Nap(ster)

Due to the immergence of MP3s, music could be downloaded (shared from one computer to another) from user to user. The copied would not be paid for, and therefore would be a loss to the music industry. Napster, founded by Shawn Fanning, was the first of biggest file share system of its time. It was developed in the late nineties and became a phenomenon in 1999. In 2000, the government forced, under pressure from music companies, Napster to close and made sharing digital music files illegal. Nowadays Limewire, and other social networking programs allow for illegal downloading – this is a huge copyright violation. In 2001, iTunes came out thanks to Apple.