What Happened to Napster?

Are you interested in the history of music downloading? Napster was an online music file sharing service that was created by a Northeastern student. The service was active from June 1999 to July 2001. However, due to various legal problems, the service had to be shut down.

Napster gave individuals access to a massive library of songs to search and download. It became a problem because users were downloading songs for which the artists never received royalties. In 2000, Metallica realized that a demo of one of their unreleased songs was on Napster. The song was “I Disappear.”

Since the song was circling around Napster, radio stations soon acquired a copy of it. The song was subsequently played on several radio stations before Metallica had even officially released the song.

Metallica then realized that the entire back catalogue of their studio material could be found on Napster. In 2000, Metallica filed a lawsuit against Napster. This was quickly followed by a lawsuit from Dr. Dre against Napster.

Dr. Dre had requested that Napster remove his works from the service. When they refused, he filed a lawsuit against them. A year after these lawsuits were filed, Napster settled these lawsuits. However, at this point, it was too late for Napster to survive.

What Was Napster?

Napster was first released in June of 1999. It was created by Shawn Fanning, a college student at Northeastern University. He spent most of his time during his first semester writing the code for the program instead of attending classes. He released it with Sean Parker, and Fanning’s uncle ran the company.

The purpose of Napster was to provide an easier way of finding music. Before Napster, most individuals found music by searching IRC or Lycos. Napster also provided a friendlier user interface for individuals.

The program specialized in MP3 files, and provided individuals with a massive library of songs to search and download. The service often had songs that were harder to locate, such as unreleased songs or live songs from concerts. It was the first extremely popular peer-to-peer file distribution system. Users appreciated the easier user interface, but the users also loved being able to download and trade songs for free.

Napster was also convenient because it could be used on either Windows, or Macintosh. The Macintosh version was written in 2000, and was originally called Macster. The program was originally written by Black Hole Media. However, Napster soon purchased this program and the Macster name was discontinued. Users who wanted to use Napster weren’t restricted to either Windows or Macintosh.

Other Lawsuits

So, then why was it too late for Napster to survive? At the same time that these lawsuits were filed, several record companies, such as A&M Records, filed a lawsuit against Napster for “contributory and vicarious copyright infringement under the U.S. Digital Millennium Copyright Act” (the case was called A&M Records, Inc. v. Napster, Inc.).

The plaintiffs specifically accused Napster of the following:

• Napster users were directly infringing the plaintiff’s copyrights
• Napster was liable for contributory infringement of the plaintiff’s copyright
• Napster was liable for vicarious infringement of the plaintiff’s copyright

The District Court sided with the plaintiffs, and Napster then appealed the case to the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. The Court affirmed the ruling of the District Court. However, the Court also stated that Napster could continue to exist if it monitored the activities of its users and blocked infringing material when it was notified of its existence.

Napster Shuts Down

Although Napster attempted to comply with the Court’s order, it found that it was too difficult to successfully monitor the activities of its users and it was unable to remove all the infringements in a timely fashion. In July 2001, Napster officially shut down the service. In 2002, Napster declared itself bankrupt. It subsequently sold all of its assets.