About Napster
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 (or P2P) music sharing service, and it made a major impact on how people 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 are now used for many the same reasons and can download music, pictures, and other things. The popularity and repercussions of the first Napster have made it a legendary icon in the computer and entertainment fields.
Napster's brand and logo continue to be used by a pay service, having been acquired by Roxio.
Shawn Fanning along with friend Sean Parker first released the original Napster on June 1 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, struck an agreement which gave Shawn 30% control of the company, with the rest going to his uncle. Napster began to build an office and executive team in San Mateo, California, in September of 1999. Napster 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—directories, effectively—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 user-friendly interface. The result was a system whose popularity generated an enormous selection of music to download.
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. As a partial solution to this issue, Napster was used as a test case for the Abilene Network, the educational Internet backbone.
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.
The suffix "-ster" has become a popular component of the brand names of many Internet products, suggesting a peer-to-peer model, 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 organisation 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.
John Titor, a purported time traveller from the year 2036, says that Napster is still distributing music in his time.
In the South Park episode Christian Rock Hard, Stan, Kyle, and Kenny illegally download music from Napster 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 Elliot, Alanis Morissette and The Lords of the Underworld (minus Timmy).
In 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.
After a $2.43 million takeover offer by the Private Media Group, an adult entertainment company, Napster's brand and logos were acquired at bankruptcy auction by the company Roxio, Inc. which used them to rebrand the pressplay music service as Napster 2.0.
Although the central servers used by Napster made it a convenient legal target, the record industry failed to capitalize on the power vacuum left in its wake. The years between Napster's demise and the emergence of the iTunes Music Store as the first popular pay-service were squandered as the five major labels failed to agree on a single service or standard for online distribution, launching several mutually incompatible subscription services such as pressplay and MusicNet.
In the meantime, the peer-to-peer filesharing trend Napster started soon resumed, with new programs and networks picking up the torch. Unofficial Napster servers proliferated, aided by a program known as "Napigator", and a second generation of P2P protocols (including FastTrack and Gnutella) were quickly developed. Designed as decentralized networks, these have been much more challenging for copyright owners to pursue in the courts.
The ever-widening availability of broadband has made file sharing even more prevalent, since increasing download speeds mean the distribution of entire movies and other large files is possible. An emerging and cryptographically strong third generation of P2P protocols will be nearly impossible to interdict. In a very real sense, Shawn Fanning can be called the man who opened a Pandora's Box.
Napster's brand and logo continue to be used by a pay service, having been acquired by Roxio.
Shawn Fanning along with friend Sean Parker first released the original Napster on June 1 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, struck an agreement which gave Shawn 30% control of the company, with the rest going to his uncle. Napster began to build an office and executive team in San Mateo, California, in September of 1999. Napster 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—directories, effectively—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 user-friendly interface. The result was a system whose popularity generated an enormous selection of music to download.
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. As a partial solution to this issue, Napster was used as a test case for the Abilene Network, the educational Internet backbone.
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.
The suffix "-ster" has become a popular component of the brand names of many Internet products, suggesting a peer-to-peer model, 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 organisation 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.
John Titor, a purported time traveller from the year 2036, says that Napster is still distributing music in his time.
In the South Park episode Christian Rock Hard, Stan, Kyle, and Kenny illegally download music from Napster 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 Elliot, Alanis Morissette and The Lords of the Underworld (minus Timmy).
In 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.
After a $2.43 million takeover offer by the Private Media Group, an adult entertainment company, Napster's brand and logos were acquired at bankruptcy auction by the company Roxio, Inc. which used them to rebrand the pressplay music service as Napster 2.0.
Although the central servers used by Napster made it a convenient legal target, the record industry failed to capitalize on the power vacuum left in its wake. The years between Napster's demise and the emergence of the iTunes Music Store as the first popular pay-service were squandered as the five major labels failed to agree on a single service or standard for online distribution, launching several mutually incompatible subscription services such as pressplay and MusicNet.
In the meantime, the peer-to-peer filesharing trend Napster started soon resumed, with new programs and networks picking up the torch. Unofficial Napster servers proliferated, aided by a program known as "Napigator", and a second generation of P2P protocols (including FastTrack and Gnutella) were quickly developed. Designed as decentralized networks, these have been much more challenging for copyright owners to pursue in the courts.
The ever-widening availability of broadband has made file sharing even more prevalent, since increasing download speeds mean the distribution of entire movies and other large files is possible. An emerging and cryptographically strong third generation of P2P protocols will be nearly impossible to interdict. In a very real sense, Shawn Fanning can be called the man who opened a Pandora's Box.