1999Reputable sourceWell documented
Napster and the MP3 Revolution
On the timeline · around 1999 · The Digital Age
What happened
In 1999 the 19-year-old Shawn Fanning launched Napster, a peer-to-peer service that let users freely share music files in the compact MP3 format. Within about 18 months it had some 80 million users — and for the first time, virtually any recorded song could be had instantly, for free. Lawsuits shut it down by 2001.
Why it matters
Napster blew apart the music industry's business model almost overnight, exposing the power of digital distribution and forcing a painful reckoning that led, eventually, to legal downloads and streaming.