Napster: Meaning (information, definition, explanation, facts)

Napster is an online music service that was originally a file sharing service created by Shawn Fanning. Napster made a major impact on the Internet scene during the year 2000. Its technology allowed music fans to easily share MP3 format song files with each other, thus leading to massive copyright violations. The service was named Napster after Fanning's nickname.

The original Napster was first released in the fall of 1999. It was the first of the massively popular peer-to-peer file sharing systems, although it was not perfectly peer-to-peer since it used central servers to maintain the lists of connected systems and the files they provided, while actual transactions were conducted directly between machines. This is in fact very similar to how instant messaging systems work. Although there were already relatively popular mediums which facilitated the sharing of files across the internet, such as IRC, Hotline, and USENET, Napster was the first to specialize exclusively in MP3s. The result was a system which featured a large selection of music to download. This made it easy for the general public to obtain the music they wanted without going to a record store to buy an album of songs with only one or two hits and the rest "throwaway tunes". In other instances, people could obtain almost immediately songs they remembered hearing on AM radio but haven't heard in years, perhaps decades. They could also obtain unreleased recordings from bootleg albums, especially those from The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, and The Who, and even unreleased film soundtrack music from John Williams and Jerry Goldsmith.

With the files obtained through Napster, consumers could make their own compilation CD-Rs/albums for free--and essentially not pay one cent of royalties to the artist/composer or the estate of the artist/composer.

This raised the ire of several major recording companies, who almost immediately -- in December 1999 -- filed a class action suit against Napster. This gave Napster a great deal of publicity, and millions of users flocked to the service. In 2000 Madonna (singer) got into the mix when one of her singles leaked out on to the web prior to its commerical release causing widespread media coverage. Napster use peaked with 13.6 million users in February 2001 (source: comScore Media Metrix).

Supporters of Napster were puzzled at the time regarding the lawsuit. To them, it seemed that file sharing was a feature of the internet, and not Napster per se, Napster acting as essentially a search engine. Many argued any attempt to shut down Napster would simply lead to people using a different medium to exchange files over the internet (as has arguably happened with peer-to-peer software like Audiogalaxy, Morpheus, Gnutella, and KaZaA). Similarly many supporters of Napster were concerned about the media's constant use of the word "site" to describe the service (when it was a program not a website), a word which seems to imply that Napster was distributing files itself rather then facilitating people sharing them.

In July 2001, a judge issued an injunction ordering Napster's servers shut down to prevent further copyright violations. On September 24, 2001, the case was partially settled. Napster agreed to pay music creators and copyright owners $26 million in settlement of damages for past, unauthorized uses of music, as well as an advance against future licensing royalties of $10 million. In order to pay those fees, Napster attempted to convert their free service to a subscription system. A prototype solution was tested in the spring of 2002: the Napster 3.0 Alpha, using audio fingerprinting technology licensed from Relatable. Napster 3.0 was, according to many former Napster employees, ready to deploy, but it had significant trouble obtaining licenses to distribute major-label music.

On May 17, 2002, Napster announced that its assets would be acquired by German media firm Bertelsmann AG for $8 million.

Pursuant to terms of that agreement, on June 3 Napster filed for Chapter 11 protection under United States bankruptcy laws. On September 3, 2002, an American bankruptcy judge blocked the sale to Bertelsmann and forced Napster to liquidate its assets according to Chapter 7 of the U.S. bankruptcy laws. Most of the Napster staff were laid off, and the website changed to display "Napster was here".

In the time since the original Napster was shut down, several other peer-to-peer file sharing programs such as Morpheus and KaZaA have been released. These programs have overtaken Napster as the primary source for MP3 sharing fans to obtain the music they want. For over a year, it was likely that the death of Napster (in its original form) would only cause a temporary slowdown in the growth of file sharing according to file-sharing optimists.

The central servers used by Napster made it a convenient legal target (although a program known as "Napigator" allowed the Napster software to connect to any unofficial Napster server), as these clearly indicated the presence of illegal activity, thus making Napster guilty of negligence for not attempting to control the illegal activity. Other hybrid systems such as KaZaA and Audiogalaxy have also been hit by the industry, whereas true peer-to-peer systems such as Gnutella-based Morpheus and LimeWire have proven much harder for the music industry to shut down.

On June 25, 2003, in a landmark decision that forever changed the face of online music services and music piracy itself, the RIAA turned the tables not on the peer-to-peer services but on the computer users themselves and announced it would file civil lawsuits against them for engaging in illegal file sharing, and they made good on their word beginning in September of the same year.

Napster 2.0

Roxio Inc. bought the assets of Napster at its bankruptcy auction in 2002, with the intention of using these assets as the basis of a new legal online music service that would let users access music through a subscription or on a fee-per-song basis—and thus giving the record companies and the artists/composers (or their estates) the royalties they had been asking for. This service was confusingly dubbed "Napster 2.0", despite the fact that Napster Inc.'s now-dead version of Napster had actually been at version 2.0 for some years. It had a beta release in New York City on October 9, 2003, and went into full production on October 29. Napster 2.0 is not a peer-to-peer service, but aside from the name and logo this new version does contain some features (such as artist, album and song search) similar to those of the original Napster. It is one of several such services to arise in the wake of the success of Apple Computer's iTunes Music Store service.

On Monday, October 27, 2003, just 48 hours prior to the official launch of Napster 2.0, Napster posted a press release on their website stating that starting in November, people can buy Napster gift cards for $14.85 from Safeway, Rite Aid, CompUSA, Best Buy, and ExxonMobil. This card will have a scratch-off surface that will reveal a unique PIN that can be used with Napster 2.0 to give 15 credits for permanent download of music from the Napster 2.0 service. In another press release Microsoft announced that its new Microsoft Windows XP Media Center Edition 2004 will feature the Napster 2.0 service. Earlier in October, Napster and Samsung revealed the first Samsung Napster Player, which is currently available at electronic stores throughout the U.S. The press release also claims that Napster 2.0 supports all the leading digital music players currently released on the market, though it does not support the popular Apple iPod or iPod mini.

On February 23rd, 2004, Roxio announced that Napster 2.0 had sold 5 million tracks since its launch in October, 2003, and attracted roughly 1.5 million subscribers to its premium service. However, at this point the number sold was still far behind Apple Computer's iTunes Music Store, which by January 6, 2004 had sold over 30 million tracks. Analysts were further concerned when it came to light around February 23 that the Hewlett Packard (HP)-Apple deal to bundle iTunes with all new HP PCs in return for an HP-branded iPod had originally been Napster's deal, which was cancelled a few days before Napster 2.0's October 29 launch.

On May 20, 2004 Napster announced that it had set up a British service ahead of iTunes to compete with the British legal download market leader OD2 co-owned by Peter Gabriel. There was some concern by British consumer groups about the higher cost charged in the UK which the company attributed to higher record company wholesale costs and the British VAT.