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Generation In-Between: A Xennial Podcast
Xennial co-hosts Dani and Katie talk about their analog childhoods, digital adulthoods and everything in between.
Generation In-Between: A Xennial Podcast
Napster Nostalgia: The Original Playlist?
Do you remember when downloading a single song to your desktop computer took literal hours?
Are you a fan of teenagers inventing illegal technology?
If you still have burned CD mixes that you downloaded from your Napster playlist, you might be a Xennial. And we are too.
Katie and Dani share their own experience using Napster from 1999 - 2001 and talk about how the platform paved the way for modern streaming giants like Spotify and Apple Music.
And decide for yourself just HOW illegal it actually was -- and what music artists actually liked having Napster share their songs.
This episode was made possible by the following sources:
Napster: The Day Music was Set Free (via The Guardian)
A Short History of Napster (Via LifeWire)
Napster: The File-Sharing Service that Started It All? (via NPR)
Napster (via Wikipedia)
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Did your late 90s playlist live only on your desktop computer?
Dani Combs:Are your music downloads the reason your college dorm internet would crash?
Katie Parsons:If you remember having to wait for sometimes hours for your favorite songs to download to your computer so you could add them to your Napster playlist, you might be a Zennial and we are too. Hi, I'm Katie and I'm Dani and you're listening to Generation In Between, a Zennial podcast, where we revisit, remember and sometimes relearn all kinds of fun things from our 80s childhood and 90s teen young adulthoods and we already said the names, so, listeners, you probably caught on. Today we are talking about the original streaming music service, kind of Napster, dani, did you use Napster when it came out?
Dani Combs:You know what, Before we started recording I was like, oh, I totally use Napster. But then I was thinking about it and I'm like, but did I? Was there another music download?
Katie Parsons:site, not that I found during the same exact period, but pretty quickly after this.
Dani Combs:Yes, I'm fairly certain I did, but I feel like I didn't use it for a long period of time, which you said something when we were talking that made me be like, oh, that's why.
Katie Parsons:So the icon had like this it was almost like a little cat. I thought it was a demon. It did kind of look like a demon or a cat wearing headphones. Oh, I'm just like demon.
Dani Combs:Demon.
Katie Parsons:I don't know what they had on. They were too scary, they were a demon. So for those of you listening that didn't have Napster or like trying to kind of remember what that is, we'll get into all that. Okay, what it was, how it worked, what's happening with this? I and then, when I rechecked the years of this, I realized, oh yeah, these were like. So the years we're going to be talking about with Napster are small.
Dani Combs:Yeah, it's like 98 to 2001. So that's when I started college, so that makes sense, that I'd be like I've kind of remember and kind of don't like college is a blur. I don't know, I don't know, but I remember it later in my life, in my teenage life, so that makes sense. Yeah.
Katie Parsons:I remember using it, being like a senior in high school, which would have been like 98, 90 or 99, 2000. And then in my dorm room, yeah, yeah, I definitely remember being on my desktop computer doing things with Napster. Okay, cool, well, we're just going to jump right in today because we have got Napster on the brain and we are ready to go. Okay, so what the heck is Napster? Yeah, okay, so I'm going to give you kind of the high level technical definition and then we're going to dig into it a little bit, and then you have to dumb it down, for me.
Katie Parsons:For myself too. I read a few of them. I was like Googling what does P2P?
Dani Combs:mean? What does PlayStation 2? I don't know, that doesn't even exist.
Katie Parsons:Right. So this first line says Napster was an American P2P file sharing application, which just means peer to peer, so you could share files with other people on Napster. Okay, that was primarily associated with digital audio files, so songs mostly. So this is really a zennial thing. It was founded by Sean Fanning, s-h-a-w-n and Sean Parker and Sean Parker S-E-A-N. So you know we've got like the battle of the Sean spellings, which is very zennial. Also two guys named Sean. We're going to talk more about them. The platform originally launched June 1st 1999. So 99, 98 was kind of like when the idea was born, so 99 is when it launched the mid-year.
Dani Combs:So what was happening in your life June 1st 1999.
Katie Parsons:I had just finished my junior year, so I was going to be a senior. So you were.
Dani Combs:I was going into my sophomore year of college, yeah, so okay, yeah, so that's when it would have first come out. I was like a legit. I was 18, almost 19 at this time. No.
Katie Parsons:Yeah, yeah, cause I was 17.
Dani Combs:Yeah, so I was going into my second year of college. Um, so I for some reason not to like, totally bust in in your tech speak. I remember I feel like we couldn't use it in our dorm internet. Oh, that's probably true. Okay, and we're going to get to that. So that's coming, then we're going to get to that.
Katie Parsons:Okay, yeah, so, and we'll get into all of this. But as Napster became popular, the company encountered a lot of legal difficulties over copyright infringement and it ceased operations in 2001. Yeah, so about two years after it launched, after losing multiple lawsuits, and then they filed for bankruptcy in June 2002. So it was really only like in use for two years. That's like hardly anything.
Dani Combs:That's hardly anything. And when you're talking, about like lawsuits.
Katie Parsons:I'm like I can't believe they were like resolved that quickly, right. But when you see some of the people who were suing them, you'll understand Like they had the money to fast track this stuff, right. It peaked in January 2001 with 87 million users.
Dani Combs:So the thing about Napster like you could get music for free, Right? So obviously illegal, Illegal.
Katie Parsons:And we're going to talk about how. That's actually my next point Like, how did that even work? So before Napster you've got to put yourself in like 1999 lens, which is hard to do with the technology we have today, but music was very localized. So you had your own CDs that you listened to. You might have MP3s that was kind of a new thing coming out which would later become really popular with things like iTunes, where you didn't have to buy the whole CD, you could just pay for one song, and you can still do that with, like Apple Music and things like that. But that was it and the music you owned you had on your devices. There was no streaming, there was no cloud, you have to remember. There were not even like a lot of cell phones, and if you did have cell phones, there wasn't internet. I remember having to pay for ringtones, do?
Katie Parsons:you remember that, like if you wanted it to play music, now I'm like, do not ring, I will throw you out the window and run you over with my car. I know, but at one time I wanted my phone to ring so, before Napster, people could email other people MP3 files. So, for example, if you had a CD and the software or the know-how to download those individual songs to your computer, you could then email those files to someone else. However, it took so much space, so much bandwidth, so much time. It wasn't widely done. If you really needed to for some reason, maybe you would, but it wasn't like a lot of people, millions of people sharing files this way. It was just very clunky and not easy to do and took a lot of space.
Dani Combs:And this is when we made mixed CDs.
Katie Parsons:So what you?
Dani Combs:could do young people of the now generation. You had to have a CD burner. Your CD-ROM in your computer had to be capable of taking stuff off of a CD right.
Katie Parsons:It was right. Yeah, there were a couple of ways you could do it, but yeah, it could read the file.
Dani Combs:You had to have the technology to put that on something else. Right, Like you could take it Okay.
Katie Parsons:And some of that was external. You could buy some that hooked up to your computer, but you had to have special technology for that.
Dani Combs:Yeah, so what you could do was like, say, katie had the new Britney CD and I wanted to make a copy of it. I did, and she would have wanted to do that. And what I could do is, if I had the right CD burner, I could copy it to my computer and then put all of those songs onto a CD for a while. But then they started making it where CDs could not be burned.
Katie Parsons:Right, they had like a chip or some sort of technology that you couldn't burn them. Yeah, but then Napster came along, right?
Dani Combs:And changed the game.
Katie Parsons:And even that was pretty clunky, like, yes, you could steal, quote, unquote music, but it wasn't really something done at a huge scale. Yeah, because it was just so time-consuming and tedious. And by the time you buy the technology and the CDs and if you're labeling them, you might as well just buy the CD. I know, Like at some point and you can't do mixed CDs that way, Mixed CDs were another thing If you wanted a mix of stuff which Napster helped, which was great, napster was the original playlist that we use now for Spotify, for Apple Music, for all these places we listen.
Katie Parsons:Um spot or Napster was the original place.
Dani Combs:You could really do that for the first time and didn't physically have to have it on a CD you know, what I remember making burn CDs for was when this was around the time when I got out of college in the early 2000s and I was teaching fitness classes. It's expensive. It used to be very expensive to buy fitness. You have to buy specific fitness music to use in classes because of copyright. You can't just bring a burn CD and use it or you can go to jail. So if you were working in a gym you had to have official music. All the instructors would bring their own music with them and it had to be like official fitness music. But we would all share CDs and you would just burn each other's CDs because they were cost a lot. So that a lot of my remember when I brought in my CDs like a lot of my fitness CDs were like written on here like whoever's next turbo kick three.
Katie Parsons:Those were awesome Actually. So I work out with Danny, usually before we record. Danny is my trainer and you're usually using your official fitness music that you pay for lately, oh okay. Well, we're just going to say that you do, but I was going to say we should listen to some of your old fitness CDs while we work out. It's so bad.
Dani Combs:They're terrible. That's why we should I have a Jackson 5 mix. What's wrong with that? Well, because they're not well done. Fitness mixes because they don't use the real music. It's re-recordings. Oh so it's in the style of Jackson 5. Oh no.
Katie Parsons:But it's probably like, really like almost techno-y Jackson 5. Oh no, but it's probably really almost techno-y.
Dani Combs:I mean it's fun, but it's absolutely horrible.
Katie Parsons:Okay, but we will, I think we should do it anyway.
Dani Combs:I'll bring it in and then we can just giggle PS Little plug.
Katie Parsons:Dani's an amazing personal trainer, so even if you can't see her in person, have her. You do virtual sessions now, don't you? Not yet?
Dani Combs:Excuse me Coming soon. Uh, you do virtual sessions now, don't you not yet excuse me coming soon? Sorry, my laptop, uh, has sound problems that I keep saying I'm gonna get fixed. And here we are.
Katie Parsons:So well, that's okay, that's okay. Um, if you, if you listen to our nostalgia thrifting episode, we had all sorts of sound things. Thankfully we can't fix some, but anyway, back on track. That's when we should add to our reel. Of course we get off track of course we get off track just like right now, and listeners are like what the heck are you talking about?
Dani Combs:we're talking about napster. Dang it okay, we're back, we're back okay.
Katie Parsons:So we're kind of we were kind of just talking about mp3s and what they do, but I can go into it a little deeper here. So how did the technology of napster work, like, how did you share music? There was no cloud, right. There was, like, no streaming services. So, essentially, if you have MP3 files yes, from your CDs or whatever you could share them with other people on this platform. So, instead of the emailing, you became like got a profile on Napster, uploaded your music Other people did the same, and then you could grab other people's music and you could make your little playlists. You could make playlists and burn them to CDs. You could do all this stuff and you didn't have. You did have to. I had to look this up because I couldn't remember.
Katie Parsons:If you wanted to just play it, you could, but if you wanted it on a CD, you had to download it to your device. Oh, because, again, there's no cloud, right. So if you wanted like actually I think even to listen to it, you had to download it. So you were still downloading music. It's just, instead of literally having to put all of your CDs in, you could find music from other people to download for free. Yeah, right.
Katie Parsons:So you know, like I said, the tech savvy folks which were all of us, as teens and young adults, we figured out how to burn those onto CDs, even some of those like old timey and old timey MP3 players, like we could get them on those. Some people could. But generally speaking, even with Napster, wherever you downloaded that playlist is where you had to listen to it. Yeah Right, because there was no like it wasn't like oh, a Spotify playlist when I'm on my phone, when I'm on my computer, when I'm on another computer, it was literally that device. So if it was your home desktop computer, you might have all those songs, but that's the only place you can listen to it, unless you get it on a CD or some other way.
Katie Parsons:I think it's important to remember too remember too, like internet back then was way slower than what you guys know now slow and music files are huge. Yeah, so it took forever. It took forever and, um, I think at the time when I was first and I I have a specific memory being in my home at the time, my parents home and being on the family computer and like after school, talking to some of my college friends on email and just waiting for things to download and having to dial up and it was like a whole thing and you also have to remember. So we already talked about phones weren't really a thing. There's no Internet.
Katie Parsons:We are still five years away, in 1999, 2000, from YouTube even launching. It didn't launch till 2005. I thought it was later than that, honestly, yeah, so I mean we're still not even close to that and we're seven years away from the iPhone, the smartphone. So, like this to people was like revolutionary I can get music that I want to listen to and I don't have to go buy a CD, like literally can get it for absolutely free.
Katie Parsons:Now, of course, there were like issues, like sometimes it wouldn't be the song you thought, and you spend literally all this time downloading it and it's like not the song you wanted, or part of the song, or the quality was bad, but at least in my experience, most of the songs were pretty good and they were what they were supposed to be. Like it's free, it was free, so like.
Dani Combs:of course that's going to appeal to teens and college students. A hundred percent Right I mean it's basically stealing music, but you know it is. That comes back in a minute.
Katie Parsons:So, yeah, I'm getting ready to tell you who came up with this idea and it did make me a little sympathetic to them, because I think it's easy to say, oh, stealing something that belongs to someone else, stealing something that belongs to someone else. But you have to think about and we've talked about this too when we've talked about different artists already on the podcast the chokehold that these executives and these record companies had on people and that, yes, technically, if you were using Napster, you were stealing from the artists, but more so, you were stealing from the record companies.
Dani Combs:Yeah, right, because somebody had the music to begin with, correct.
Dani Combs:Correct, it's almost like you know, when I was a kid in the 80s, we would and a young you know preteen we would record on cassette tape from the radio. Like you'd sit down and wait all day to like you know they do top 100 and you record the songs you wanted to. So then that was like your mixtape, right? This is kind of the same idea. Like you're not. I mean, yeah, it is stealing, but also not because somebody owns it. You're just sharing on a very grand scale and you'll see as we get into this.
Katie Parsons:But the main reason it was shut down so quickly is not because it's like the most illegal thing that's ever happened and it was bad and it was dangerous and had to be shut down. It was because the record money, the record companies, were terrified of this, which later turned into the things like we have now, like the Spotify's and all of that, and they didn't know what to do about it because they'd had this chokehold, whether it was cassette tapes or records, or cassette tapes or CDs, and now you've got people just freely by the millions hearing this stuff and they have no say in it, they have no whatever. And the artists get upset too. But we'll talk about that, okay. So who even came up with this idea, which, by the way, is a pretty good idea? I know it's stealing, I know, but it just like this.
Katie Parsons:The technology of it is pretty good and the people they're targeting, like you said, young people, college students, pretty smart. Okay so, not surprisingly, napster was the brainchild of two teenagers. Yes, in 1999 is when they met. So in 1998, someone with the username on like one of these internet chat forums Napster, that was his username revealed to those in an internet chat room that he had been working on a piece of software again this is a teenager to fix the problem of not being able to share audio files easily, and he explained in this chat room it would allow people to dip into each other's hard drives and share their MP3 music files. So the MP3s had been around since like the mid-1990s and you know, for, like the young people in the internet age, they were kind of emerging as this like new way to listen to stuff, right? So that's Napster.
Katie Parsons:I'm going to tell you who that is in just a little bit. Sean Parker was an inspiring entrepreneur. He was only 18. He somehow caught wind of this conversation Everywhere I saw, and then I saw a picture and commented that he had red hair. So, listeners, he had red hair. It also had a few like physical descriptions that I did not include here because weird, it was kind of weird, but anyway, he had red hair and, by most accounts, he was actually a really shy person. So in this chat room, sean parker suggested to this napster guy, whose name was sean fanning, that they meet in person other sean, so sean fanning, the one who actually came up with this technology, napster, as you will his name his online name was Napster was only 17.
Dani Combs:Wow, so kind of creepy. But also they're meeting at, they're doing this random internet meetup for software purposes, which is kind of cute.
Katie Parsons:It is kind of cute. I mean, it's not the worst.
Dani Combs:I mean, there's other things that teenagers have wanted to meet up from in a chat room that are yeah, it's like great.
Katie Parsons:It's like, oh, how'd you guys start your business? Well, we met in a chat room and we were discussing MP3 downloadable files. Let's get together and code Seriously. And so Sean Fanning, though, again, the Sean that invented the technology, who went by Napster. That was a nickname he had because, according to him I'm quoting him he had nappy hair growing up, so people called him Napster. That was a nickname he had because, according to him I'm quoting him he had nappy hair growing up, so people called him Napster. So that's where the name comes from, but that word has like not good connotation it does, and at the time it didn't.
Katie Parsons:I don't think. I think it did and we just weren't aware. And I will say they're both white men, right? So just putting that out there, one has red hair. Apparently.
Dani Combs:we could go into a whole dialogue on that, but we won't yeah, because we're talking about today so that's why I prefaced.
Katie Parsons:He has said that about himself. Got it. Okay that that's where napster came from. Okay, so sean fanning was working on a borrowed pc in his uncle's massachusetts office. He was sleeping, it says, in a utility cupboard.
Dani Combs:I don't know what that means like cupboard.
Katie Parsons:Do they mean like room, closet, closet, I don't know, a utility cupboard? Yeah, that's a utility cupboard, I'm assuming like a, like a closet I guess, um, weird.
Katie Parsons:But by the spring of 1999, he had, like, officially made this product happen. So Sean Parker, who was the entrepreneur guy Right, had managed to raise $50,000 from investors Okay, which, especially back then and for teenagers and together they moved to California. Friends from that chat room were hired as staff and Napster launched in May 1999. Well, earlier it said June 1st, so it's like end of May, early June. But by October of that year there were 4 million songs on there and by March 2000, they had more than 20 million. Wow, yeah, isn't that wild? Yeah, so, so, okay. So let's pause for a second. Okay, again, stealing copyrighted information. But how fun is this? Meeting in a chat room when you're 17 and 18, having this idea, getting $50,000 from investors, getting a place, hiring your friends, and then you make it live and people are like this is great.
Dani Combs:I know I mean you gotta. You gotta admire their initiative and their business minded abilities at such a young age? Yeah, cause I'm 43 years old and I don't think I can do that. I'm good, but not me.
Katie Parsons:Oh, I don't know. Moving to California, that actually sounds kind of fun. I have to take a lot of people and animals with me. Take the whole farm.
Dani Combs:Wait till they all go to college, then you won't have as many. That's true, that's true. Then you'll be older and tired, so maybe not.
Katie Parsons:Yeah, then I'll be like where'd you guys go? I'm going to come see you. Have lots of places to fly hopefully that's my hope and visit. So, kind of looping back to what you said about college dormitories, I have a side note here. So during this time period, this 99, 2000, early 2001, high speed I'm using air quotes here networks in college dorms became overloaded, with as much as 61% of network traffic being MP3 file transfers. Well, at least it was that and not something else, I mean MP3s, could be a lot of things oh true, but they're not MP4s.
Katie Parsons:Mp4s are the video MP3. But so many colleges blocked Napster for that reason, not even like because of liability or copyright violations. They were just like, yeah, no, you can't have it. And they like blocked it with firewalls and stuff like that. So what do we think the record labels and artists think about this?
Dani Combs:Oh, I'm sure they hated it. They hated it Because it's taking away potential money.
Katie Parsons:To be fair, some didn't, and we'll get to that in a few, but first the people who were mad.
Dani Combs:So, first of all, the richest people are going to be the most mad, am I right?
Katie Parsons:Well, and that's what we'll end up seeing.
Dani Combs:Yeah.
Katie Parsons:The people that already had the money were mad. And the people still trying to make a name for themselves were not Right. Because people were sharing their music, right, right, because that's how it always goes, mm like people to see them and like, get in front of people liked it. Yeah, because suddenly, like people are sharing their music and they don't have to wait for a record label to say yes, they don't have to get on a radio station. People are like, wow, I like this song, do you like it? And maybe there's not a huge financial gain there, but when you're first getting started, there's getting your name out there, the credibility.
Katie Parsons:And, as we'll see, some of those artists are still like artists today and they credit Napster for helping like catapult them into fame. So we'll get to that. So, okay, so Napster was so successful and the record industry was very, very unhappy about it. They were already like not sure how to deal with internet stuff and now they're trying to figure out how to keep this copyrighted material in their control under lock and key. And the first year of the new millennium so year 2000, was the first one ever for a dip in global record sales or album sales.
Katie Parsons:Like ever. So that scared everybody right and led to like lawsuits, not just of Napster itself but of individual users, which we'll get into. So in mid 2000,. Now again, this launched end of May, early June 99. So we're talking less than a year later. Yeah, the Record Industry Association of America called this like special session. Oh so the execs in the room supposedly were encouraged to play a game that was called stump the napster. So basically they were all on napster and they were challenged to find one of their new singles that was not on there. That's so funny. And what do you think happened they?
Dani Combs:couldn't they?
Katie Parsons:couldn't, they couldn't find them, no one could stump the Napster.
Dani Combs:I mean you go teenage boys.
Katie Parsons:You're right, that's hilarious. Okay, imagine something you invent and, like some of the most powerful companies in pop culture, have a special session, I know, and they all don't like each other. They're competitors. And they meet, yeah, to defeat you, to try to beat you, yeah, and they end up beating them, as you know, we'll find out, but still so, they couldn't. So then they all like freaked out.
Dani Combs:So it wasn't just these bigwigs, though, but of course, you know, Dani, I've been holding my tongue because I know y'all are saying when is she going to say capitalism? And? But I haven't had to, because you knew that it was there all along.
Katie Parsons:It was just underlying capitalism it's always there and underlying patriarchy, so it was. Some of the artists started to get upset about this too. Okay, so Metallica was actually the first one, you probably if you were alive during this time period.
Katie Parsons:Remember hearing about this? Yeah, so this is crazy. So their demo, a demo of their song, I Disappear, so not even like the official studio. One began circulating on the internet before it was released. Radio stations picked it up and started playing it. Oh my gosh. And that is how Metallica figured out that it was on Napster and figured out what Napster was. Wow, isn't that wild. And also in 2000, madonna's single Music was leaked out onto the web and Napster prior to its commercial release. And, like, the media picked up on it and they're like oh, listen to this song, blah, blah, blah that we found on Napster, oh my gosh. So studios weren't like doing their official releases. So in April 2000, metallica filed a lawsuit against napster. A month later you may recognize this name rapper and producer, dr dre, also filed one. But this is what's interesting he shared a lawyer and legal firm with metallica. Interesting. So I don't know how much of it was like dr dre. Being like this is wrong and how much of it was like Dr Dre. Being like this is wrong.
Dani Combs:And how much of it was his lawyers being like?
Katie Parsons:oh, you should get on this like train. Yeah, so they did, they say. The lawyers say that they sent written notices to Napster to remove their works, whatever list they had, and they didn't comply. They didn't comply.
Dani Combs:So Metallica and Dr Dre later went through imagine this being you guys, napster and turned over thousands of usernames of people that they thought were pirating their music. So they went on to Napster and found people who were sharing their music, recorded their name and then gave it to like lawyers or litigators or the court or whatever it said. It delivered to Napster, but doesn't Napster already know?
Katie Parsons:I see what you're saying, yes, so I think they had it on the record, and they were also like trying to get kind of like now when people go to Facebook and they say like, hey, these people are using your platform illegally. Oh, and then.
Dani Combs:Facebook is expected. How would it be legal?
Katie Parsons:Right, that's true.
Dani Combs:Like I guess that was where that's. My question is why would they report it to Napster?
Katie Parsons:if the whole point is to share music, it's all.
Dani Combs:It's basically every username Right, right, yeah, unless they're just creating their own music to share.
Katie Parsons:I think it's like anything Like I remember using Napster just as an individual, but there probably were people who were doing it, finding business ways to do it, who were like literally finding the new stuff that's not released to pirate and stuff like that. So I'm guessing there were different levels of this. Yeah, that were happening. I vaguely remember people talking about even like pirated CDs from this kind of stuff. Oh, and then reselling them, mm-hmm, I see.
Katie Parsons:Which to me is a different level. It's all stealing music because you didn't pay for it. But if I'm just like playing it from my desktop computer, that's one thing. If I have like a multi-thousand dollar business reselling music, that's something else. But then also, I don't know, you think it's the same.
Dani Combs:I mean, I don't know I have like this conundrum of like I want to have a moral compass, but then also I want to stick it to the man at the same time.
Katie Parsons:Right, it's hard to do both, so I'm thinking of that song from school or back.
Dani Combs:Sorry. So like I just I swear like, and sometimes having a moral compass is sticking it to the man, so like, yeah, part of me is like, forget those. You know record execs, but also within the artist struggle. But I mean, I remember when Metallica sued and people were not happy about them doing that. Yeah, because they felt like Metallica was citing, like a lot of their fans, the man. Yeah, yeah, like a lot of their fans with the man. Yeah, they felt like this group, who they felt was against you know, all the society, standards and capitalism and all this stuff was all of a sudden selling out and taking their side so they could get compensated more, yeah, and, but I get why they might feel like that too, like I have like the I don't know.
Dani Combs:I have conflicting opinions on all of it.
Katie Parsons:I think in their case too, it was a demo. It wasn't a finished product of what they wanted to show the world, yeah, and so I think maybe that was part of I think maybe their lawyers it was a money thing, but potentially and I don't know this for sure, of course Metallica let us know. At Metallica it was also just the principle Like you release something without our consent that we didn't want released, yeah, so I mean I kind of can see that too. I can, yeah, especially if they really did send written requests to remove stuff that wasn't removed. Yeah, if that really happened. Send written requests to remove stuff that wasn't removed, yeah, if that really happened.
Katie Parsons:Um, so in 2001 again less than two years from this thing launching, march 2001, napster settled both suits and then they were shut down by the ninth circuit court of appeals and that was from a separate lawsuit. Um, that they didn't have to settle, it was just just the record label saying, basically, you need to be shut down. And then after that, the district gave, like Napster, like all these rules, basically, like all the stuff they were going to have to do and copyright things they were going to have to sign, and basically Napster was not able to comply with any of that because, like, how could you possibly do that with your current format? So they closed down in July 2001. And then in 2002, they announced that they'd filed for bankruptcy so skipping ahead a little in a 2018 Rolling Stone article. So this has to do with what you were just saying about Metallica. Kirk Hammett of Metallica still said that his band stands behind their decision to sue Napster, and they said it was the right thing to do so. Why I don't know, but you know I think it's very interesting. So then we've got the opposite view, which we kind of talked about. Yes, it was potentially hurting sales of the record industry, but others felt like it was actually garnering excitement for different types of music.
Katie Parsons:And I was really thinking about this when I did the research, because you and I have talked before on this podcast and with our listeners about how music is so fragmented now, which is good. You can access anything you want, any type of music, like amateur music, professional music, whatever styles, genres, age doesn't matter, language, you can get it all. But back at this time, you really couldn't. You were getting what the radio was giving you, what CD and record companies were giving you. You know we had Brant on, he was talking about New Wave, how hard it was to get that music, and so Napster was kind of providing this sort of alternative way to listen to other artists, which I think if there's like a positive to come out of it, that's definitely one, because I think it really did Well A, it showed a market for that type of streaming playlists, sharing stuff that now is kind of they've kind of figured out how to monetize that so that it's fair and not infringing.
Katie Parsons:It showed people wanted that and I think it also showed that people wanted more music, yeah, not just what they were being all being handed Right On from mainstream media, yeah, which I think is important. So some of the people who thought that Napster was great. So in July 2000, the English rock band Radiohead, their album Kid A, ended up on Napster three months before it was released. Three months, wow, that's a long time. That's a long time, yeah. So you know you've got to have like a leak in the record industry somewhere.
Katie Parsons:So at the time Radiohead had never hit the top 20 in the US. Really, yep, and I mean this was 2000. But when did Creep come out Before that? When would Creep have come out Before that? Was it not a top 20? I mean, surely it was. We're going to have to look that up. I'll look it up while we're talking. Look it up. So Kid A didn't have any singles released either and it didn't have a lot of radio airplay. But by the time of the album's actual release, right three months after it showed up on Napster, it was downloaded by millions of people worldwide and it ended up hitting number one on the Billboard 200 sales chart Sales charts. So even after being on Napster for three months when the album was released, it still hit the top. When did Creep come out? 92.
Dani Combs:Huh, but I mean, I guess, maybe it wasn't a top 20.
Katie Parsons:Maybe they mean whole albums. Oh, maybe, maybe they mean whole albums. I would say that was a very popular song. I bet they meant whole albums.
Dani Combs:It says it was number 34 in the.
Katie Parsons:US.
Dani Combs:Okay. So, yeah, not top 20. Top 50, top 100.
Katie Parsons:So then it ends up on Napster and it hits number one. So things like that were kind of interesting. So really, since then, you know the people have other musical artists, particularly those not signed to major labels and you know without access to traditional mass media outlets have said that Napster and successive, like following internet file sharing networks, did help get their music heard, yeah, spread word of mouth, improved sales in the long term. A musician who publicly defended Napster as a promotional tool was DJ Zealot, and then Chuck D from Public Enemy also came out and publicly supported Napster, okay, and basically said like I mean, I don't know what grounds you have to stand on, but basically said like it's giving a bigger platform for musicians and that's a good thing, that's a good thing, so you can look at that. So you may be wondering is Napster still around? Maybe you weren't wondering because they did file for bankruptcy.
Katie Parsons:Right, there is a Napster site, really, and it is essentially a streaming site. It has a 30-day free trial and then it's $10.99 per month, 110 plus million tracks ad free, exclusive playlist. Now I couldn't find if this is literally just someone that bought the name oh and did it. I don't believe I. I know the two founders aren't involved. Yeah, now did they sell the name potentially? Okay, um, so it's 10.99 per month. So if you just put that into perspective, spotify premium without ads is 10 per month. Right, apple music is 10.99 the exact same cost. So why you would, yeah, go to this instead of like those two or other ones I'm not sure they did have. When I went on their website, they had like a huge promotion for music videos, like over a hundred thousand music videos.
Dani Combs:That's what it said, weird. I mean I have not heard that name uttered. They're there, not like I'm super hidden with it, but listeners give it a Google after this yeah, it's interesting, so maybe more interesting than that.
Katie Parsons:are like where are these founders?
Dani Combs:Yeah, these guys are teenagers, I know.
Katie Parsons:And they have like a great idea sort of. I was going to say Like a 75% good idea.
Dani Combs:I'm going to wait. I just saw I just accidentally peeked ahead at your nose. I'll wait till we get there. Okay, all right, I'm not going to mess it up.
Katie Parsons:So Sean Fanning, who was Napster himself, the guy who developed the technology, co-founded Airtimecom with Sean Parker and I went to that site and it's kind of hard to figure out but it looks like it's an AI site, it's like AI tools and things like that. Okay, so they're still in the tech business, tech world. Sean Parker, who was the entrepreneur guy who raised the 50 000 he was the first president of facebook.
Dani Combs:Okay, that's what I was thinking. That's the note I saw. I was like, I remember one of like the napster people being associated with facebook. Yeah, some way he worked at facebook for a couple years okay.
Katie Parsons:Now he's also the founder and chairman of the parker foundation, which focuses on civic engagement, public public health and life sciences Okay, well. And he's a venture capital investor, which means he just invests in good businesses, maybe like that AI company that they have that I couldn't even understand their website. What has happened.
Dani Combs:You know what, did you ever watch that the movie they made about Facebook? I did Years ago, but, yeah, I think somebody played Sean Parker. I think, okay, I'm going to look it up, so not just the first president.
Katie Parsons:he was actually probably pretty integral in launching it maybe, but see, he would have been older than the. Facebook guys Because if they were in college by 2006. 2007 he would have been mid 20s, but that doesn't necessarily mean Justinin timberlake played him oh dang justin, I didn't realize that was john parker, founder of napster and the social network.
Dani Combs:Yeah, I remember he had all those like yeah, parties and stuff.
Katie Parsons:Well, maybe because he was older, a little older, I swear, I was like I know I, and that's why, oh, younger J Tim, I know. I do like him. We might need to rewatch that movie?
Dani Combs:Yeah, it said I'm looking at IMDB. Everybody Just.
Katie Parsons:FYI.
Dani Combs:This is thrown in research, thrown in Totally off kilter, because that's how we do on Generation in Between. Yeah, justin Tim played him. It seemed like he was kind of sleazy.
Katie Parsons:So imagine being a founder of Napster and Facebook, right, and these guys are Xennials. Yeah, I mean, they were our age when they were doing this, so that's very interesting. So that is like really all I have in Napster Again, like we go back and relearn things. I was surprised it was such a short period of time, because I remember the lawsuits and stuff and I felt like they went on forever. But at least, according to this, they didn't, although there may have been like subsequent ones that I'm thinking of, but I think also, when you're the age that we were when all this was happening, things feel like a long time, don't they?
Katie Parsons:Oh, yeah, like they feel like now I look at this and I'm like, oh my God, the whole Napster thing was like two years, yeah, but at the time it's probably like, wow, this is going on. I've been downloading this music forever for all three months that I've been doing it, and I mean I was the dork downloading show tunes guys.
Dani Combs:Oh, well, listen.
Katie Parsons:Like that was me we know my CD collection. I have to tell you I wasn't downloading Metallica. I'll tell you that much.
Dani Combs:I actually have some Metallica CDs. I have a very interesting, I don't know, but yeah, it does seem like a long time ago, but then not, and it seems like it was long but yet not, yeah, and to really think of like all that it spawned.
Katie Parsons:I know, really, even YouTube, I feel like, has to have some roots in this idea that you're sharing your own, because when YouTube was first came out and we should probably do a whole episode on this it was the same kind of thing People uploading their own videos to their computer that they could then upload to YouTube and other people could see. It wasn't like just hitting a button on your phone and uploading your video, it was like A whole thing. A whole thing. And even when smartphones came along, it still was a while before you could actually upload from your phone and things like that.
Dani Combs:But I think YouTube is more millennial than zennial. Agree, Agree, you know, um, I mean, there is crossover and now everybody's on YouTube. I have to tell you I am. When I looked up IMDb I'm looking at they have some of the dialogue that was in the movie that Sean Parker says oh my God, what does he say? Oh my gosh, Some of it's so funny. I just saw hold on, Let me find it. Um, he said, has dialogue with him and Mark Zuckerberg. Sean Parker says you know why I started Napster? A girl I loved in high school was with the co-captain of the lacrosse team and I wanted to take her from him, so I decided to come up with the next big thing. Then he says Napster wasn't a failure. I changed the music industry for better and for always. It may not have been good business, but it pissed a lot of people off. And wasn't that what face face mash was about?
Katie Parsons:because that's what Facebook was called yeah, yeah, oh, my gosh, and they're gonna be scared of you.
Dani Combs:Wow. So I remember that now it's all coming back because that movie came out in 2010.
Katie Parsons:So not too long after Facebook Napster closed, I mean that's only eight years later by the time you make a movie and release it. That's not that long, Right?
Dani Combs:Interesting. So I wonder if he was a part of this. I don't know, because I don't think it painted him in a very nice light. Anyway, it's just interesting to read that.
Katie Parsons:Yeah, wow, these people just. And what he said about changing the music industry forever whether for better, I don't know, but he's right. He is right. It's what they call disruptive technology. Yeah, when you come in guns blazing with this like new thing, and people are like whoa, whoa, whoa, what's that I mean? I started working in newspapers in 2007, 2008. And news news big news media could not figure the Internet out. Oh yeah, they could not. Like like individuals like myself and like other people that work there were like, yeah, like we need a better website, the newspaper needs to be online. And it took so freaking long because it was such an established media that not long before that was in its like golden era oh yeah, not long at all, like a couple of years before and then it all just kind of comes crashing down. And that's kind of what I'm thinking of, because really, after Napster CDs, like I would have to look at a sales chart, but I'm sure it continued to go down Right.
Katie Parsons:And people because then iTunes followed and all these other things and people didn't want to buy whole albums. This whole idea of buying one song or listening to one song instead of a whole album like that was post-Napster, yeah, that people were like, oh, I can do that album. Like that was post Napster, yeah, that people were like, oh, I can do that, you know. So it's just like a totally different frame of mind. Anyway, I thought that was a really interesting little touch back and I was surprised for something that lived such a short life, I know for me to like, have so many memories associated with it and um really feel a connection to it.
Katie Parsons:So did you listen to Napster? Were you born when Napster?
Dani Combs:was around. Have you ever heard that word, do you?
Katie Parsons:wish you could have Napster right now. I don't know. Let us know and continue sharing us with your friends of all generations. We love having everyone here on Generation Inbetween. And until next time, please don't clog up your parents' internet with illegal pirated music, guys, or your dorm room, or your dorm room, especially not that and we'll see you next time. Bye, guys.
