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Although Napster today is a well-known, fully legitimate online music service that provides music lovers with access to over two million digital music files, there was a time not too long ago when Napster invoked a much different meaning. Napster in the 1990s was a humble little piece of web software that would soon go on to change the face of the Internet. Napster itself was created by a 19 year old college student Shawn Fanning who thought that it would be cool if people could share all the files on their computer’s hard drive. Makes sense, right? What’s the use of having lots of cool files, if you don’t even use most of them? But other people might be interested in them, so it makes sense to share them. From this simple premise, Napster was launched.

Napster technology made this possible through Peer to Peer (P2P) network file sharing. P2P essentially allowed Internet users to open up their hard drives—and all the content stored within—to other Internet users. People could upload files onto their computer and make them available through the P2P network. And people could download from a veritable feast of music files by conducting a simple search using the Napster software. Many Napster users claimed that the service worked very similarly to a search engine. They simply typed in the name of the song, artist, or album that they were interested in, and waited for the hits to pop up. Then they could download the results to their computer. The music files uploaded onto and downloaded from Napster and other P2P network file sharing systems were usually high quality MP3 music files that retained a high degree of sonic quality, even after several turns of being downloaded and passed back and forth between users. The high quality sound of the MP3 files on Napster and other similar sites caused critics to take notice. Napster made it easier for music piracy, already a problem on the Internet, to flourish.

Just how did Napster make piracy more of an issue in the 1990s? Although music piracy has long been a problem, P2P file-sharing software like that created by Fanning made it even easier for music pirates to download and copy music for profit. Before P2P programs like Napster came along, music pirates would have to search through hundreds of web pages to find viable material to copy. When Napster and similar P2P sites came along, would-be or well-known pirates could simply conduct a quick search, and download to their heart’s content. With advanced software systems, music pirates could also easily create highly professional looking CDs that could, without much scrutiny, pass for the real thing.

Several high profile music artists, major record labels, and the Recording Industry Association of America took the issue of piracy seriously. They all sued Fanning’s relatively humble Napster enterprise, arguing that the P2P software was lending itself to massive copyright violations and infringement. The legal issue mostly revolved around whether Napster could be held responsible for music files that never actually ran through the Napster system. The music files were being shared between the computers of its users, and not actually being stored on Napster’s own systems. Eventually, Napster lost after a protracted legal battle, and the site’s network was forced to shut down. Now, after being bought by Roxio, it is a well-established digital music pay service with a strong commercial presence on the Internet and in retail stores, where Napster accessories and music cards can be purchased. Music piracy is still an issue, and the Internet continues to facilitate those who seek to make profits from pirated sources.