That app was Napster, the peer-to-peer file-sharing service that fundamentally changed how people thought about music.
TIME Magazine Cover, October 2, 2000: Napster’s Shawn Fanning pic.twitter.com/JQUh7Zrtv9
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25 years ago Napster launched changing the music industry forever. Here's co-founder Sean Parker and Shawn Fanning talking about it. pic.twitter.com/MsOcogVERZ
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The music industry came for it hard. In April 2000, Metallica filed a lawsuit after a demo of its unreleased song "I Disappear" leaked on the platform and started circulating on radio stations before the band had even put it out. Dr. Dre filed a similar suit weeks later. Then the Recording Industry Association of America sued Napster on behalf of major record labels, pushing the fight into federal court.
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After the shutdown, platforms like LimeWire and Kazaa popped up immediately. Then Apple launched the iTunes Music Store in 2003, with Steve Jobs telling the industry that Napster had "demonstrated that the internet was made for music delivery." In 2008, Spotify launched a subscription-based streaming model that now dominates how people listen to music worldwide. Its founder, Daniel Ek, has said he became "infatuated" with Napster as a teenager and built Spotify around the idea of making "a better product than piracy."
As for Napster itself, the brand has been bought and sold multiple times since its original shutdown. Most recently, immersive tech company Infinite Reality purchased it for $207 million in 2025 and, in January 2026, abruptly shut down its music streaming service entirely to pivot to AI. Users who were mid-listen got a splash screen telling them Napster was no longer a music streaming service. Fanning, notably, is not part of the current company's leadership. He has continued working in tech as an entrepreneur and angel investor.
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