Did Steve Jobs Steal Shawn Fannings Apple??

Shawn Fanning, a college student at Northeastern University in Boston, created Napster in 1999. (Potter 218) Over 70 million users had downloaded the program in less than a year and the program was the first of its kind. Allowing users to upload and distribute films, music and software, for free. This program soon became public enemy number one for the Recording Industry of America (RIAA), Motion Picture Association (MPA) and even the FBI. In 2001 Napster was shutdown, because of its blatant disregard for copyright infringement and basically allowing anyone the ability to become a thief all while sitting in their bedroom. The question however remains, without Napster, and its illegal fire sharing capabilities, would we have had a need for devices with MP3 capability and would iTunes and other online music services have ever surfaced?

Before Napster, only computer savvy nerds could access music through programs such as IRC or other text based software. However, with its easy user interface, Napster introduced the world to something new and exciting, it was the .MP3. Users could now find full albums or hit singles, hosted on their peers computers and download for free, and the term peer to peer or P2P sharing was born.

During this time millions of songs were downloaded and no one knew where to store them. A man by the name of Steve Job’s (APPLE) announced the iPod, meet one of the world’s most popular MP3 players. This device could take the songs you had downloaded and store them all, neatly on one little device. The question however, was how to obtain legal music for such devices. According to Apple, their iPod store did not launch until April 29, 2003. (http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2004/aug/10itms.html) With Napster being shut down, the market was ripe for someone to take over and lead the pack with legal alternatives. The text points out that more illegal programs such as, Lime Wirte, KaZaA, Gnutella and BitTorrent (Potter 218) would take over Napster’s illegal presence, however if Napster had become legal, and offered a service like iTunes, in its prime and before it went bankrupt and had to offer legal alternatives once coming back, would iTunes still exist?

I would bank on no. Napster was the first of its kind, and Fanning was greedy. Steve Jobs saw a major opportunity, selling music online, for a device he created in response to Fanning’s Napster, and soon he became the king of the castle. If Fanning’s greed and possibly pride had not gotten in the way, Napster could and most likely would have been what iTunes is to the market today.