Napster, launched in 1999, revolutionized music consumption by enabling peer-to-peer file sharing. Its rapid growth, reaching millions of users, disrupted the established music industry and led to legal battles with artists and labels.
Napster was co-founded by Sean Fanning and Sean Parker.
At its peak, Napster facilitated 27 billion song transfers per month.
61% of traffic on college servers was attributed to MP3 sharing at one point.
When Napster reared its head in 1999, it marked the beginning of the end of the compact disc era. Today, we trace the history of the slowly evolving death of physical music media.