Shawn Fanning

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Shawn "Napster" Fanning (born 1980 in Brockton, Massachusetts, USA) developed Napster, the first popular peer-to-peer filesharing platform, in 1999.

Napster

Motivated by a friend of his who was having difficulties accessing the MP3 files he wanted, Fanning spent months of little sleep writing the code for a program that could provide an easy way to download music. He developed the program while attending Boston's Northeastern University. He made the cover of Wired magazine and rose to fame, yet soon after, Napster was the target of several music industry backed lawsuits, which ultimately ended up causing the cessation of the service.

Since November 2002, the Napster name and logos have been property of Roxio, Inc.

He also had a cameo, playing himself, in The Italian Job (2003); in the film, Seth Green's character accused Fanning of stealing Napster from him, while he was taking a nap (hence the name.)

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