Speaker 1: Welcome to tex Stuff, a production of I Heart Radios
Speaker 1: How Stuff Works. Hey there, and welcome to tex Stuff.
Speaker 1: I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with
Speaker 1: iHeart Radio and I love all things tech. And you
Speaker 1: know what, guys, there was a time where I was
Speaker 1: absolutely enthralled with pirates, but those were pirates on the
Speaker 1: high seas. When I was in college, there was a
Speaker 1: totally different type of piracy that was running rampant across
Speaker 1: the networks, and that was the theft of intellectual property.
Speaker 1: So today we're taking a classic look at how Napster worked. Now,
Speaker 1: this episode originally published on April third, two thirteen. So
Speaker 1: let's listen to this classic episode of tech Stuff. Napster
Speaker 1: and Napster's Um, it's got a bad rap. It's kind
Speaker 1: of becomes synonymous with, at least the old Napster. The
Speaker 1: original Napster becomes synonymous with things like piracy. Although in
Speaker 1: the lawless days of the Internet when everyone just stole
Speaker 1: from Lars Ulric, Yes, in fact, he ended up delivering
Speaker 1: a lawsuit by hand too, so full of ire he was, Yes,
Speaker 1: he took this. I think I don't know. I don't
Speaker 1: know that I don't know that even a number of
Speaker 1: Metallica can carry a sixty thousand page maybe by hand truck,
Speaker 1: I'm not sure. I'm not sure by hand, but sure
Speaker 1: series of CDs. Yeah. So anyway, let's talk about Napster
Speaker 1: and what it was and what it is today, because
Speaker 1: it's it's definitely changed quite a bit. So it's a
Speaker 1: it's it's all about really it's all about music. It's
Speaker 1: technically it's about file sharing, but those files are were
Speaker 1: essentially music files MP three files. Napster limited itself to
Speaker 1: MP three files. Lots whether peer to peer sharing networks used,
Speaker 1: you know, you could you could get movies on there
Speaker 1: are all kinds of stuff, games, everything, any kind of file. Well,
Speaker 1: Napster was all about all about m P three's and
Speaker 1: and you have to understand, like the the days when
Speaker 1: we first start looking at this idea, that's way back
Speaker 1: in the late nineties. Back then, music was not something
Speaker 1: that you could easily get on the internet. And it
Speaker 1: was first of all, anything that was on a web
Speaker 1: page was MIDI based or whatever it was, or mod based.
Speaker 1: It was just it was not anywhere close to CD quality.
Speaker 1: We didn't have an iTunes store that kind of thing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there wasn't, you know, but there were people who they
Speaker 1: were then did I just say completely, I just said
Speaker 1: that when iTunes was founded, that's a different show. So anyway,
Speaker 1: there's a whole you know. iTunes for a long time
Speaker 1: was just a jukebox type of program where you would
Speaker 1: manage the music that you already had. It wasn't a
Speaker 1: store where you would buy new music. It was it
Speaker 1: was a management system. So really, at this time, the
Speaker 1: way you would get if you were someone who wanted
Speaker 1: to get a music file, you would essentially have to
Speaker 1: search around for someone who was hosting music files on
Speaker 1: a website somewhere and then download them. And these these
Speaker 1: websites were very much unreliable, and uh, this is what
Speaker 1: got a certain guy thinking about different ways of going
Speaker 1: about it. The guy's name was Shan Fanning. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: as he got his first computer and very shortly after
Speaker 1: that created napstairs. So that was yeah, it was within
Speaker 1: two years he had gone from getting his first computer
Speaker 1: to creating one of the most influential and notorious web
Speaker 1: services and programs of all time. Yeah. He got his
Speaker 1: computer from his uncle John Fanning, who ended up being Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: he he provided the seed money for for Napster in
Speaker 1: a couple of years. Yet he was also not just
Speaker 1: interested in programming right off the bat, but also interesting
Speaker 1: it an Internet Relay Chat i r S, which is,
Speaker 1: you know, one of many different protocols that allow you
Speaker 1: to communicate over the Internet and um in an instant
Speaker 1: instant messages. Yeah, exactly as opposed to like email or
Speaker 1: something along those lines. And he got interested in the
Speaker 1: field of Internet security. And uh. He described to himself
Speaker 1: at the time as a white hat, not a hacker.
Speaker 1: So the idea being that he was interested in finding
Speaker 1: ways to make internet security more robust, so in helping people,
Speaker 1: not not stealing from people, right like not like he
Speaker 1: might look at a system and say, oh, you have
Speaker 1: a vulnerability here, you need to patch it, as opposed to, oh,
Speaker 1: you have a vulnerability here, give me all your things. Um.
Speaker 1: That was kind of his his at least that's what
Speaker 1: he said, and I have no reason to doubt him. Um.
Speaker 1: But he met virtually a fellow named Sean Parker online
Speaker 1: in those days, and Sean Parker also becomes important in
Speaker 1: the Napster story. So in ninety eight, he was starting
Speaker 1: to think about this thing that music files. And by
Speaker 1: the way, this kid is a teenager. I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: if I'm using the word kid, it's not just because
Speaker 1: I use that word for everybody. It's because he was
Speaker 1: literally like seventeen to nineteen at the time. Yeah, he was.
Speaker 1: He was, well, that was when he was eighteen turning nineteen. Uh,
Speaker 1: and he he was a freshman at Northeastern University in Boston,
Speaker 1: and he knew that there were a lot of kids
Speaker 1: his age really interested in music and they really wanted
Speaker 1: to find more music. But again, it was really tricky
Speaker 1: to find it online because these websites that would host files,
Speaker 1: they wouldn't last very long. Maybe someone stops, stops monitoring
Speaker 1: it or maintaining it and the links are all dead,
Speaker 1: or because of high traffic, you know, everyone finds out
Speaker 1: that this is where this one file is, everyone goes there,
Speaker 1: and then it crashes the site. It was really really
Speaker 1: tricky to find a way to reliably get those music files.
Speaker 1: Also important to note in that was when the Digital
Speaker 1: Millennium Copyright Act went into effect. Yes, very important. That's
Speaker 1: a Congress enacted that and uh, that was that was
Speaker 1: essentially Congress's way of saying, we understand that intellectual property
Speaker 1: is important, that copyright is important, and that the Internet
Speaker 1: age has dramatically changed how easy it is to distribute
Speaker 1: material that is under copyright. So here are some rules
Speaker 1: to guide how we can how we can legislate this
Speaker 1: sort of stuff, and essentially criminalized the circumvention of any
Speaker 1: kind of digital rights management right measures. It also, however,
Speaker 1: created something called safe harbor, which was very important and
Speaker 1: would become extremely important in Napster's case. Safe harbor is
Speaker 1: a concept whereby it says, if your site or service
Speaker 1: is not actively engaged in copyright infringement, but the users
Speaker 1: are using your service in order to conduct copyright infringement,
Speaker 1: you yourself are not at fault. You cannot be held
Speaker 1: at fault for the behavior of your users because the
Speaker 1: users are behaving however they want to behave. You're providing
Speaker 1: a service. As long as your service is not actively
Speaker 1: meant to circumvent copyright protection or to distribute copyright right
Speaker 1: materials illegally, then you should be in the clear because
Speaker 1: you cannot be held responsible for what other people do.
Speaker 1: And that's an important concept. It's also one that ultimately
Speaker 1: you could argue was not held up in the case
Speaker 1: of naps. Yeah yeah, uh yeah. Other, while we're on
Speaker 1: the subject, other concept that became important in this argument
Speaker 1: was the Audio Home Recording Act of which said that
Speaker 1: you are allowed to make unlimited copies essentially of any
Speaker 1: CDs and cassettes that you own for personal use and
Speaker 1: for your friends, as long as you're not receiving compensation. Right.
Speaker 1: So again the idea being that if I own something,
Speaker 1: I can make a copy of it. Usually it's considered
Speaker 1: a copy for backup purposes. So for example, let's say
Speaker 1: I own a c D and I want to be
Speaker 1: able to make a second CD in case something happens
Speaker 1: that first one, because I mean I bought that c
Speaker 1: D I feel sets mine. Uh. And this this is
Speaker 1: this is something ye, something that the music industry was
Speaker 1: not so pleased about. I mean every industry. Whenever any
Speaker 1: sort of uh invention has come up that allows people
Speaker 1: to copy material some way, for instance, VCRs and DVRs,
Speaker 1: the various industries get very nervous about it because they're
Speaker 1: afraid that well for multiple reasons, but one of the
Speaker 1: reasons is they are afraid that that's going to impact sales.
Speaker 1: That means that you're going to end up distributing stuff,
Speaker 1: and then you cut out the person or entity that
Speaker 1: is in charge of distributing that, and then they lose
Speaker 1: the copyright and that you know, and that that paid
Speaker 1: to make this thing happen essentially, and that they're going
Speaker 1: to lose money. Yeah, it's a huge, huge thing. When
Speaker 1: VCRs came out in the in the early eightiest, not
Speaker 1: that I remember, But why are you looking at me, Lauren?
Speaker 1: Is it only because I'm your co host? Or is
Speaker 1: it because you actually know that I remember when VCRs
Speaker 1: came out. I'm gonna smile on her face, tells me
Speaker 1: the answer. All I need to know, folks, holl I
Speaker 1: need to know anyway. Um. But yeah, so so that
Speaker 1: that's kind of the state of digital copyright. So meanwhile,
Speaker 1: Sean Fanning is saying, maybe there's a better way of
Speaker 1: being able to find and get the music files that
Speaker 1: you really want, and he starts to come up with
Speaker 1: this idea where the idea would be to create a
Speaker 1: centralized server and that server's job would be to search
Speaker 1: for an index music files and uh, and the way
Speaker 1: it would work is that you would subscribe to the service. UH,
Speaker 1: you would essentially register yourself as a user with the service,
Speaker 1: and then as a registered user, you would get a
Speaker 1: folder that you would put on your hard drive, and
Speaker 1: that folder would be a share double folder. Anything you
Speaker 1: put in that folder could be seen by this service.
Speaker 1: The server, the the centralized server could see whatever you
Speaker 1: put in there. Now, in the case of Napster, we're
Speaker 1: talking MP three files. So if you put if you
Speaker 1: had MP three files already on your machine and you
Speaker 1: put them in this folder, it would mean that those
Speaker 1: would be discoverable by that centralized server. So someone else
Speaker 1: who registers with it wasn't called Napster yet, But when
Speaker 1: they register with the service and they search for a
Speaker 1: particular music file and you happen to have that music
Speaker 1: file in your folder, you're a link to. Essentially, your
Speaker 1: machine would pop up and the server would facilitate a
Speaker 1: connection between the person searching and your computer so that
Speaker 1: the file transfer could complete. So, Lauren, let's let's use
Speaker 1: We'll use ourselves as an example. Lauren. Let's say that
Speaker 1: you've heard about this band called Common Rotation. All right.
Speaker 1: Common Rotation fronted by Adam Bush, former actor in the
Speaker 1: Buffy the Vampire Slayer series. Right, he was Warren nerd
Speaker 1: of Doom So, Lauren, you've heard of common rotation, and
Speaker 1: you're thinking, I really want to hear this one song
Speaker 1: I've heard about that common Rotation does. It's called sit
Speaker 1: Down before I Fall Down. But uh, you know, I
Speaker 1: don't have access to a way of finding this this song.
Speaker 1: Otherwise I go in to Napster. It turns out that
Speaker 1: I Jonathan happened to have that song, and I have
Speaker 1: it in the share folder for Napster. And when you
Speaker 1: do the search, it put points a link towards my direction,
Speaker 1: towards my computer. You hit the download button. My computer
Speaker 1: uploads the file and your computer downloads the file, and
Speaker 1: it's a direct transfer between the two computers. The centralized
Speaker 1: server just acts as kind of a traffic monitor. Um.
Speaker 1: And the cool thing about this is that when my
Speaker 1: file gets to you, by default, it's going into your
Speaker 1: share folder. You can change those settings, or you could
Speaker 1: have changed those settings back in the day because the
Speaker 1: service doesn't exist anymore, right, Or you can pull it
Speaker 1: out of that share folder if you wanted to write,
Speaker 1: but you you don't. You don't have to share everything
Speaker 1: you get, but if you did, that would mean that
Speaker 1: now there's another instance of that file that there's two locations,
Speaker 1: so that if you can't if you have trouble accessing
Speaker 1: the first location, or if out yeah, or if I'm
Speaker 1: not even online, like if if my computer is off,
Speaker 1: you cannot connect my computer. But if Lauren is on
Speaker 1: and she still has that file on her folder, that
Speaker 1: means person number three could come in and get the
Speaker 1: file from Lauren. So every time that someone used Napster,
Speaker 1: they were actually increasing its utility. So it was a
Speaker 1: service that got stronger the more people used it, and
Speaker 1: the more the larger the numbers joined, the more powerful
Speaker 1: this service became, right right, and so so early Fanning
Speaker 1: was was developing this this program and coding everything along
Speaker 1: with Sean Parker. I think, yeah, And there's a story
Speaker 1: that he did sixty straight hours of coding without sleep.
Speaker 1: That sounds like one of those terrific Internet myths. Although
Speaker 1: with you know, with energy drinks which were which were
Speaker 1: new and the the red Bull was brand new and
Speaker 1: they were downing them in cases they where they were.
Speaker 1: But so they uploaded this beta to a website called
Speaker 1: download dot com and and it it hit really big.
Speaker 1: People were so excited about it. Yeah, it was very
Speaker 1: quickly became clear that this this thing that they had
Speaker 1: come up with was going really resonated, really because there
Speaker 1: are a lot of people who are really interested in music,
Speaker 1: and there's also there was also this rowing attitude of
Speaker 1: if I like one song, but I don't like the
Speaker 1: rest of the album, why should I the whole album
Speaker 1: for one song? And the problem at that time was
Speaker 1: that there was no real way to buy a song
Speaker 1: by song unless the band had released specifically a single
Speaker 1: CD right. Other than that, you were pretty much out
Speaker 1: of luck. You had to buy the entire album. And
Speaker 1: so that was why a lot of people were turning.
Speaker 1: One of the reasons why a lot of people were
Speaker 1: turning to piracy because it allowed them the freedom to
Speaker 1: get what they wanted without getting all the other stuff.
Speaker 1: And one of the big arguments people have put forward about,
Speaker 1: you know, the piracy thing, is that if the music
Speaker 1: industry had moved faster to make it more of a
Speaker 1: accessible yeah, Yeah, If the music industry had been moving
Speaker 1: ahead of the population at the time, or thinking ahead,
Speaker 1: or even just looking at the Internet at that time,
Speaker 1: which they really weren't, yeah, then they could have they
Speaker 1: could have headed off the whole piracy issue to a
Speaker 1: large extent. Like if you make it easy for people
Speaker 1: to get your stuff, and then people will come and
Speaker 1: pay for your stuff. If, however, it's way easier for
Speaker 1: people to steal your stuff, don't be surprised when it
Speaker 1: gets stolen. Yeah, I have I have ideas about HBOS content,
Speaker 1: like like this cable cable television in general, and yeah,
Speaker 1: that's one of those things where you know you'd be like, oh, HBO, go,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna get that, and then you realize, wait a minute,
Speaker 1: if I don't have the HBO subscription, I can. It's
Speaker 1: only if I already have it. If I already have it,
Speaker 1: why do I need anyway, it's a whole different show.
Speaker 1: Hey guys, it's time for me to interrupt this classic
Speaker 1: episode so that we can take a quick break to
Speaker 1: thank our sponsor. So, so, back in back, so he
Speaker 1: had this cool idea. His uncle John, who had gotten
Speaker 1: him that first computer, gave him some seed money and
Speaker 1: I think maybe facilitated an introduction to Eileen Richardson. Right,
Speaker 1: And this is also around the time Sean Fanning has
Speaker 1: decided to call it Napster, which was based off a
Speaker 1: nickname he had in junior high school based on his hairstyle. Wow,
Speaker 1: that's amazing. Yeah, that's just I was like, I have
Speaker 1: to get this fact out there, and if I don't
Speaker 1: say it now, it's not gonna happen. So Eileen Richardson
Speaker 1: was a venture capitalist, une very funky one all you know,
Speaker 1: all the punked out hair right right, all the reports
Speaker 1: about her like, yeah, she goes to Amsterdam to listen
Speaker 1: to bands and just got pink hair. It's really cool. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but clearly she's hardcore. She she invested in the company
Speaker 1: and signed on as the interim CEO. In exactly she
Speaker 1: she was someone who had had a lot of experience
Speaker 1: in investing in internet companies. And you know, keep in mind,
Speaker 1: this is ninety nine, so we're still talking before the
Speaker 1: big bubble crash. It's the heady days of the Internet,
Speaker 1: when everyone's trying to figure out, like, there's this incredible resource,
Speaker 1: how can we use it to our best advantage? And
Speaker 1: she was one of those people who was right there
Speaker 1: on the bleeding edge looking at the possibilities, and she
Speaker 1: got really excited. She was very much a passionate music fan,
Speaker 1: and so she was a music fan and a venture catalyst.
Speaker 1: Napster fell right into her wheelhouse, so she jumped in
Speaker 1: she ended up making a very substantial investment, and then
Speaker 1: like like you said, Lauren, she became the interim CEO.
Speaker 1: By by September, there were forty registered Napster users um
Speaker 1: and it was connecting a few hundred people at a
Speaker 1: time at any given time. Right and by this time,
Speaker 1: Sean Parker has gone from being an I r C
Speaker 1: buddy to a real life buddy and is working with
Speaker 1: Fanning on this project. Uh. And and it was also
Speaker 1: right around the same time that the Recording Industry Association
Speaker 1: of America also known as the r I double A,
Speaker 1: which represents five of the major music labels like we're
Speaker 1: talking like the Wind, the big big ones, the ones
Speaker 1: that own everything else, essentially started to really tackle websites
Speaker 1: that were hosting music files that were under copyright. So
Speaker 1: the r I double A was actually actively seeking uh
Speaker 1: these sites being taken down. Now keep in mind napsters
Speaker 1: circumventing all this. It's no longer looking at websites that
Speaker 1: are hosting files. It's looking directly at people's hard drives
Speaker 1: where there's the shared folder. So well, our I double
Speaker 1: A is going after all these websites. Napster's doing, you know,
Speaker 1: business like Gangbusters. And when I say business, it's not
Speaker 1: really business because they weren't making money. Yeah, they had
Speaker 1: no revenue generating scheme at all. There was no way
Speaker 1: for Napster to make money. It just that wasn't part
Speaker 1: of what was going on. In fact, I'm not sure
Speaker 1: there was ever really part of their their their original plan. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Originally it was all just about sharing and that you know,
Speaker 1: they knew that the service had value, but not in
Speaker 1: a way that they could actually monetize. And although you know,
Speaker 1: they were they were looking even in the early days,
Speaker 1: they were looking at ways to to to get licenses
Speaker 1: from various music labels where they be able to do
Speaker 1: things like sell music files through naps Um, as well
Speaker 1: as kind of you know, diffuse the growing problem of
Speaker 1: the r I double a looking out for or even
Speaker 1: later on, they were talking about, you know, trying to
Speaker 1: find a way to count count these hits, count these
Speaker 1: downloads and and tally them up and pay the recording
Speaker 1: artists and the labels and all of that right for
Speaker 1: the music. So you know, it's it's I think it's
Speaker 1: really important to mention that because these these kids really
Speaker 1: weren't out there going like we're going to steal all
Speaker 1: the music right. In fact, they were just thinking like
Speaker 1: this is a way to share stuff and it's a
Speaker 1: tool for music discovery, which was a that was a
Speaker 1: big deal too, was the idea, like it's it's getting
Speaker 1: harder and harder to discover music. Radio stations might play
Speaker 1: the same like yeahs technically obligated to pay this play
Speaker 1: the same like forty tracks by their contracts. So that's so,
Speaker 1: how do you discover new stuff If you don't have
Speaker 1: the luxury of flying off to Amsterdam every few months
Speaker 1: to listen to a band play, then how do you
Speaker 1: discover new music If you're not you know, you may
Speaker 1: not live in a city that has a vibe written
Speaker 1: music community. It makes it really difficult. And so you know,
Speaker 1: although the record industry was doing fine, its profits raised
Speaker 1: eight for the previous year um by by the end
Speaker 1: of the year UM the r I A filed a
Speaker 1: lawsuit against Napster. Right right around that same time, Napster
Speaker 1: hired its first non founding member named ali idar Uh
Speaker 1: and then right a right, well that was going on.
Speaker 1: R I Double A was really looking at Napster as
Speaker 1: a true threat, like this was if the websites hosting
Speaker 1: a few music files were bad. Napster was Darth Mader
Speaker 1: coming out to kill all the Jedi, and so R
Speaker 1: I double A really started to concentrate on him. In fact,
Speaker 1: called Napster a giant online pirate bazaar. That's bizarre, b
Speaker 1: a z A R not bizarre, strange, isn't strange um.
Speaker 1: And so the thing was that as the R I
Speaker 1: double A began to focus on Napster and all this
Speaker 1: news broke about coming after Napster, that just made Napster's
Speaker 1: profile go up even more, which means more people discovered
Speaker 1: the service, which meant that it actually got more popular
Speaker 1: than ever before. I Meanwhile, the R I double A
Speaker 1: was specifically looking at charging Napster one hundred thousand dollars
Speaker 1: for every copyrighted work that was infringed, which which is
Speaker 1: a bunch, and that's a lot. And remember this is
Speaker 1: a service that grows incredibly every time someone new joins in,
Speaker 1: especially if that person has files on their computer that
Speaker 1: wasn't already spread across the entire uh Napster landscape. So
Speaker 1: if you know, if I join on and I happen
Speaker 1: to have my Tibetan throat singing magical CD that nobody
Speaker 1: else in the whole world owns, and it happens to
Speaker 1: be on my computer. Then suddenly I am of more
Speaker 1: value to Napster because there's new stuff that no one
Speaker 1: had new else has yet. If I happen to have
Speaker 1: Dave Matthew's greatest hits, there's a chance that was already
Speaker 1: covered on Napster, I would think, so, um, I don't
Speaker 1: have that album. By the way, I'm very proud of you.
Speaker 1: I don't either. I'm not nothing. I'm not passing any judgment.
Speaker 1: I'm just saying so, uh, yeah, that was fun. But yeah.
Speaker 1: Here's something that Eileen Richardson specifically had to say about Napster,
Speaker 1: and this comes from an interview she did with Salon
Speaker 1: where this was after Metallica, after after Lars Alric himself,
Speaker 1: it came by and dropped off this this huge lawsuit
Speaker 1: because it wasn't just r I double A that came
Speaker 1: after Napster. Individual labels and bands also came after Napster.
Speaker 1: And uh and so she said, I think, and then
Speaker 1: in brackets because this is not exactly what she said,
Speaker 1: but Metallica and the recording industries actions are based on
Speaker 1: a lack of knowledge and fear. When you're afraid of
Speaker 1: something that you don't understand, you react, usually with the lawsuit.
Speaker 1: But over time, and we see this absolutely every single day,
Speaker 1: everybody's learning. We're learning about the music industry, they're learning
Speaker 1: about the Internet. I'm confident that we'll get there together now.
Speaker 1: As it turns out, her words were not quite prophetic.
Speaker 1: She was giving a little too much credit, I think
Speaker 1: to all sides on this issue. I don't mean to
Speaker 1: paint our I double A as being this evil uh entity.
Speaker 1: They were looking out for their interests in a very
Speaker 1: very passionate way. I meanwhile, Mabster was looking out for
Speaker 1: their interest in a very passionate way. I think that
Speaker 1: everyone involved was being a little bit shortsighted about exactly
Speaker 1: what needed to happen. Yeah. No, but there is no
Speaker 1: doubt that the music industry had not really figured out
Speaker 1: the internet yet, in fact, because no one had a
Speaker 1: music store that was really of any true utility at
Speaker 1: this point. And so that's why when you have a
Speaker 1: service that allows people to get what they want, they
Speaker 1: go to it. Whether that's piracy service or if it's
Speaker 1: one that's legitimate, doesn't matter. If you give the people
Speaker 1: what they want, that's where they're gonna go. And the
Speaker 1: music industry had not yet figured out how to give
Speaker 1: the people what they wanted, and so that was the problem.
Speaker 1: By the way, I still remember the days when I
Speaker 1: would actually want to buy an album because I like
Speaker 1: the album experience. But even at this point in the nineties,
Speaker 1: I was one of these people. I was one of
Speaker 1: the people saying I don't want to buy an entire album.
Speaker 1: I just like this one song, and um, you know,
Speaker 1: and I can't think of the last time besides like
Speaker 1: a soundtrack to a musical because jazz hands, I can't
Speaker 1: think of the last time I sat down and listened
Speaker 1: to an album from start to finish. That's that's actually
Speaker 1: how I kind of usually do it myself. If if
Speaker 1: I have like an artist well enough, I'll buy the
Speaker 1: album and sit down and listen to it several times through. Actually,
Speaker 1: but it's been a long time I've done that with
Speaker 1: They might be giants, I've done that with them, But
Speaker 1: it's Jonathan Colton but and Marian call but beyond like
Speaker 1: a few artists, I just don't like fun No. I
Speaker 1: I just went out and bought the one, the one
Speaker 1: that everyone listens to. But anyway, getting back to to Napster,
Speaker 1: and around two thousand and they secured around of funding
Speaker 1: from Hummer Winbald which installed a man named Hank Berry
Speaker 1: as the CEO of Napster again another interim CEO, So
Speaker 1: hank Berry takes over for Eileen Richardson in two thousand
Speaker 1: and His main concern was to try and resolve the
Speaker 1: legal issues that had popped up between Napster and the
Speaker 1: r I double A and other people on his management
Speaker 1: team took over the day to day executive decisions of
Speaker 1: keeping the company going. So really, uh, hank Berry was
Speaker 1: just looking at the legal issues, not not how to
Speaker 1: operate the company. Yeah, yeah, sure, but yeah, you know
Speaker 1: it's when you've got people like Dr Dre talking directly
Speaker 1: to you about lawsuits, then you start yeah. Well, and
Speaker 1: there were some there were some artists who were coming
Speaker 1: out in defense limp Biscuit Offspring. I think Chuck d was, Yes,
Speaker 1: he was. He was also a big supporter of Napster. Um. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that was so, so there were artists on either side
Speaker 1: of the issue. Obviously. Two thousand was also when this
Speaker 1: was another thing that got Napster a ton of publicity
Speaker 1: when colleges started to ban napster. Yeah, something I think
Speaker 1: that I read a figure that's something like colleges. It
Speaker 1: was around the US. It was around in March of
Speaker 1: two thousand. By March of two thousand, it was about
Speaker 1: a hundred thirty universities, but more would join. Uh. And
Speaker 1: it was also their biggest period of activity. They had
Speaker 1: upwards of seventy million registered users, yeah, and around two
Speaker 1: and a half million people connected at any one time.
Speaker 1: So it was to keep in mind these servers could
Speaker 1: only handle a certain number of connections. They had more
Speaker 1: than one server, but in the early days, if you
Speaker 1: wanted to use the service, you would connect to the server,
Speaker 1: and then about up to around four thousand, nine hundred
Speaker 1: and ninety nine other people could connect to that same
Speaker 1: server at the same time. Uh. Some of the service
Speaker 1: could handle larger loads than others, but you know, the
Speaker 1: more you would put in there, the slower the whole
Speaker 1: service would go. So you would you would be connected
Speaker 1: to a server along with thousands of other people, which
Speaker 1: meant that you were limited to whatever those other people
Speaker 1: had in their share folders. Right, So not every music
Speaker 1: file in the world is available at any given time.
Speaker 1: It all depends upon who is connected to the service
Speaker 1: at that moment. Uh. And originally each server was kind
Speaker 1: of its own independent little world and independent on you know,
Speaker 1: just when you signed in with what server you would
Speaker 1: hit N and who else would be on there, you know.
Speaker 1: But at this time they were running about a hundred
Speaker 1: and forty servers, I think it's the estimate. And ultimately
Speaker 1: whether their goal was was to link all the servers
Speaker 1: together so that way, if I linked to server A
Speaker 1: and Lauren linked to server B, they would we would
Speaker 1: still be able to exchange files. Now, in the early days,
Speaker 1: that was impossible. We would both need to be on
Speaker 1: server A or both be on server B for that
Speaker 1: to work. Uh So anyway, Uh, the universities and colleges
Speaker 1: also began to notice that that uploads were the upload
Speaker 1: spees were really dying on campus because people people were
Speaker 1: using the service, and that I think I think that
Speaker 1: by it might have been in two thousand one of January,
Speaker 1: Indiana University noticed that up to of its network resources
Speaker 1: were being used by Napster. Yeah. Yeah, And Oxford University
Speaker 1: really suffered because here's the thing about Oxford University. They
Speaker 1: had to pay for any data transferrals that were transatlantic,
Speaker 1: So any files that were passing over the cables that
Speaker 1: go underneath the ocean that connected the Europe to North
Speaker 1: America charged per bite. Yeah, so they had to pay
Speaker 1: per bite a certain amount per bite for that. So
Speaker 1: people on the Oxford campus who were using Napster and
Speaker 1: we're downloading files directly from computers in the USA, we're
Speaker 1: really driving that up. Yeah. Yeah. They joked that it
Speaker 1: would have been less expensive to have just bought the
Speaker 1: students the CDs, right if if if the college had
Speaker 1: gone out to the music store and just filled up
Speaker 1: four hundred carts with CDs and brought it back to
Speaker 1: the campus, it would have been less expensive. Um. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And and so this was also around the time when uh,
Speaker 1: this was mainly Eileen Richardson's influence here, where they were
Speaker 1: looking at incorporating more social tools in Napster, things like
Speaker 1: instant messenger chat rooms. Yeah, that that could old IRC
Speaker 1: stuff that that they were also found out. Yeah. And
Speaker 1: again this was an idea to kind of help users
Speaker 1: discover new music and learn more about the stuff that
Speaker 1: they're interested in. Uh. And so it was really becoming
Speaker 1: a social platform at the same time as it was
Speaker 1: under fire from the industry. Um, and so we're getting
Speaker 1: now to the point where we need to take a
Speaker 1: quick break. But before I say that, I remember, even
Speaker 1: at this point where Napster's going crazy with huge amounts
Speaker 1: of traffic. Remember it, at this stage, it's the most
Speaker 1: popular web service that has ever existed. It would be
Speaker 1: dwarfed by things like Facebook in the future, but this,
Speaker 1: this is before Facebook at the time, connecting you know,
Speaker 1: a few million people simultaneously. That was a big deal. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so so huge deal. Still not any way to generate revenue.
Speaker 1: But let's take a quick break, all right, and now
Speaker 1: let's get back to naps here. Alright, So, so two
Speaker 1: thousand's coming gone. We're into two thousand and one, and
Speaker 1: Napster receives an order to shut down. Uh, this is
Speaker 1: an order court order to shut down its services because
Speaker 1: the r I double A has said that napster is
Speaker 1: complicit in copyright infringement suits. It's not just that it
Speaker 1: is a service, it is actively helping people copyright. That's
Speaker 1: essentially what it would have to be for it to
Speaker 1: get around this whole d m C a safe harbor issue,
Speaker 1: and that's a debatable thing. But the judge kind of
Speaker 1: sided with the music industry. Uh. There was a stay
Speaker 1: in the order to two days later. In fact, I
Speaker 1: think a stay was enacted, right, so they didn't have
Speaker 1: to shut down a media lee. However, not that much
Speaker 1: longer they would get another order to shut down and
Speaker 1: they actually would have to do it. Uh. And they
Speaker 1: received right around the same time during that stay, they
Speaker 1: received like sixty million dollars investment money from Burman Bertlesman,
Speaker 1: of course, being a giant multimedia company that in fact
Speaker 1: owned a bunch of the companies that were participating in
Speaker 1: a lawsuit against Napster. Yeah, so you have to understand, Okay,
Speaker 1: So Burlsman is this mega multimedia company based out of Germany,
Speaker 1: all right, and it owns lots and lots of stuff,
Speaker 1: lots of different divisions, and these different divisions don't necessarily
Speaker 1: talk to each other. So one division sits there and
Speaker 1: sees Napster and sees lots of potential in it as
Speaker 1: turning it into a revenue generating service. Another division that
Speaker 1: has nothing to do with that first division is seeing
Speaker 1: Napster as the pirate that is killing its business and
Speaker 1: it needs to go after it. Well, I think that really.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think it was extremely savvy of Burtlsman
Speaker 1: to be investing in them at the time, because they
Speaker 1: were looking at it and they were going, this is
Speaker 1: potentially the future. This is how they if you know,
Speaker 1: what they're doing right now is crappy for us. But
Speaker 1: if people people are excited about music, and that's great,
Speaker 1: I think, and if we can monetize that. I think
Speaker 1: Bertlesman would argue that retroactively it was not a savvy
Speaker 1: move at all. Okay, well sure, but but you know,
Speaker 1: they saw that where the future was going. Unfortunately was
Speaker 1: the wrong time to implement it, because it just turned
Speaker 1: out that the the hornets Nest that had been stirred
Speaker 1: up was so great as to totally derail any efforts
Speaker 1: in turning Napster into a quote unquote legitimate revenue generator service. Right, yeah, Well,
Speaker 1: they installed Conrad Hilbert's ass the new CEO, hank Berry
Speaker 1: steps aside, and meanwhile, like just just as Conrad Hilber's
Speaker 1: was taking over, hank Berry had just gone before Congress
Speaker 1: and asked Congress to to form some sort of industry
Speaker 1: wide license agreement for internet broadcast similar to what radio has,
Speaker 1: and his His argument was that really we're just another
Speaker 1: distribution platform just like radio, so really we should we
Speaker 1: should have the same opportunity to license music the way
Speaker 1: radio does. The problem with the problem with establishing a
Speaker 1: license for every single file is that it's impossible to
Speaker 1: do because take take a take a typical album, that
Speaker 1: album might have multiple producers on it, and each producer
Speaker 1: has some level of ownership of the tracks that are
Speaker 1: on that album. Then you have the artists and they
Speaker 1: also have some ownership on the tracks on that album,
Speaker 1: the composition and of actual performance. Right, So securing a
Speaker 1: license from every single cop you know, like everyone who
Speaker 1: owns part of that content, it's impossible, you know. He
Speaker 1: was saying that for one album, you might have to
Speaker 1: secure hundreds of licenses just to be able to have
Speaker 1: that one album, and then you multiplay that across the
Speaker 1: hundreds of thousands of albums that have always existed in
Speaker 1: the new ones that are coming out every year, and
Speaker 1: you have an impossible situation. There's no way to legally
Speaker 1: follow that rule. So what needs to happen is a
Speaker 1: new legal way. He wasn't arguing, he wasn't arguing for
Speaker 1: for piracy. He was just arguing for a new legal
Speaker 1: means to license music, and that was getting really bogged
Speaker 1: down in Congress. So then he ends up stepping aside
Speaker 1: and uh and Conrad Hilbert takes over. Um. Conrad didn't
Speaker 1: have a whole long time to operate Napster before it
Speaker 1: got shut down. That was on June eleven, two thous one.
Speaker 1: That's when Napster shut off its service. It still existed
Speaker 1: as a corporate entity, and it started to really concentrate
Speaker 1: on finding a way to create a legal music distribution service.
Speaker 1: And I say legal with air quotes around it, because
Speaker 1: Napster again would be arguing that what they did, they
Speaker 1: were harbor, they were only connecting people to do illegal things, right,
Speaker 1: and that that wasn't even the purpose of Napster. The
Speaker 1: purpose of Napster was sharing music, and that that, you know,
Speaker 1: it's the fact that people were using it to share
Speaker 1: music illegally. That wasn't Napster's fault. And you can argue
Speaker 1: whether or not that's naive or sincere. That's not really
Speaker 1: our place to do that. I mean, you could certainly,
Speaker 1: you certainly could have used Napster in a perfectly legal
Speaker 1: means if an artist had given full full permission, like
Speaker 1: I want this, you can distribute this any way you like.
Speaker 1: I have no I release all claim to it. Otherwise
Speaker 1: I just want my music out there. Then it would
Speaker 1: have been perfectly legal to to distribute that across napster.
Speaker 1: It was the problem. The problem was there were people
Speaker 1: doing that with stuff where that what they didn't have
Speaker 1: that they have that permission. And now you could ask,
Speaker 1: how is this different from taking my copy of a
Speaker 1: CD that I've bought, making a copy and giving it
Speaker 1: to law. Yeah, all I've done is just changed the
Speaker 1: way that Lauren has has received that music. And is
Speaker 1: it my fault that Lauren and maybe two point four
Speaker 1: million people I don't know got that music check I
Speaker 1: don't know. Um, so it got really complex. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So then the next note that I have is in
Speaker 1: two thousand two when UM the you know, the company
Speaker 1: was was still shuttered but but working um and they
Speaker 1: entered into a beta test of a secure file trading
Speaker 1: network that January. Yeah, and uh, and that was it
Speaker 1: was something they were really seriously working on at the
Speaker 1: same time as trying to figure out a way to
Speaker 1: stave off the growing financial problems they were facing as
Speaker 1: a result of these lawsuits. Yeah, yeah, they were so
Speaker 1: serious that as a February Burtlesman just kind of offered
Speaker 1: to buy the company I think for for like like
Speaker 1: twenty million, like not not a whole lot, it was.
Speaker 1: It was, yeah, in addition comparative. It was addition, in
Speaker 1: addition to the money they had already invested into the company,
Speaker 1: which was I think I could be, I could be.
Speaker 1: You know, there are a lot of interesting reports on this,
Speaker 1: so it's kind of hard to follow. It's a little
Speaker 1: bit timmy wymy, but yeah, exactly whibbly wobbly. In May
Speaker 1: two thousand two, Sean Fanning and Conrad Hilbert's both resigned. Right.
Speaker 1: This was John Fanning, you know, kind of tried to
Speaker 1: organize a coup. From the way that I read it,
Speaker 1: he was he was trying to oust uh Hummer and
Speaker 1: Hank Berry and all the venture capitalists and and there
Speaker 1: was all of this in fighting within the company going on.
Speaker 1: Fanning eventually filed a lawsuit to have Barry and Hummer
Speaker 1: dismissed from the board of directors. Suit was thrown out
Speaker 1: of court. But but but yeah, as of many things
Speaker 1: had gotten so bad that um that Sean Fanning he quits. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And another interesting note is that Sean Fanning apparently never
Speaker 1: drew more than just a regular like paycheck. Yeah yeah.
Speaker 1: His paycheck was just it was like a middle of
Speaker 1: the company type of paycheck. After after founding it, he
Speaker 1: worked as he worked as a grant as a coder. Yeah.
Speaker 1: In fact, he apparently started getting into trouble because he
Speaker 1: was getting so many requests for interviews back when naps
Speaker 1: Or was really in the news for all this this
Speaker 1: legal battle stuff. He was getting so many requests for interviews,
Speaker 1: he wasn't able to meet his his coding uh responsibilities,
Speaker 1: and he started getting in trouble from his boss. Keeping
Speaker 1: in mind, he's the guy who built the tool. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he's the guy who kind of technically hired his boss.
Speaker 1: So and now his boss is like, you kind of
Speaker 1: need to um, you kinda need to get back to work, buddy. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but but so so um Napster denied this sale to
Speaker 1: Bertlesman and it kind of just sort of dies from there,
Speaker 1: collapsed like a flawn in a cupboard and nice and
Speaker 1: that it was trapped like a moth in a bath.
Speaker 1: At that point, there were also the major labels were
Speaker 1: trying to launch their own services. One of them was
Speaker 1: called press Play, which was launched in I think around
Speaker 1: two thousand two and it ended in two thousand three.
Speaker 1: Another one was called music Net, which was also a failure.
Speaker 1: And the problem was that buying music from these services
Speaker 1: was often more ble than what people thought it was worth.
Speaker 1: Again it was not. It became easier to pirate music
Speaker 1: than it was to buy it, and if it's easier,
Speaker 1: people will do it. And and other other companies like
Speaker 1: a kaza and things like that were popping up. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so so you had new Tela as well, you had
Speaker 1: other file sharing uh services out there. They were picking
Speaker 1: up where Napster had dropped off, and so there were
Speaker 1: there were a lot of casualties in this whole rise
Speaker 1: and fall of Napster. And you'll keep in mind this
Speaker 1: is just two thousand two, and um, yeah, yeah, it happened.
Speaker 1: I had no idea when we started doing this had
Speaker 1: happened that fast. Because of such a huge name, right,
Speaker 1: you just expect that it had at least a decade
Speaker 1: worth of life. And of course we'll get into what
Speaker 1: Napster is now in just a minute. But besides the
Speaker 1: fact that you had Fanning who never drew anything more
Speaker 1: than just a regular salary. Eileen Richardson had a huge
Speaker 1: career setback. Business Week ran an article that essentially said
Speaker 1: that all of the legal problems were mainly due to
Speaker 1: the way Richardson was running the company, which was not
Speaker 1: entirely accurate. I'm not very fair to her how she
Speaker 1: was running the company and how she was marketing everything,
Speaker 1: because she was she was very like like free love
Speaker 1: about the music. And but yeah, apparently that that that
Speaker 1: hit her pretty hard. And also the Bertelsman CEO, Thomas
Speaker 1: Milhoff was was replaced. He was replaced by another CEO
Speaker 1: when that Napster deal was went so sour, and plus
Speaker 1: the economy itself, but you had to really crumble because
Speaker 1: keep in mind, this is post dot com crash, and
Speaker 1: the ramifications of that are still unfolding in two thousand two.
Speaker 1: So you've got the the company just completely languishing. There's
Speaker 1: there's very little of it left and ends up going
Speaker 1: into Chapter eleven bankruptcy. And then there's a a bankruptcy
Speaker 1: auction held in two thousand two. This is still happening
Speaker 1: like right after another, and a company called Rock CEO
Speaker 1: purchases the assets of Napster in an auction in two
Speaker 1: thousand two. They also that same company purchased that failed
Speaker 1: music service called press Play in two thousand three, and
Speaker 1: so they decided to use the the kind of the
Speaker 1: cashet of Napster's name and the foundation of the press
Speaker 1: Play service and combined them together to form Voltron. Except
Speaker 1: by Voltron, I mean a legal music service that everyone
Speaker 1: knows the name of because everyone's heard the name Napster. Yes,
Speaker 1: So they take some time to develop this, and the
Speaker 1: reason why it took so long is that they had
Speaker 1: to establish those licenses that Napster never could get hold of. Now, Uh,
Speaker 1: they had been Napster been trying to do that for
Speaker 1: especially the last two years of its existence and and failed.
Speaker 1: And so yeah, and meanwhile, companies like rhapsody Um, which
Speaker 1: was another it wasn't a file sharing thing that it
Speaker 1: was a music music subscription plan. Yeah, we're starting text
Speaker 1: you started to see some early examples of other music
Speaker 1: subscription services. Uh, Rock CEO would take years to develop this.
Speaker 1: It would actually not be until two thousand and six.
Speaker 1: So this is four years after they bought the assets
Speaker 1: of Napster that they launched the free Napster service. They
Speaker 1: place Chris go Rog as the chairman and CEO of Napster,
Speaker 1: and in that time, what Napster did was it used
Speaker 1: ads to support a free web based streaming experience. Now
Speaker 1: you could stream any song that was in Napster's catalog
Speaker 1: a maximum of three times. After that, you had to
Speaker 1: either purchase the song or never listen to it again,
Speaker 1: at least not on Napster. Yeah, you had to. You
Speaker 1: had to purchase the song. Now. Nice thing about is
Speaker 1: that you could purchase a DRM free version of the
Speaker 1: MP three of whatever song it was, so you didn't
Speaker 1: have to worry about Okay, well you can buy this song,
Speaker 1: but you can only play it on three machines and
Speaker 1: after that that's it, because that was one of the
Speaker 1: big problems of early DRM music is that you could
Speaker 1: it would limit how many machines you could put it on.
Speaker 1: And you know, here's the thing about technology, folks. Our
Speaker 1: stuff gets out of date and we want to replace
Speaker 1: it occasionally. So if you tell me that I can
Speaker 1: only load this on three machines, I'm like, well that's
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna last like five years. Yeah, then I
Speaker 1: have to buy the song again. What's what's the deal.
Speaker 1: And this is where you bring into questions like, all right,
Speaker 1: do you you don't Obviously you don't own the song
Speaker 1: because you didn't make it, but you you own the
Speaker 1: opportunity to experience that song within the realm of a
Speaker 1: specific kind of license licensed for home use. And then
Speaker 1: your their argument might might be, well, I want to
Speaker 1: use it at home, but none of the things I
Speaker 1: have will play it. Now. It's complicated. Uh and in fact,
Speaker 1: we could probably do a full episode about that we've
Speaker 1: talked about in previous ones. Well. Uh, So two thousand
Speaker 1: sicks they launch, Chris Gore is the chairman and CEO.
Speaker 1: Uh and uh. They try to get it moving, but
Speaker 1: it doesn't really catch on. For one thing, at this point,
Speaker 1: they're starting to to really come into a competition with iTunes.
Speaker 1: By now iTunes is really a thing. And so from
Speaker 1: two thousand and six to two thousand and ten that
Speaker 1: was Napster's existence. But in two thousand and ten, Gorg
Speaker 1: ends up stepping down and the president of Napster also
Speaker 1: steps down, and best Buy purchases Napster. So the Napster CEO,
Speaker 1: Christopher Allen, becomes the general manager of Napster. Because now
Speaker 1: it's owned by best Buy. It's no longer a thing
Speaker 1: that ROXYO has, and his reporting relationship is to a
Speaker 1: best Buy senior executive. So there's a new new sheriff
Speaker 1: in town in a sense. And from two thousand and
Speaker 1: ten to two thousand eleven it's run as a best
Speaker 1: Buy company. And in two thousand eleven, Rhapsody, which Lauren
Speaker 1: mentioned just a minute ago, acquires Napster and folds it
Speaker 1: into its own streaming music service. So now Rahapsty and
Speaker 1: Napster are buddy buddy. Yeah. I think that I think
Speaker 1: that Rapsody had been in close affiliation with best Buy
Speaker 1: at the time. Anyway, I think that that was the
Speaker 1: official service for the best Buy line of MP three
Speaker 1: players back when that was a thing. Yeah, and uh
Speaker 1: and and Napster still exists now. Granted, keep in mind
Speaker 1: the Napster we're talking about now. Really it has very
Speaker 1: little connection to the Napster that was in the first
Speaker 1: half of this podcast. Yeah, it's a it's a purely
Speaker 1: subscription service. Um. You can use it to download or
Speaker 1: stream music UM two different devicesferent devices mobile. You know,
Speaker 1: it's got a sleek looking interface. Yeah, and you can
Speaker 1: listen to it like you if you have a compatible
Speaker 1: home entertainment system, you can listen to it on that.
Speaker 1: You can listen to it on you know, like I said,
Speaker 1: like a MP three players on the line of something
Speaker 1: like like Pandora or or Spotify. Although you have you
Speaker 1: have far more control than you would on Pandora right right.
Speaker 1: And when you subscribe to it, you um cut out
Speaker 1: all the ads and all that fans right. In fact,
Speaker 1: you have to subscribe to it. You can have a
Speaker 1: free fourteen day trials I recalled in the United States.
Speaker 1: I can't speak for everywhere in the world. In the
Speaker 1: United States, the current subscription rate as of the recording
Speaker 1: of this podcast is nine dollars and cents per month.
Speaker 1: And um and yeah, they have apps for Android iOS, BlackBerry,
Speaker 1: Windows phone seven. Uh. They have extra features like tailored
Speaker 1: playlists have been formed by various either you know, sometimes
Speaker 1: their bands or an artist or sometimes it's like a
Speaker 1: like a music critic for a magazine will make a
Speaker 1: playlist and then they make it available on this so
Speaker 1: that way you can listen to the music that people
Speaker 1: cooler than you are listening to. That, by the way,
Speaker 1: for me, that's everybody. I'm not I'm not saying like
Speaker 1: you are cooler than I am. I know you knew
Speaker 1: that already. I'm just let you know that I also
Speaker 1: know that. So that's especially music wise, I will let
Speaker 1: myself into that category as well. Yeah, I mean that
Speaker 1: I was not aware of Neutral Milk Hotel until years
Speaker 1: after they were a thing. That's that's the kind of
Speaker 1: guy I am. But I was. I was on board
Speaker 1: with mom It and Sons before any of you folks
Speaker 1: knew who they were. Besides, unless Mumford and Sons is
Speaker 1: listening to this podcast, in which case they probably knew
Speaker 1: about it before I did, probably, But anyway, but yeah,
Speaker 1: they also had the rapsy radio stations, so that's more
Speaker 1: like Pandora, you know. And they have their own kind
Speaker 1: of discovery algorithms as well, so that you can find
Speaker 1: music that if you already like a certain kind of music,
Speaker 1: you can talk about. But it is interesting if you
Speaker 1: go back all the way back to the beginning days
Speaker 1: of Napster and you look at some of the things
Speaker 1: that Eileen Richardson said, it's the very basis for music
Speaker 1: discovery and things like Pandora. Yeah, the idea she actually
Speaker 1: says in that interview in Salon that if you like
Speaker 1: a certain artist, you should be able to find other
Speaker 1: music that's similar to that artist, which is exactly what
Speaker 1: Pandora is all about, that the Musical Genome project. So
Speaker 1: it's interesting that she was looking ahead and she was
Speaker 1: seeing a future that wouldn't really come to maturity for
Speaker 1: almost a decade. Yeah. I think in a lot of
Speaker 1: ways Napster was was you know, it just was approaching
Speaker 1: the industry in in an aggressively incorrect way. Um yeah, well,
Speaker 1: and and and the industry was reacting in a very
Speaker 1: uh like knee jerk way. So the combination of the
Speaker 1: two meant that you were going to have nothing but
Speaker 1: a collision. But also, yeah, just the internet infrastructure was
Speaker 1: not quite there yet to provide monetization for this kind
Speaker 1: of thing, and so you know, all of the ideas
Speaker 1: that they had were really sound and just But really,
Speaker 1: what I think it is is that the interesting thing
Speaker 1: to me is that it really created the whole peer
Speaker 1: to peer approach. I mean, there were other peer to
Speaker 1: peer protocols that were coming into being right around the
Speaker 1: same time as Napster, but Napster was the one that
Speaker 1: thrust it into the spotlight and you know, peer to
Speaker 1: peer is is is a completely legitimate way to get
Speaker 1: information from one computer to another computer. It doesn't have
Speaker 1: to be for nefarious purposes or piracy or whatever. And
Speaker 1: so I'm very thankful that Napster existed as a way
Speaker 1: to kind of get that as as an as as
Speaker 1: a thing. I mean, without it, we might have gone
Speaker 1: a few more years before anyone really realized the potential
Speaker 1: for appear to pear transmissions. So that was something very
Speaker 1: important in this whole Napster business. Alright, guys, that wraps
Speaker 1: up this classic episode of tech Stuff. Hope you enjoyed it.
Speaker 1: And if you have any suggestions for future topics something
Speaker 1: that I have not covered or maybe I need to revisit,
Speaker 1: let me know, send me a message on Facebook or Twitter.
Speaker 1: The handle we use at both of those is text
Speaker 1: stuff H s W. And I'll talk to you again
Speaker 1: really soon. Y. Text Stuff is a production of I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio's How Stuff Works. For more podcasts from my
Speaker 1: heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.