Parece que fue ayer, pero en realidad han pasado ya 10 años desde que se publicó la primera versión del primer programa P2P de la historia, al que muchos de vosotros (y yo también) recordaréis con nostalgia. Estoy hablando, por supuesto, de Napster.
Napster was born in 1999 thanks to the desire of its creator, Shawn Fanning, an 18-year-old computer science student, to transmit music files easily over the Internet, something that until then was too cumbersome due to the use of applications designed for other purposes, such as IRC, Hotline Connect (Which was on the right track, but had the limitation of only being able to download a file from a single user), or the FTP servers.
Success did not take long to arrive. To be honest, it came like a bolt of lightning. The acceptance of this program was brutally fast and the number of users grew steadily until reaching 26.4 million in February 2001. This acceptance, according to gossip, was promoted by the low quality of the albums of that period, which only included 2 good songs and the rest was âstrawâ to raise the price of the album: Why pay 3,000 pesetas for an album of which I only like two songs?. But we, teenagers at that time, I donât think we went that far; We simply had a new way of listening to music that didnât involve watching the Top 40 on Canal + at 12 in the morning or having to spend 3 monthsâ pay on a record.
Taking a look at the program, it is very easy to realize how little their interfaces have evolved. This was divided into several tabs: the main (showed the Napster page), search, a chat, transfers, library (with player included), help and Hotlist. Today we would be shocked by some of its characteristics, such as that only mp3s could be shared and that downloads were not resumable. Also, if I remember correctly, uploads could be canceled, something that was quite common among all of us who had a 56kb connection and wanted to make the most of the bandwidth (this feature, for obvious reasons, is not in practically any current P2P program).
Unfortunately, Napsterâs decline began shortly after its release, when the anger of (then) singer Madonna materialized after discovering that her new single, âMusicâ, had arrived on Napsterâs P2P network before it arrived in stores. Furthermore, something similar happened with Metallica (with its drummer Lars Ulrich at the helm) and with the rapper Dr.Dre, who saw how the demos of some of their songs, (such as I Disappear) had prematurely seen the light of day on Napster. These problems were the triggers for a war between the record companies and Napster, since they denounced him for infringing the copyright of their works in the so-called âCase A&M Records, Inc. v. Napster, Inc.â.
Curiously, to defend themselves from the accusations, Napsterâs lawyers tried to base their defense on a previous case, the so-called âBetamax Caseâ, in which Universal and Disney sued Sony because its Betamax tapes could be used by users to infringe the copyright of their works, something that was dismissed since the courts considered that Sony was not responsible for the use of its products once sold. However, in the Napster case it was considered that they could control the works that were transmitted through their servers, which led them to lose the lawsuit.
Debt-ravaged, Napster had no choice but to close in July 2001, but it had already laid the foundation for file sharing on the Internet. Audiogalaxy, eDonkey 2000, Kazaa, Morpheus or eMule have been some of the successors, but they will hardly be the last despite the continuous attempts at involution by record labels and author societies.
What will the future of P2P hold for us? That is something that we will all decide.
| Sources | Wikipedia |
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