Games - Napster

	Games - Napster

: For Napster, Inc. (formerly Roxio), and the paid Napster music service see Napster (pay service).

Napster is an online music service which was originally a file sharing service created by Shawn Fanning. Napster was the first widely-used peer-to-peer music 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 P2P file-sharing programs such as Kazaa, Limewire, and Bearshare, which have been much harder to control. Napster continues to live on with pay services today. However, the popularity and innovation of the first Napster has made it a legendary icon in the computer world.

Origins

Shawn Fanning along with volunteer Sean Parker first released the original Napster in June of 1999 while Fanning was attending Northeastern University in Boston. 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. 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. Additionally, the price per track had greatly increased as an increase in the overall price of CDs was coupled with a decrease in the number of tracks included with each CD. 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 copyright holder (which was usually one of the big record labels). 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.

Artist legal challenges

Heavy metal band Metallica discovered that a demo of their song "I Disappear" had been circulating across the Napster network, even before it was released. This eventually led to the song being played on several radio stations across America. The band responded in 2000 by filing a lawsuit against the Napster service. A month later, rapper Dr. Dre filed a similar lawsuit after Napster wouldn't remove his works from their service after he issued a written request. Seperately, both Metallica and Dr. Dre later delivered thousands of usernames to Napster who they believed were pirating their songs. Metallica asked their group of users to be banned from the service, while Dr. Dre again asked for his songs to be removed from the service. Napster complied with Metallica's request, but not Dr. Dre's; both the suits continued. A year after they began, Napster settled both lawsuits, but this came after being shutdown by the Ninth Circuit Court in a separate lawsuit from several major record labels (see below).

Also in 2000, Madonna became irate when one of her singles leaked out on to the web and Napster prior to its commercial release, causing widespread media coverage. Napster use peaked with 26.4 million users worldwide in February 2001.

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for Napster ]

Games - Napster

Origins

Artist legal challenges

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