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Show NAPSTAR: THE STORY BEHIND THE CONTROVERSY Katie Stahl only by network resources (Fanning 2000, 3). While college students originally adopted Napster, members ranged in age from ten-year-olds to my ninety-six-year-old grandpa. HOW IT ALL GOT STARTED Shawn Fanning, a nineteen-year-old college dropout from Northeastern University, originally founded Napster in May of 1999. The following account of Napster's invention comes both from Fanning's testimony given at the October 9, 2000 Judiciary Committee hearing and from an informal conversation I had with Shawn while he was in D.C. Shawn and his uncle were very close and in 1996, between his sophomore and junior years of high school, his uncle gave him a computer. Shawn soon became intrigued and spent more and more time on the Internet. When he started his freshman year at Northeastern in the fall of 1998, Shawn became bored with his entry-level computer classes and decided to write a Windows-based program on his own. He spent a lot of time gaining advice and knowledge from experienced developers in Internet Relay Chat (IRC) rooms. "Napster" was his nickname for his e-mail address and his user name in IRC rooms. One of his college roommates loved listening to MP3s and would frequently complain about the unreliability of the sites he would use. Shawn decided to design a real-time system for locating MP3 files. As opposed to traditional search engines, Shawn envisioned a system that would be powered by the users, who would select what they wanted to list on the index. When a user left the site, so did his or her list. Shawn also wanted to expand the program to include chat functions so that people could talk about their music. He quickly became absorbed in this project. He started writing the software and ordered books from the Internet to learn more. At this point Shawn dropped out of school in order to concentrate more fully on completing his program. At first he was not even planning on implementing the program. It was more a "proof of concept" for him, and he figured that if he could devise it, others could as well. Shawn could not believe that someone had not already done what he was doing. Towards the end, he started living in his uncle's old office, where he would scarcely eat or sleep. His entire existence was focused on creating this program. After he developed the software prototype, Shawn started sending it to his friends, who sent it on to more friends. They would give him feedback and he would work out the kinks. He received such overwhelming support that he decided to expand the system. Along with his uncle, Shawn incorporated the company in May 1999. After raising money from "angel investors," an early beta version of the software was released in the summer and quickly spread by word of mouth. In September of 1999, Napster, Inc. obtained office space in California and continued to grow steadily. In short order Napster became a household name and had fifty employees. One of these was the former Chief of Staff of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Manus Cooney, who I worked with while serving my internship, left the committee in December 2000 and became the Vice President for Corporate and Policy Development, where he represented Napster before Congress and in other situations as needed. THE TECHNOLOGY In order to have a clear understanding of Napster, one must understand the technology behind it and how it compared to conventional Internet use. Basically, Napster was a throw-back to the traditional structure of the Internet (Fanning 2000, 3). The Internet typically functions by large servers that house the information that is distributed. Instead of building servers, Napster relied on communication between personal computers. This technology, known as "peer-to-peer" technology, allows for a depth and scale that is virtually limitless (Barry 2000, 2). The music shared by users of Napster and other firms is in the form of MP3 files. An MP3 file is the standard form for the digital distribution of music. It stands for Musical Physical Three file, and provides a compressed format of musical data. In order for music to be at a downloadable speed, it has to be converted from a CD. People cannot simply download music from Napster or other companies onto CDs. They download the music onto their computer's hard drive, where the files can be opened and listened to from a net connection. If someone wants to make a CD out of it, they have to convert the MP3 file into a wave file and then send the wave file to a CD burner. What made Napster unique is that it did not host, post, or serve any music or MP3 files. Instead Napster provided software that allowed individual users to connect with each other so that they could share MP3 files stored on the hard drives of their individual computers (Fanning 2000, 2). This technology is what made Napster so controversial. Napster provided location information allowing a computer to connect to the other users and transfer the file from its current location. It was not in control of what people did with the music once they downloaded it. Since none of the information was stored in a central location, what was available on Napster was completely dependent on who was currently active on their computer and what they chose to share. At its peak, there were so many users on the site, both day and night throughout the world, that finding anything popular was practically guaranteed, and the range of lesser-known music available was practically limitless. Again, users were under no obligation to share any or all of their files. They chose what they wished to make available. While working on the Judiciary Committee, for example, we were allowed to download music from Napster, but we were not allowed to host any files due to security precautions. THE POTENTIAL OF PEER-TO-PEER TECHNOLOGY The peer-to-peer technology Napster developed is quite possibly what the future of the Internet holds. Napster's technology is not only important for music consumers, but for the 58 |