On June 1, 1999, the music industry changed forever. On that date, Napster, a music sharing
platform designed by college student Shawn Fanning, was released. After its release, many students on the
Northeastern University campus began sharing music with one another free of
charge. After humble beginnings on
campus, Napster went on to record a registered user base of 80 million. Napster made it incredibly easy to download
mp3 files of any song of any artist, so long as another user on the network had
copies available to share.
Napster made use of a networking technology called
peer-to-peer file sharing protocol. This
technology is also referred to as P2P.
P2P allows for users on a network to share just about any kind of
digital media file with one another. Napster
popularized the technology and is now considered part of the first generation
of P2P. It utilized a central server-based
model, which is susceptible to “centralized shutdown”, according to the
Wikipedia article on P2P. P2P technology
now favors a model that does not need a centralized server to avoid this
problem. In addition, according to the
same Wikipedia entry, “in 2004, an estimated 70 million people participated in
online file sharing.” Today, P2P file
sharing protocol BitTorrent accounts for anywhere between 43% and 70% of all
Internet traffic.
The economic impacts of file sharing sites like Napster are
hotly debated, as well as their legality.
Indeed, Napster found itself in a hotbed of legal trouble quickly after
being released, and just 2 years after its initial release, it was forced to
shutdown due to a court injunction.
While some claim that free file sharing can actually increase revenue of
artists due to increased exposure, many artists, including Metallica, Dr. Dre,
and Madonna, and studios staunchly oppose free P2P file sharing. They cite revenue losses sustained after
people began to solely download free mp3s off P2P networks and not purchase CDs
or other albums. Radiohead, however, had
never hit the top 20 in the US before the release of Napster, which promoted
their music to the point where their album Kid
A topped the Billboard 200 sales chart in its debut week.
In it short life, Napster forever changed the way people
share data on the Internet as well as how people view paying for music, movies,
and software.
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