Napster: The Culture of Free [Documentary]

Napster revolutionized the music industry and the music business is still trying to adapt to the digital age even all these years later. Creators Shawn Fanning and Sean Parker became cultural icons after coming up with a way to share music peer-to-peer, but also stood as the scapegoats of music’s downfall.

With rampant downloading becoming the norm and people becoming accustomed to getting music for free, the Napster crew battled major record labels for years and ultimately shut down a few times before throwing up the white flag and conceding to the power of the industry.

Whether you think they killed record stores or helped artists find another means of being discovered, the story of Napster is an interesting one and is explored through this short documentary. The clip explains how the company got started, why it made such an impact and gets first-hand commentary from those who were involved in Napster, as well as music industry insiders who witnessed the rise and fall.

If you can still remember spending hours upon hours finding music on Napster before broadboad internet and can recall being pissed off when your dial-up connection messed up your download, this is for you. We’ll always remember the good times.

OS REWIND: “Download: The Digital Revolution” Documentary Trailer

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