Although the industry used the lawsuits as educational tools, the suits resulted in a consumer backlash against the organization. The vitriol against the industry reached a fever pitch in October, 2007, when the RIAA won a legal victory over Jammie Thomas, a single mother of two from Minnesota, who was fined $222,000 for copyright infringement for sharing 24 songs on Kazaa and was portrayed as a victim of bullying by corporate interests by many in the mainstream media. The victory was shortlived, however. In September, 2008, a U.S. district judge ordered a retrial of the case.
The industry says it has since abandoned its legal strategy of suing consumers. However, several prominent technology blogs – including Wired.com and Techdirt – report that the RIAA continues to bring new legal action against consumers. The RIAA has responded by saying those new actions involve only cases where the defendents were first contacted before August of last year, when the organization decided to stop filing new lawsuits.
With the emergence of BitTorrent technology in 2003, however, the battle shifted to torrent tracker sites – underground Google-like search engines that index files users can download using specialized software – such as TorrentSpy, Demonoid and most recently, The Pirate Bay.
Shawn Fanning at the 47th Annual Grammy Awards in February 2005.
Today, Shawn Fanning doesn’t spend a lot of time thinking about Napster, but he’s still building software. His first post-Napster venture was a rights registry system for licensing digital music called Snocap. He found dealing with the record labels a tiring process, however, and he soon tired of the music industry and abandoned the project.
Like many in the technology world, he took up playing the online video game World Of Warcraft.
“I became pretty fascinated just by the level of immersion and the connections that you would build with these people you would play with on a regular basis,” he said. “There’s a collaboration that happens and you would get to know these people pretty well but never really get beyond the surface and learn more about them.”
By marrying the online community of World Of Warcraft with the emerging success of sites like Facebook and MySpace, Mr. Fanning came up with the idea for Rupture, a social networking service that connects gamers across platforms and titles. The site is currently preparing for a re-launch after being acquired by video game kingpin Electronic Arts Inc. for $30-million (U.S.) last June. He has since decided to stay on with the startup as it prepares for a summer release.
Although Mr. Fanning created a software program that upended the music industry, dragged the U.S. legal system into a new age and caused his high school nickname to become a household word synonymous with piracy – “Napster” was the moniker Mr. Fanning’s classmates gave him because he had a penchant for not washing his hair, letting it become a bit “nappy” – you’d never guess it from speaking with him.
These days, he tends to decline most interview requests – although that’s getting harder with the Napster anniversary around the corner – and for the most part he’s reluctant to speak about himself. He largely shrugs off questions about Napster’s legacy and takes on an “aw shucks” demeanour when you mention his girlfriend – professional poker player and Playboy model Jennifer “Jennicide” Leigh.
Still, he’s accommodating, thoughtful and articulate. He’s just more comfortable staying behind the scenes and coding, than making himself the centre of attention.
“I’ve never really been concerned with [my own legacy] especially how it relates to the press,” he said. “I mean, I was writing software because I loved writing software. Writing software is a pretty anti-social thing as well. So [a legacy] is not something I tend to think about, I just tend to focus on doing stuff that I enjoy, that I feel good about and I just love creating things, and wherever that takes me, it takes me.”
