The original software that changed the music industry was started by Shawn Fanning and Sean Parker because they were disgusted with the difficulty of finding music files on the Internet. The program they wrote, Napster, allowed people to log on and search for music files on other user’s computer, and then download them to their own computers. The program quickly gained popularity after its Spring 1999. College students were are the biggest user group of peer to peer file sharing programs because they usually have access to high speed internet connections, have an excess of time, and a lack of money. By the end of March 2000 many universities had banned its students from using Napster because they were overwhelming the campus servers.

During the Spring and Summer of 2000 a legal war was being waged against Napster, led by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and artist including Metallica and Dr. Dre. On June 26, 2000 Napster was first ordered to shut down and by March of the next year Napster was filtering all copyrighted material. On Oct. 31, 2000 Napster announces a partnership with German media giant, Bertlesmann AG, to develop a member-based program that would guarantee payment to artist. Napster finally reached an agreement with the artist paying them $26 million and a percent of future profits, but the free music that made it popular was not to be had from Napster again.

Even before the courts shut Napster down, there were other file sharing programs springing up over the Internet. Some of these include Kazaa and Gnutella. These programs don’t limit the file sharing to mp3 files, but practically any kind of file can be found and downloaded over the peer to peer networks. These newest peer to peer file sharing programs make it easier for users to get files that would normally have to be downloaded from IRC chat users.

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