WEBVTT - How Napster Worked 0:00:02.400 --> 0:00:05.680 Get in text with technology with text Stuff from housef 0:00:05.840 --> 0:00:14.400 what Com. Hey there everyone, and welcome to tech Stuff. 0:00:14.480 --> 0:00:17.880 My name is Jonathan Strickland, I am a host, and 0:00:18.000 --> 0:00:21.520 my name is Lauren Vogelbaum. I am coincidentally also a host. 0:00:21.800 --> 0:00:23.880 It's fantastic that we have two hosts together because that 0:00:23.920 --> 0:00:27.040 means we can do a podcast. And today we wanted 0:00:27.040 --> 0:00:29.520 to talk about something we have. One of our listeners 0:00:29.520 --> 0:00:32.880 asked us about this. It's a it's an interesting story. 0:00:32.880 --> 0:00:35.600 It's a story about an internet company that had a 0:00:35.680 --> 0:00:39.720 meteorc rise and perhaps and even more meteoric fall. Uh, 0:00:39.760 --> 0:00:42.800 and then it was reborn into something completely different in 0:00:42.840 --> 0:00:47.880 a way Napster and Napster's um it's got a bad rap. 0:00:48.200 --> 0:00:51.440 It it's kind of becomes synonymous with at least the 0:00:51.479 --> 0:00:54.920 old Napster. The original Napster has become synonymous with things 0:00:54.960 --> 0:00:58.840 like piracy. Although in the lawless days of the Internet 0:00:58.960 --> 0:01:02.920 when everyone just stole from Lars Ulric, Yes, in fact, 0:01:02.960 --> 0:01:08.000 he honestly he ended up delivering a lawsuit by hand too, 0:01:08.680 --> 0:01:10.720 so full of ire he was, Yes, he took this. 0:01:10.920 --> 0:01:16.480 I think I don't know. I don't know that. I 0:01:16.520 --> 0:01:20.200 don't know that even a member of Metallica can carry 0:01:20.280 --> 0:01:23.800 a sixty thousand page maybe by hand truck, I'm not sure. 0:01:23.840 --> 0:01:28.039 I'm not sure by hand, but sure, series of CDs. Yeah. 0:01:28.280 --> 0:01:30.720 So anyway, let's talk about Napster and what it was 0:01:31.360 --> 0:01:33.920 and what it is today, because it's it's definitely changed 0:01:34.000 --> 0:01:38.839 quite a bit. So it's a it's it's all about really, 0:01:38.880 --> 0:01:42.000 it's all about music. It's technically it's about file sharing, 0:01:42.040 --> 0:01:46.240 but those files are were essentially music files MP three files. 0:01:46.680 --> 0:01:49.280 Napster limited itself to MP three files. Lots of other 0:01:49.400 --> 0:01:52.280 peer to peer sharing networks used, you know, you could 0:01:52.320 --> 0:01:56.640 you could get movies on their all kinds of stuff, games, everything, 0:01:56.680 --> 0:01:59.120 any kind of file. Well, Napster was all about all 0:01:59.160 --> 0:02:02.240 about MP three and and you have to understand, like 0:02:02.320 --> 0:02:07.720 the the days when we first start looking at this idea, 0:02:07.880 --> 0:02:12.800 that's way back in the late nineties. Back then, music 0:02:13.760 --> 0:02:16.920 was not something that you could easily get on the internet. 0:02:17.040 --> 0:02:18.840 It was first of all, anything that was on a 0:02:18.960 --> 0:02:22.200 web page was MIDI based or whatever it was, or 0:02:22.240 --> 0:02:26.000 mod based. It was just it was not anywhere close 0:02:26.080 --> 0:02:28.600 to CD quality. We didn't have an iTunes store that 0:02:28.680 --> 0:02:30.960 kind of thing. Yeah, there wasn't, you know, but there 0:02:30.960 --> 0:02:33.720 were people who what they would I just say completely, 0:02:33.760 --> 0:02:36.960 I just said that. When iTunes was founded, that's a 0:02:36.960 --> 0:02:41.160 different show. So anyway, there there's a whole you know. 0:02:41.240 --> 0:02:44.040 iTunes for a long time was just a jukebox type 0:02:44.080 --> 0:02:46.560 of program where you would manage the music that you 0:02:46.639 --> 0:02:49.560 already had. It wasn't a store where you would buy 0:02:49.600 --> 0:02:53.639 new music. It was it was a management system. So really, 0:02:53.680 --> 0:02:55.800 at this time, the way you would get if you 0:02:55.800 --> 0:02:58.400 were someone who wanted to get a music file, you 0:02:58.440 --> 0:03:00.880 would essentially have to search around for someone who was 0:03:00.919 --> 0:03:04.760 hosting music files on a website somewhere and then download them. 0:03:04.760 --> 0:03:09.280 And these these websites were very much unreliable, and uh, 0:03:09.639 --> 0:03:12.799 this is what got a certain guy thinking about different 0:03:12.800 --> 0:03:16.079 ways of going about it. The guy's name was Shan Fanning. Yeah, 0:03:16.320 --> 0:03:20.360 and as he got his first computer and very shortly 0:03:20.400 --> 0:03:24.200 after that created Napster. So that was yeah, it was 0:03:24.320 --> 0:03:27.119 within two years he had gone from getting his first 0:03:27.120 --> 0:03:31.880 computer to creating one of the most influential and notorious 0:03:32.000 --> 0:03:35.600 web services and programs of all time. Yeah. He got 0:03:35.600 --> 0:03:39.240 his computer from his uncle, John Fanning, who ended up 0:03:39.240 --> 0:03:42.240 being a big supporter. Yeah. Yeah, he he provided the 0:03:42.240 --> 0:03:44.240 seed money for for Napster in a couple of years. 0:03:44.320 --> 0:03:47.840 Yet he was also not just interested in programming right 0:03:47.840 --> 0:03:50.600 off the bat, but also interested in Internet Relay Chat 0:03:50.760 --> 0:03:53.280 i r S, which is, you know, one of many 0:03:53.400 --> 0:03:57.480 different protocols that allow you to communicate over the Internet 0:03:57.920 --> 0:04:01.240 and um in an instant instant messagery. Yeah, exactly, as 0:04:01.240 --> 0:04:03.800 opposed to like email or something along those lines. And 0:04:03.800 --> 0:04:06.920 he got interested in the field of Internet security. And 0:04:07.080 --> 0:04:10.000 uh he described himself at the time as a white hat, 0:04:10.320 --> 0:04:12.480 not a hacker. So the idea being that he was 0:04:12.560 --> 0:04:15.800 interested in finding ways to make internet security more robust, 0:04:16.520 --> 0:04:19.880 so and in helping people, not not stealing from people, 0:04:20.040 --> 0:04:22.360 right like, not like he might look at a system 0:04:22.360 --> 0:04:25.120 and say, oh, you have a vulnerability here, you need 0:04:25.160 --> 0:04:27.080 to patch it, as opposed to, oh, you have a 0:04:27.120 --> 0:04:30.719 vulnerability here, give me all your things. Um. That was 0:04:30.800 --> 0:04:32.880 kind of his his at least that's what he said, 0:04:32.880 --> 0:04:35.400 and I have no reason to doubt him. But he 0:04:35.480 --> 0:04:39.719 met virtually a fellow named Sean Parker online in those days, 0:04:39.720 --> 0:04:42.720 and Sean Parker also becomes important in the Napster story. 0:04:42.880 --> 0:04:47.560 So in ninety eight, he was starting to think about 0:04:47.720 --> 0:04:51.919 this thing that music files. And by the way, this 0:04:52.000 --> 0:04:54.240 kid is a teenager. I mean, you know, if I'm 0:04:54.320 --> 0:04:55.839 using the word kid, it's not just because I use 0:04:55.880 --> 0:04:58.120 that word for everybody. It's because he was literally like 0:04:58.160 --> 0:05:02.000 seventeen to nineteen at the time. Yeah, he was. He was, uh, 0:05:02.240 --> 0:05:05.120 well that was when he was eighteen turning nineteen. Uh, 0:05:05.440 --> 0:05:10.800 and he he was a freshman at Northeastern University in Boston, 0:05:11.279 --> 0:05:14.760 and he knew that there were a lot of kids 0:05:14.839 --> 0:05:17.279 his age really interested in music and they really wanted 0:05:17.320 --> 0:05:20.240 to find more music. But again, it was really tricky 0:05:20.279 --> 0:05:23.160 to find it online because these websites that would host files, 0:05:23.160 --> 0:05:26.520 they wouldn't last very long. Maybe someone stops um stops 0:05:26.760 --> 0:05:29.719 monitoring it or maintaining it and the links are all dead, 0:05:30.360 --> 0:05:33.360 or because of high traffic, you know, everyone finds out 0:05:33.400 --> 0:05:35.480 that this is where this one file is, everyone goes 0:05:35.520 --> 0:05:38.400 there and then it crashes the site. It was really 0:05:38.480 --> 0:05:41.320 really tricky to find a way to reliably get those 0:05:41.360 --> 0:05:45.400 music files. Also important to note that was when the 0:05:45.480 --> 0:05:49.679 Digital Millennium Copyright Act went into effect. Yes, very important. 0:05:49.680 --> 0:05:53.440 That's a Congress enacted that and uh that was that 0:05:53.520 --> 0:05:58.240 was essentially Congress's way of saying, we understand that intellectual 0:05:58.279 --> 0:06:00.640 property is important that copyright is in and that the 0:06:00.640 --> 0:06:04.400 Internet age has dramatically changed how easy it is to 0:06:04.480 --> 0:06:07.720 distribute material that is under copyright. So here are some 0:06:07.800 --> 0:06:11.839 rules to guide how we can how we can legislate 0:06:11.880 --> 0:06:15.400 this sort of stuff, and essentially criminalized the circumvention of 0:06:15.440 --> 0:06:19.120 any kind of digital rights management right. It also, however, 0:06:19.320 --> 0:06:22.880 created something called safe harbor, which was very important and 0:06:22.920 --> 0:06:26.680 would become extremely important in Napster's case. Safe harbor is 0:06:26.720 --> 0:06:30.839 a concept whereby it says, if your site or service 0:06:31.800 --> 0:06:38.200 is not actively engaged in copyright infringement, but the users 0:06:38.240 --> 0:06:42.080 are using your service in order to conduct copyright infringement, 0:06:42.600 --> 0:06:45.920 you yourself are not at fault. You cannot be held 0:06:45.920 --> 0:06:48.880 at fault for the behavior of your users because the 0:06:49.000 --> 0:06:52.120 users are behaving however they want to behave. You're providing 0:06:52.160 --> 0:06:54.680 a service. As long as your service is not actively 0:06:54.839 --> 0:07:00.360 meant to circumvent copyright protection or to distribute copyright write 0:07:00.360 --> 0:07:04.039 materials illegally, then you should be in the clear because 0:07:04.040 --> 0:07:06.360 you cannot be held responsible for what other people do. 0:07:07.320 --> 0:07:10.760 And that's an important concept. It's also one that ultimately 0:07:10.800 --> 0:07:13.440 you could argue was not held up in the case 0:07:13.480 --> 0:07:17.120 of naps Yeah yeah, uh yeah, other. While we're on 0:07:17.160 --> 0:07:20.280 the subject, other concept that became important in this argument 0:07:20.320 --> 0:07:23.120 was the Audio Home Recording Act, of which said that 0:07:23.160 --> 0:07:26.320 you are allowed to make unlimited copies essentially of any 0:07:26.320 --> 0:07:28.520 CDs and cassettes that you own for personal use and 0:07:28.600 --> 0:07:31.600 for your friends, as long as you're not receiving compensation. Right. So, 0:07:31.840 --> 0:07:35.440 again the idea being that if I own something, I 0:07:35.440 --> 0:07:37.680 can make a copy of it. Usually it's considered a 0:07:37.720 --> 0:07:41.600 copy for backup purposes. So for example, let's say I 0:07:41.680 --> 0:07:44.320 own a c D and I want to be able 0:07:44.360 --> 0:07:46.400 to make a second CD in case something happens that 0:07:46.440 --> 0:07:48.200 first one, because I mean I bought that c D. 0:07:48.400 --> 0:07:51.760 I feel that's mine. Uh. And this this is this 0:07:51.840 --> 0:07:54.600 is something, yeah, something that the music industry was not 0:07:54.800 --> 0:07:58.280 so pleased about. I mean every industry. Whenever any sort 0:07:58.320 --> 0:08:01.520 of uh invention has come up that allows people to 0:08:01.800 --> 0:08:07.280 copy material some way, for instance, VCRs and DVRs, the 0:08:07.400 --> 0:08:10.160 various industries get very nervous about it because they're afraid 0:08:10.200 --> 0:08:12.760 that well for multiple reasons, but one of the reasons 0:08:12.840 --> 0:08:15.160 is they are afraid that that's going to impact sales. 0:08:15.600 --> 0:08:18.360 That means that you're going to end up distributing stuff. 0:08:18.480 --> 0:08:22.400 And then you cut out the person or entity that 0:08:22.600 --> 0:08:25.280 is in charge of distributing that, and then they lose 0:08:25.360 --> 0:08:27.200 the copyright and that you know, and that that paid 0:08:27.240 --> 0:08:29.120 to make this thing happen essentially, and that they're going 0:08:29.160 --> 0:08:31.800 to lose money. Yeah, it's huge, huge thing. When VCRs 0:08:31.800 --> 0:08:33.280 came out in the in the early eighties, not but 0:08:33.320 --> 0:08:36.440 I remember. But why are you looking at me, Lauren? 0:08:37.760 --> 0:08:39.360 Is it only because I'm your co host? Is it 0:08:39.360 --> 0:08:42.000 because you actually know that I remember when VCRs came out. 0:08:43.960 --> 0:08:46.240 I'm gonna smile on her face, tells me the answer. 0:08:46.320 --> 0:08:48.240 All I need to know, folks, on all I need 0:08:48.280 --> 0:08:51.959 to know anyway. Um, but yeah, So so that that's 0:08:52.040 --> 0:08:57.240 kind of the state of digital copyright. So meanwhile, Sean 0:08:57.320 --> 0:08:59.680 Fanning is saying, maybe there's a better way of being 0:08:59.679 --> 0:09:02.680 able to find and get the music files that you 0:09:02.760 --> 0:09:04.880 really want, and he starts to come up with this 0:09:04.960 --> 0:09:09.040 idea where the idea would be to create a centralized 0:09:09.200 --> 0:09:12.400 server and that server's job would be to search for 0:09:12.559 --> 0:09:16.520 an index music files and uh, and the way it 0:09:16.520 --> 0:09:20.520 would work is that you would subscribe to the service. UH, 0:09:20.559 --> 0:09:23.680 you would essentially register yourself as a user with the service, 0:09:24.280 --> 0:09:26.400 and then as a registered user, You would get a 0:09:26.440 --> 0:09:28.560 folder that you would put on your hard drive, and 0:09:28.600 --> 0:09:31.120 that folder would be a share double folder. Anything you 0:09:31.160 --> 0:09:35.240 put in that folder could be seen by the service. 0:09:35.320 --> 0:09:38.040 The server, the centralized server could see whatever you put 0:09:38.080 --> 0:09:39.920 in there. Now, in the case of Napster, we're talking 0:09:40.000 --> 0:09:42.480 MP three files. So if you put if you had 0:09:42.720 --> 0:09:44.880 MP three files already on your machine and you put 0:09:44.920 --> 0:09:47.240 them in this folder, it would mean that those would 0:09:47.240 --> 0:09:51.480 be discoverable by that centralized server. So someone else who 0:09:51.520 --> 0:09:54.760 registers with it wasn't called Napster yet. But when they 0:09:54.760 --> 0:09:58.240 register with the service and they search for a particular 0:09:58.320 --> 0:10:00.440 music file and you happen to have that music file 0:10:00.480 --> 0:10:04.480 on your folder, you're a link to. Essentially, your machine 0:10:04.480 --> 0:10:08.520 would pop up and the server would facilitate a connection 0:10:08.640 --> 0:10:12.400 between the person searching and your computer so that the 0:10:12.400 --> 0:10:15.520 file transfer could complete. So, Lauren, let's let's use well, 0:10:15.600 --> 0:10:19.120 we'll use ourselves as an example. Lauren, Let's say that 0:10:19.400 --> 0:10:24.360 you've heard about this band called Common Rotation. All right, 0:10:24.440 --> 0:10:28.560 Common Rotation fronted by Adam Bush, former actor in the 0:10:28.600 --> 0:10:32.440 Buffy the Vampire Slayer series. La He was Warren nerd 0:10:32.440 --> 0:10:35.800 of Doom. So, Lauren, you've heard of Common rotation, and 0:10:35.800 --> 0:10:38.000 you're thinking, I really want to hear this one song 0:10:38.040 --> 0:10:41.920 I've heard about that common rotation does. It's called sit 0:10:42.000 --> 0:10:44.720 Down before I Fall Down. But uh, you know, I 0:10:44.760 --> 0:10:47.720 don't have access to a way of finding this this song. 0:10:47.840 --> 0:10:50.800 Otherwise I go into Napster. It turns out that I 0:10:51.000 --> 0:10:54.160 Jonathan happened to have that song and I have it 0:10:54.240 --> 0:10:57.400 in the share folder for Napster. And when you do 0:10:57.440 --> 0:11:00.400 the search, it put points a link towards my direction, 0:11:00.480 --> 0:11:04.040 towards my computer. You hit the download button. My computer 0:11:04.280 --> 0:11:07.199 uploads the file and your computer downloads the file, and 0:11:07.240 --> 0:11:09.960 it's a direct transfer between the two computers. The centralized 0:11:09.960 --> 0:11:13.480 server just access kind of a traffic monitor. Um. And 0:11:13.760 --> 0:11:17.360 the cool thing about this is that when my file 0:11:17.440 --> 0:11:20.600 gets to you, by default, it's going into your share folder. 0:11:20.640 --> 0:11:23.000 You can change those settings, or you could have changed 0:11:23.000 --> 0:11:25.439 those settings back in the day because the service doesn't 0:11:25.440 --> 0:11:27.480 exist anymore, right, or you can pull it out of 0:11:27.480 --> 0:11:30.600 that share folder you wanted to write, but you you don't. 0:11:30.720 --> 0:11:32.560 You don't have to share everything you get, but if 0:11:32.600 --> 0:11:35.760 you did, that would mean that now there's another instance 0:11:35.800 --> 0:11:37.720 of that file that there's two locations, so that if 0:11:37.760 --> 0:11:40.720 you can't, if you have trouble accessing the first location, 0:11:40.840 --> 0:11:44.120 or if if out, yeah, or if I'm not even online, 0:11:44.280 --> 0:11:46.680 like if if my computer is off, you cannot connect 0:11:46.679 --> 0:11:49.080 to my computer. But if Lauren is on and she 0:11:49.160 --> 0:11:51.160 still has that file on her folder, that means person 0:11:51.240 --> 0:11:53.520 number three could come in and get the file from Lauren. 0:11:53.960 --> 0:11:56.720 So every time that someone used Napster, they were actually 0:11:56.800 --> 0:12:00.320 increasing its utility. So it's a service that got longer 0:12:00.400 --> 0:12:03.640 the more people used it, and the more the larger 0:12:03.679 --> 0:12:07.320 the numbers joined, the more powerful this service became, right, right, 0:12:07.360 --> 0:12:11.199 And so so early Fanning was was developing this this 0:12:11.280 --> 0:12:15.200 program and coding everything along with Sean Parker, I think, yeah, 0:12:15.440 --> 0:12:18.640 And the story that he did sixty straight hours of 0:12:18.720 --> 0:12:22.520 coding without sleep. That sounds like one of those terrific 0:12:22.559 --> 0:12:25.400 Internet myths. Although with you know, with energy drinks which 0:12:25.400 --> 0:12:27.160 were which were new and the the red Bull was 0:12:27.240 --> 0:12:29.360 brand new and they were downing them in cases they 0:12:29.360 --> 0:12:31.480 were they were. But so they uploaded this beta to 0:12:31.840 --> 0:12:34.640 a website called download dot com and and it hit 0:12:34.720 --> 0:12:36.960 really big and people were so excited about it. Yeah, 0:12:36.960 --> 0:12:39.920 it was very quickly became clear that this this thing 0:12:39.960 --> 0:12:43.439 that they had come up with was going really resonated 0:12:43.760 --> 0:12:45.360 really because there are a lot of people who are 0:12:45.360 --> 0:12:48.720 really interested in music, and there's also there was also 0:12:48.840 --> 0:12:52.680 this growing attitude of if I like one song, but 0:12:52.800 --> 0:12:54.920 I don't like the rest of the album, why should 0:12:54.960 --> 0:12:59.560 I the whole album for one song. And the problem 0:12:59.720 --> 0:13:02.960 at the time was that there was no real way 0:13:03.000 --> 0:13:06.880 to buy song by song unless the band had released 0:13:07.080 --> 0:13:11.640 specifically a single CD right. Other than that, you were 0:13:11.640 --> 0:13:13.440 pretty much out of luck. You had to buy the 0:13:13.600 --> 0:13:15.520 entire album, and so that was why a lot of 0:13:15.520 --> 0:13:17.760 people were turning. One of the reasons why a lot 0:13:17.760 --> 0:13:20.000 of people were turning to piracy because it allowed them 0:13:20.080 --> 0:13:22.400 the freedom to get what they wanted without getting all 0:13:22.440 --> 0:13:25.640 the other stuff. And one of the big arguments people 0:13:25.679 --> 0:13:28.040 have put forward about, you know, the piracy thing, is 0:13:28.080 --> 0:13:31.720 that if the music industry had moved faster to make 0:13:31.720 --> 0:13:35.560 it more of a accessible Yeah, Yeah, if the music 0:13:35.559 --> 0:13:38.600 industry had been moving ahead of the population at the time, 0:13:38.960 --> 0:13:41.000 or thinking ahead, or even just looking at the Internet 0:13:41.040 --> 0:13:43.120 at that time, which they really weren't, Yeah, then they 0:13:43.160 --> 0:13:45.840 could have They could have headed off the whole piracy 0:13:46.000 --> 0:13:49.360 issue to a large extent, Like if you make it 0:13:49.440 --> 0:13:53.400 easy for people to get your stuff, and then people 0:13:53.400 --> 0:13:56.200 will come and pay for your stuff. If, however, it's 0:13:56.640 --> 0:13:59.760 way easier for people to steal your stuff, don't be 0:14:00.160 --> 0:14:03.040 prized when it gets stolen. Yeah, I have I have 0:14:03.160 --> 0:14:07.040 ideas about HBO's content, like like this cable cable television 0:14:07.080 --> 0:14:09.560 in general, and yeah, that's one of those things where 0:14:09.600 --> 0:14:11.720 you know you'd be like, oh, HBO, go, I'm gonna 0:14:11.760 --> 0:14:13.080 get that, and then you realize, wait a minute, if 0:14:13.120 --> 0:14:16.319 I don't have the HBO subscription, I can It's only 0:14:16.360 --> 0:14:17.840 if I already have it. If I already have it, 0:14:17.840 --> 0:14:20.760 why do I any Why do anyway? That's a whole 0:14:20.800 --> 0:14:24.680 different show. Um. But so so back in back, so 0:14:24.800 --> 0:14:26.920 he had this cool idea. His uncle John, who had 0:14:26.960 --> 0:14:29.640 gotten him that first computer, gave him some seed money 0:14:29.760 --> 0:14:33.640 and I think maybe facilitated in an introduction to Eileen Richardson. Right. 0:14:33.680 --> 0:14:35.480 And this is also around the time Sean Fanning has 0:14:35.480 --> 0:14:37.840 decided to call it Napster, which was based off a 0:14:37.920 --> 0:14:41.520 nickname he had in junior high school based on his hairstyle. Wow, 0:14:41.600 --> 0:14:44.000 that's amazing. Yeah, that's just thought I have, Like I 0:14:44.000 --> 0:14:45.480 have to get this fact out there, and if I 0:14:45.480 --> 0:14:47.800 don't say it now, it's not gonna happen. So Eileen 0:14:47.880 --> 0:14:51.800 Richardson was a venture capitalist, une very funky one. All 0:14:51.880 --> 0:14:54.320 you know, all the pund hair right right, all the 0:14:54.360 --> 0:14:56.760 reports about her like, yeah, she goes to Amsterdam to 0:14:56.760 --> 0:14:59.200 listen to bands and just got pink hair. It's really cool. Yeah, 0:14:59.600 --> 0:15:02.760 But so really she's hardcore. She she invested in the 0:15:02.800 --> 0:15:07.520 company and signed on as the interim CEO. Exactly. She 0:15:07.520 --> 0:15:09.960 she was someone who had had a lot of experience 0:15:10.040 --> 0:15:14.040 in investing in internet companies. And you know, keep in mind, 0:15:14.080 --> 0:15:16.480 this is ninety nine, so we're still talking before the 0:15:16.520 --> 0:15:19.720 big bubble crash. It's the heady days of the Internet 0:15:19.760 --> 0:15:22.840 when everyone's trying to figure out, like, there's this incredible resource, 0:15:22.920 --> 0:15:25.400 how can we use it to our best advantage? And 0:15:25.480 --> 0:15:26.960 she was one of those people who was right there 0:15:27.000 --> 0:15:30.240 on the bleeding edge looking at the possibilities, and she 0:15:30.280 --> 0:15:34.520 got really excited. She was very much a passionate music fan, 0:15:34.760 --> 0:15:37.680 and so she was a music fan and a venture capitalist. 0:15:37.800 --> 0:15:41.280 Napster fell right into her wheelhouse, so she jumped in. 0:15:41.400 --> 0:15:45.640 She ended up making a very substantial investment, and then 0:15:46.040 --> 0:15:48.080 like like you said, Lauren, she began to interim CEO. 0:15:48.920 --> 0:15:55.200 By by September, there were forty registered Napster users. Um 0:15:55.280 --> 0:15:57.280 and it was connecting a few hundred people at a 0:15:57.280 --> 0:15:59.880 time at any given time. Right and by this time 0:16:00.040 --> 0:16:02.400 on Parker has gone from being an I r C 0:16:02.560 --> 0:16:05.280 buddy to a real life buddy and is working with 0:16:05.320 --> 0:16:08.720 Fanning on this project. Uh. And and it was also 0:16:08.840 --> 0:16:13.520 right around the same time that the Recording Industry Association 0:16:13.520 --> 0:16:16.200 of America also known as the r I double A, 0:16:16.880 --> 0:16:21.320 which represents five of the major music labels like we're 0:16:21.320 --> 0:16:24.400 talking like the big big ones, the ones that own 0:16:24.480 --> 0:16:29.800 everything else, essentially started to really tackle websites that were 0:16:29.840 --> 0:16:34.520 hosting music files that were under copyright. So the r 0:16:34.560 --> 0:16:38.720 I double A was actually actively seeking uh these sites 0:16:38.760 --> 0:16:42.120 being taken down. Now, keep in mind Napsters circumventing all this. 0:16:42.280 --> 0:16:45.080 It's no longer looking at websites that are hosting files. 0:16:45.080 --> 0:16:47.840 It's looking directly at people's hard drives where there's the 0:16:47.880 --> 0:16:51.240 shared folder. So while r I double A is going 0:16:51.280 --> 0:16:55.920 after all these websites, Napster's doing you know, business like gangbusters. 0:16:55.960 --> 0:16:58.120 And when I say business, it's not really business because 0:16:58.120 --> 0:17:01.360 they weren't making money. Yeah, they had revenue generating scheme 0:17:01.360 --> 0:17:04.600 at all. There was no way for Napster to make money. 0:17:04.720 --> 0:17:06.840 It just that wasn't part of what was going on. 0:17:06.880 --> 0:17:10.080 In fact, I'm not sure that was ever really part 0:17:10.200 --> 0:17:15.680 of their their their original plan. Yeah, Originally it was 0:17:15.720 --> 0:17:18.400 all just about sharing and that you know, they knew 0:17:18.440 --> 0:17:20.760 that the service had value, but not in a way 0:17:20.800 --> 0:17:24.240 that they could actually monetize. And although you know, they 0:17:24.280 --> 0:17:27.200 were looking even in the early days, they were looking 0:17:27.240 --> 0:17:31.200 at ways to to to get licenses from various music 0:17:31.240 --> 0:17:33.560 labels where they be able to do things like sell 0:17:33.720 --> 0:17:37.560 music files through napster Um as well as kind of 0:17:37.640 --> 0:17:40.960 you know, diffuse the growing problem of the r I 0:17:41.000 --> 0:17:44.920 double a looking out for or even later on they 0:17:44.920 --> 0:17:47.320 were talking about, you know, trying to find a way 0:17:47.320 --> 0:17:51.760 to count count these hits, count these downloads and and 0:17:51.920 --> 0:17:54.639 tally them up and pay the recording artists and the 0:17:54.680 --> 0:17:57.480 labels and all of that for the music. So, you know, 0:17:57.560 --> 0:17:59.600 it's it's I think it's really important to mention that 0:17:59.640 --> 0:18:01.720 because these these kids really weren't out there going like 0:18:01.760 --> 0:18:04.119 we're gonna steal all the music, right. In fact, they 0:18:04.160 --> 0:18:06.320 were just thinking like, this is a way to share 0:18:06.359 --> 0:18:09.159 stuff and it's a tool for music discovery, which was 0:18:09.200 --> 0:18:11.200 a that was a big deal too, was the idea 0:18:11.240 --> 0:18:13.680 like it's it's getting harder and harder to discover music. 0:18:13.760 --> 0:18:17.520 Radio stations might play the same like a couple dozen tracks, 0:18:17.800 --> 0:18:20.520 technically obligated to pay the play the same like forty 0:18:20.560 --> 0:18:23.960 tracks by their contracts. So how do you discover new 0:18:24.040 --> 0:18:27.080 stuff If you don't have the luxury of flying off 0:18:27.080 --> 0:18:29.720 to Amsterdam every few months to listen to a band play, 0:18:30.080 --> 0:18:32.520 Then how do you discover new music? If you're not 0:18:32.640 --> 0:18:34.240 you know, you may not live in a city that 0:18:34.280 --> 0:18:38.120 has a vibrant music community. It makes it really difficult. So, 0:18:38.200 --> 0:18:40.639 you know, although the record industry was doing fine, It's 0:18:40.680 --> 0:18:45.080 profits raised eight percent over the previous year um by 0:18:45.240 --> 0:18:47.359 by the end of the year, UM the R I 0:18:47.560 --> 0:18:51.200 A filed lawsuit against Napster. Right right around that same time, 0:18:51.560 --> 0:18:56.600 Napster hired its first non founding member named ali idar Uh. 0:18:56.680 --> 0:18:59.120 And then right at right while that was going on, 0:18:59.600 --> 0:19:03.520 our I Double A was really looking at Napster as 0:19:03.560 --> 0:19:06.760 a true threat, like this was if if the websites 0:19:06.840 --> 0:19:11.120 hosting a few music files were bad, Napster was Darth 0:19:11.200 --> 0:19:14.000 Mader coming out to kill all the Jedi, and so 0:19:14.280 --> 0:19:16.879 R I Double A really started to concentrate on him. 0:19:16.880 --> 0:19:22.480 In fact called Napster a giant online pirate bazarre. That's bizarre, 0:19:22.520 --> 0:19:27.480 b a z a R not bizarre, isn't strange um. 0:19:27.560 --> 0:19:30.560 And so the thing was that as the R I 0:19:30.600 --> 0:19:33.320 double A began to focus on Napster and all this 0:19:33.480 --> 0:19:37.800 news broke about coming after Napster, that just made Napster's 0:19:37.800 --> 0:19:41.400 profile go up even more, which meant more people discovered 0:19:41.440 --> 0:19:44.400 the service, which meant that it actually got more popular 0:19:44.560 --> 0:19:48.240 than ever before. Meanwhile, the R I double A was 0:19:48.280 --> 0:19:54.000 specifically looking at charging Napster one hundred thousand dollars for 0:19:54.160 --> 0:19:58.840 every copyrighted work that was infringed, which which is a bunch, 0:19:59.040 --> 0:20:01.760 and that's a lot. And remember, this is a service 0:20:01.800 --> 0:20:05.720 that grows incredibly every time someone new joins in, especially 0:20:05.720 --> 0:20:09.000 if that person has files on their computer that wasn't 0:20:09.000 --> 0:20:13.400 already spread across the entire uh Napster landscape. So if 0:20:13.520 --> 0:20:15.119 you know, if I join on and I happen to 0:20:15.119 --> 0:20:20.120 have my Tibetan Throat Singing Magical CD that nobody else 0:20:20.119 --> 0:20:21.879 in the whole world owns, and it happens to be 0:20:21.920 --> 0:20:24.800 on my computer, then suddenly I am of more value 0:20:24.800 --> 0:20:28.280 than Napster because there's new stuff that no one had, 0:20:28.359 --> 0:20:31.280 no else has yet. If I happen to have Dave 0:20:31.320 --> 0:20:33.800 Matthew's greatest hits, there's a chance that was already covered 0:20:33.800 --> 0:20:37.480 on Napster. Um, I don't have that album. By the way, 0:20:37.960 --> 0:20:42.000 I'm very proud of you. I'm not I'm not passing 0:20:42.040 --> 0:20:47.240 any judgment. I'm just saying so, uh, yeah, well that 0:20:47.320 --> 0:20:51.040 was fun. But yeah. Here's something that Eileen Richardson specifically 0:20:51.119 --> 0:20:53.359 had to say about Napster, and this comes from an 0:20:53.400 --> 0:20:57.840 interview she did with Salon where this was after Metallica, 0:20:57.920 --> 0:21:00.919 after after Lars Alric himself, it came by and dropped 0:21:00.960 --> 0:21:03.560 off this this huge lawsuit because it wasn't just r 0:21:03.600 --> 0:21:06.919 I double A that came after Napster. Individual labels and 0:21:06.960 --> 0:21:11.720 bands also came after Napster. And uh and so she said, 0:21:11.880 --> 0:21:14.720 I think and then in brackets because this is not 0:21:14.760 --> 0:21:17.679 exactly what she said, but Metallica and the recording industries 0:21:17.840 --> 0:21:21.399 actions are based on a lack of knowledge and fear. 0:21:21.760 --> 0:21:24.639 When you're afraid of something that you don't understand, you react, 0:21:24.880 --> 0:21:27.800 usually with the lawsuit. But over time, and we see 0:21:27.800 --> 0:21:32.200 this absolutely every single day, everybody's learning. We're learning about 0:21:32.200 --> 0:21:35.840 the music industry. They're learning about the Internet. I'm confident 0:21:35.880 --> 0:21:39.080 that we'll get there together. Now. As it turns out, 0:21:39.200 --> 0:21:43.960 her words were not quite prophetic. She was giving a 0:21:44.040 --> 0:21:46.919 little too much credit, I think to all sides on 0:21:46.960 --> 0:21:49.080 this issue. I don't mean to paint the r I 0:21:49.160 --> 0:21:52.600 double A as being this evil uh entity. They were 0:21:52.640 --> 0:21:56.920 looking out for their interests in a very very passionate way. 0:21:57.320 --> 0:21:59.520 I meanwhile, Napster was looking out for their interests in 0:21:59.560 --> 0:22:01.840