justified in downloading digital copies of recordings they had already purchased in other formats, like LP and cassette tape, before the compact disc emerged as the dominant format for music recordings.
Irrespective of these justifications, many other users simply enjoyed trading and downloading music for free. With the files obtained through Napster, people frequently made their own compilation albums on recordable CDs, without paying any royalties to the artist/composer or the estate of the artist/composer. High-speed networks in college dormitories became overloaded, with as much as 80% of external network traffic consisting of MP3 file transfers. Many colleges blocked its use for this reason, even before concerns about liability for facilitating copyright violations on campus.
The service and software program were initially Windows-only, but in 2000 Black Hole Media wrote a Macintosh client called Macster. Macster was later bought and designated the official Mac Napster client, at which point the Macster name was discontinued.
In the 2003 remake of The Italian Job, a flashback depicts Shawn Fanning (playing himself) stealing the program from a computer expert played by Seth Green while the latter is napping, providing a humorous folk etymology for the name. such as Grokster, Aimster (later Madster), and Blubster. This has also been extended to Friendster, a site which vaguely recalls Napster's community-building features.
An episode of animated television series Futurama, I Dated a Robot, centres on the illegal distribution of robotic celebrity clones over the Internet. The organization responsible for this was thought to be named "Nappster," a reference to Napster. It was later revealed, however, that the full name was "Kidnappster" with a piece of tapestry covering "Kid" from the logo.
In the South Park episode Christian Rock Hard, Stan, Kyle, and Kenny illegally download music for inspiration for their band 'Moop.' They are then caught by police and shown the "horrors" music pirating does to musicians. After seeing this, they start a strike and famous musicians/bands join them, among them are Rancid, Master P, Ozzy Osbourne, Meat Loaf (all four also playing in Chef Aid), Blink-182, Horny Toad, Metallica, Britney Spears, Missy Elliott, Alanis Morissette and The Lords of the Underworld (minus Timmy).
In a 2001 episode of the animated Disney series, The Proud Family, Penny becomes addicted to a site named EZ Jackster, a parody of Napster that allows music to be downloaded illegally.
A tribute song to file sharing "Napster and Gnutella" was written to the tune of "Puff, the Magic Dragon" and distributed via OpenNap servers during the lawsuit.
Tom Smith wrote a song called "I Want my Music on Napster".
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