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Which led to the destruction of the music recording industry, via wonton pirating and theft of intellectual property..

God damn that looks so hot on Mac OS.

Man, that invoked a huge wave of nostalgia... Especially those download bars.

So much John Williams downloaded and I don’t know why but it was epic.

That, and Steve using his "Reality Distortion Field Generator" on them.

A rare 90s app design that doesn't look as dated as most.

I do like the multiple versions of the same song in the screenshot, would look odd to those who were not there.. but...well you never knew what you were going to get :D

And as a result, the recording industry lost eighteen thousand pentillion dollars in lost revenue.

Our music choices and platforms have been on a downhill run every since.

And then Metallica fucked them over.

In the 2000 at least 25% of Napster was running on Microsoft lads by the employees. I know I had to clean the machines.

And I LOVED it!!…lol I uploaded every cd I had at the time and filled up my poor old monster pc with music…ahhh it was fun while it lasted…lol

Ahhh … yes … the first nail in the coffin of a music industry that once supported musicians. Napster brought us an industry that supports only the billionaires that control the platforms. They aren’t my peers, nor are they yours.

What font is that?

Killed by Metallica and Dr Dre. Never forget.

And now we have Amazon music and Apple music and nobody's complaining. Hmmm.

Best thing to happen to the music industry since the cassette

You have to include the fact that they have eliminated all the physical costs of the vast majority of their business. They are not, for the most part, manufacturing LPs or CDs. They have eliminated the wholesalers and the retailers. They have eliminated shipping. They have eliminated returns.

As I said, I included the link to their own website. *Someone* is ripping bands off, and it's *not* their fans. Again, they've managed to completely eliminate all of the physical costs of manufacturing, shipping, damage products, returns and cutouts. All they do is upload a file to a server.

Yeah Spotify has been an absolute cancer especially

I still have all my napster files. Er...hidden. ☺️

Hard to believe that was only 27 years ago

Not sure why embedding with the VPN on messes up the thumbnail. Or maybe because of blocking YT from setting any cookies, 3rd party or otherwise

Simpler times, take me back.

The best of the music downloading tools was #Audiogalaxy. It was also a social network. My late wife would be sure to be up early on weekends for the old folks who would share their collections of rare Jazz. I am confident that by ripping obscure vinyl, I caused several CDs to finally be released.

.. yo estuve ahi (en Argentina, bajando musica) que copado como fue cambiando todo

LimeWire website in 2001 www.webdesignmuseum.org/gallery/lime...

that's a nice memory to have of her. Tech from this era reminds me of my late brother too. He and I were at the tail end of the Columbia house generation and then had our minds blown by Napster.

I DJed at a 31st Dec '99 NYE party and my guests heard Bomfunk MCs "Freestyler" thanks to someone uploading it to me. What an awesome time for music it was.

Napster website in 1999 www.webdesignmuseum.org/gallery/naps...

I remember Napster.

My bank was able to recoup my yearly payment from Napster after it went AI then to another AI company and was unable to get a refund from them. 😁 Originally on Rhapsody who, I guess, sold to Napster. All those years creating my music lists gone. 😥

napster bad because it made facebook possible

Can't help it, for old times sake then: youtu.be/LeKX2bNP7QM?... - enjoy 😎

Did I ever use this software. I got PS CS3 with the install key generator and it worked for at least a decade.

How was I supposed to get my anime soundtracks back then??

And the FTP interface still looks like that.

Actually yes, yes I would download a car.

It was the start of a beautiful friendship.

wow dakota fanning's father

They also introduced the world to "The Icy Hot Stuntaz"

Rest in peace 🪦

You can't prove that any of the 20,000 songs on my Ipod classic came from Napster.

Linkin Park f. Eminem (real).exe

A pirate's bestfriend.

I love how Napster helped to kill the mob-infested music industry & shredded their extortion scheme to rip off consumers forced to pay $18/disc for CDs that cost about $0.40/ea to manufacture. Oh the poor capitalist pigs!

Napster Baaad!

i was to young for napster. i used limewire and i remember filling my little mp3 player with music. also the infamous bill clinton audio. www.youtube.com/watch?v=FUzL...

I was more of an eMule and Kazaa kid but hey. Also good =3

Lmao! I worked with a guy who served ol’ Lars at one of our chain’s other stores. Lars came in with his kids, they were raging brats and of course daddy couldn’t be bothered to rein them in. Just an all-around d-bag. Good drummer though.

...and then, all hell broke loose. (and Lars cried)

The glory days.

I had a 56k modem. I would start to download a song and not check my computer for a day.

During that era I became one of the 1,000 Sprint Ion subscribers, 8mb↓/1mb↑. They spent a billion dollars to build the system before shutting it down, which means they spent a million dollars to get me as a customer. All things being equal, I'd rather they had given me the cash.

During prime time yes; I waited off-hours & it took a few minutes per song.

Took me 30-40 mins if lucky enough.

lol yup so did mine

I wish I had kept all my letters. I could have made nice wallpaper with them.

In current news, there is a new hack to gain control of computers by people who torrent .mp4 based movies. It involves injection and privilege escalation via the subtitle files.

Oh, I remember those days.

Actually it was this guy:

What a time to be alive

My iPod had 4000 songs, good times

Now do Hotline!

Kazaa also brings back lots of memories...

Did anyone ever go to jail for this? Hope not

slskrs unite

Ah Napster, Kazaa and Limewire, the good old days

Renamed to kidnapster in the year 3000.

Stealing.

Napster was genius and if they had managed to make it work for the people whose work was being ripped off it would have been far better than all of these thieving music apps who do legally what Napster did illegally. No high moral ground.