Napster
Software program initially developed by Shawn Fanning while at Northeastern University in Boston that initially allowed any user to easily and freely share and download music over the Internet. Napster started sharing files in September 1999 and by February 2001 had over 26 million users. However because of legal issues was shutdown in July of 2001.
Napster filed a Chapter 11 Bankruptcy on June 3, 2002 and on November 25, 2002 Roxio acquired the Napster name and logo in a bankruptcy auction on November 25, 2002 and rebrands their music sharing service Pressplay as Napster.
- The official Napster site can be found at: http://www.napster.com/
Also see: Internet definitions, MP3, P2P