By downloading the free Napster software to their computers, users could put links to MP3 files that they had ripped from CDs onto Napster’s index, allowing other users to search for songs (or other media files) and download them directly from the computer of the user who had listed them. So, it became the public face and name for both fans and critics of peer-to-peer technology. But it was the easiest to use and Fanning marketed it successfully to young music consumers. When 19-year-old college student Shawn Fanning started Napster in June, 1999, it was not the only peer-to-peer file-sharing network on the internet. However, MP3 piracy became an industry-wide threat in the 1990s primarily for three reasons: (a) the advent of peer-to-peer (P2P) file networks and software that accompanied widespread availability of high-bandwidth internet, (b) a pervasive sense of entitlement to free music among consumers driven by a lack of respect for the record industry, and (c) the record industry burying its head in the sand rather than quickly moving into the internet age. There were previous underground markets for bootleg vinyl records, then a bigger market for easier-to-create bootleg cassette tapes, and then bootleg CDs. Recorded music piracy did not begin with MP3 files. ![]() Let’s start with the rise of Napster and MP3 piracy. ![]() The big non-story is the continued consolidation of the record industry into three major companies that dominate the industry globally. Without a doubt, the big story of the new millennium has been the collapse of recorded music sales due to MP3 piracy and the subsequent recovery fueled first by Apple’s iTunes and now streaming. 16 Napster, the iPod, and Streaming: The Record Industry in the New Millennium
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