This is a companion piece to a video on WKNC’s YouTube channel, watch it at the following link: “Napster’s Quick Rise and Fall“
Living in the streaming age with so many services is overwhelming. We oft wish for an age where we shouldn’t need to spend tons of money on music services that improperly support artists. Why don’t we just remove that middleman entirely and make it so all artists aren’t paid- at all?
That was the solution Napster, Limewire and dozens other peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing sites had in the late 90s and early 2000s. Users could simply upload their own audio files and download, send and recieve files posted by other users. Infamously, both applications had problems with correct labeling of track and artist names. Both Limewire and Napster did more than just music and naturally sometimes had malware packaged in with songs. Naturally, they were shut down fairly fast, but there’s still a fascinating history behind the two.
