Once popular music service Napster is no more. The service has been merged with Rhapsody, which bought the service from Best Buy
last month. Napster was launched in 1999, which were the simpler times. The service was a novelty back then and it was something people had not experiences before. Napster was created by Shawn Fanning and it allowed its users to swap MP3 files with each other.
The service initially used peer to peer networking and it treaded l3gally dubious territory, and this is something which caused the eventual demise of the service. Napster was used by artists and the recording industry as it ate into their profits. Napster was hit with a lawsuit by The Recording Industry Association of America in 2000. Soon, the service was being disparaged by popular artistes including Dr. Dre and Metallica.
The lawsuits forced Napster to start blocking unauthorized music exchange, which caused the massive decline in traffic. Various Napster copycats such as Kazaa and Limewire also failed to survive. In 2003, Napster was bought by software company Roxio, which released the service in a new format. However, it failed to capture the old magic. In the coming years, Napster changed many hands. Roxio sold it to Best Buy, which sold it to Rhapsody.
While Napster was founded on l3gally and morally dubious grounds, but we got to give it the credit for bringing new options to the table. It was good while it lasted.