In this article from our best developers we will talk about Napster, the first major peer-to-peer network for sharing MP3 files. On the day Napster was created, record companies began to have an itch that they tried to stop, but never succeeded.
What is Napster?
To understand Napster well, we must know that it is a peer-to-peer network (P2P), which is a network of computers connected via the Internet that act simultaneously as clients and servers (even if they are not), thus the network takes advantage of each machine's resources for its operation. Thanks to this combined use, files can be exchanged directly between interconnected computers.
Napster took this technology and adapted it so that platform users could exchange and search for music in MP3 format quickly and easily. (It also uses local servers.)
In the eighties and early 90s, you would go to a friend's house to listen to the new Rolling Stones album and before leaving you'd give him a blank cassette to make a copy. Napster brought this concept into the world of computing, globalizing and universalizing the idea of sharing music.
The history of Napster
Shawn Fanning was known at Northeastern University in Boston for taking long naps. But at age 18, together with Jordan Ritter and Sean Parker, and after many sleepless nights, they launched in 1999 the first version of the platform to find music, which they named Napster in honor of Fanning's hobby (Napster means 'nap addict' in English).
Although there were already tools for sharing files (IRC, Hotline, and USENET), Napster presented songs through a simple, minimalist interface (which was copied by other platforms), designed by architect Jordan Mendelson. And so users began to collect music of all styles. (On a rocker's computer you could find a Roxette song.)
The paradigm shift caused by Napster
The concept of musicians living off album sales and not doing so many world tours came to an end with the appearance of Napster. We could say that Napster and the platforms that followed it changed the paradigm for musicians and record labels, and forced the big music stars to tour the continents to maintain their standard of living.
This great change angered record labels and major musicians a lot. Such is the case of Metallica, who upon discovering a demo of their track I Disappear on Napster's network, decided to sue in 2000. That same year, Madonna, after having flirted with the platform, decided to take legal action against Napster when her single Music leaked online.
After a large number of lawsuits (including the RIAA) for copyright infringement, and after reaching the highest instance of the United States Court of Appeals, which required the service to monitor and block access to songs that violated copyright, Napster was unable to comply with this requirement and decided to close its services in 2001. After implementing a commercial subscription service, they decided to declare bankruptcy in 2002.
Napster today
In September 2008, the company was acquired by Best Buy (an electronics store), and in 2011 Best Buy and Rhapsody reached an agreement to merge Napster with Rhapsody.
If you enter Napster's website from any Latin American country, you'll see the Movistar logo, due to the agreement between Napster and Grupo Telefónica (Telefónica Digital) in 2013, giving that company exclusive distribution of the music streaming service through a commercial subscription. Although Napster's current spirit is totally different from its beginnings, the platform was a pioneer in changing the paradigm of the music industry.
