1998, Boston Northeastern University: 19 yr-old freshman, Shawn Fanning, became enamored with the Internet and downloading MP3 music.  The talented young man took his laptop (a gift from his supportive uncle), and created a file-sharing "peer-to-peer" software that enabled people to trade music via Internet connection.

Sharing it with his friends on the promise of secrecy, Shawn distributed his beta release of Napster to a small group of 30 people on chatrooms. Unable to resist themselves, these 30 people gave copies to their friends, and within a few days, Napster beta was being used by nearly 15 000 test users.

Within two years, Napster was in use by 130 million estimated users, who downloaded and uploaded nearly 1 billion MP3 music files.

Metallica, Dr. Dre, Madonna, and the American Recording Industry Association (ARIA) sued Shawn Fanning's company on the grounds of copyright infringement.  After more than a year of courtroom battling, the landmark ruling required that Napster ban several thousand music titles from its network. Effectively, Napster 1.0 was shut down in all practical aspects.

Outraged, users everywhere began building ways of circumventing this court order, including the automated scrambling of MP3 filenames, and using Napster-type software that dynamically avoided detection.

Shawn formally shut Napster 1.0 down in late 2001, after the court order and after 130 universities banned his software on campus.  Today, Napster 2.0 exists as a much smaller entity that shares only specifically-sanctioned music.

Read more about Shawn Fanning and Napster here.