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Pioneering music-sharing platform Napster faced a pivotal legal showdown on March 6th, 2001, when - despite the company\u2019s defence that it was merely a tool for innocent purposes - US District Judge Marilyn Hall Patel ordered the removal of all copyrighted material from the service.\nNapster's legal troubles had begun with lawsuits from prominent artists like Metallica and Dr. Dre, but it was the Recording Industry Association of America's $20 billion lawsuit that spelled the endgame for the platform. Yet the swift rise and fall of the peer-to-peer software marked a paradigm shift in how music was consumed, challenging traditional notions of ownership and distribution.\xa0\nIn this episode, Arion, Rebecca and Olly reveal how its youthful inventors Shawn Fanning and Shaun Parker first met; explore how its legacy lives on in the likes of Spotify; and consider how the legal precedent set by Betamax, of all things, became the technology\u2019s downfall\u2026\nFurther Reading:\n\n\u2018Oversharing: how Napster nearly killed the music industry\u2019 (The Guardian): https://www.theguardian.com/music/2019/may/31/napster-twenty-years-music-revolution\n\n\n\u2018The death spiral of Napster begins\u2019 (HISTORY, 2009): https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/the-death-spiral-of-napster-begins\n\n\n\u2018Napster Documentary: Culture of Free\u2019 (The New York Times, 2014): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CKrdsGdLVQ8\nLove the show? Join \U0001f334CLUB RETROSPECTORS \U0001f334 to DITCH THE ADS and get an additional full-length episode every SUNDAY!\nPlus, get weekly bonus bits, unlock over 70 bits of extra content and support our independent podcast.\nJoin now via Apple Podcasts or Patreon. Thanks!\nWe'll be back tomorrow! Follow us wherever you get your podcasts: podfollow.com/Retrospectors\nThe Retrospectors are Olly Mann, Rebecca Messina & Arion McNicoll, with Matt Hill.\nTheme Music: Pass The Peas. Announcer: Bob Ravelli. Graphic Design: Terry Saunders. Edit Producer: Ollie Peart.\nCopyright: Rethink Audio / Olly Mann 2023.\n\n Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.\nLearn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices