Shawn "Napster" Fanning (born November 22, 1980, Brockton, Massachusetts),¹ is a computer programmer. He is best known for developing Napster, the first popular peer-to-peer filesharing platform, in 1998.

Career

Motivated by his college roommate who was having difficulties accessing the MP3 files he wanted, Fanning spent months 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. Later he appeared on the cover of Wired magazine and rose to fame. Soon after, however, Napster was the target of several music industry-backed lawsuits, which ultimately ended up causing the cessation of the service. Best Buy purchased Napster in a line of succession from companies such as Roxio, and Sony-BMG.

In 2003, Fanning opened a new company, Snocap, along with Jordan Mendelson and Ron Conway. The company aims to be a legitimate marketplace for digital media. That same year Fanning had a cameo appearance, playing himself, in the film The Italian Job (2003). In the film, Seth Green's character accused Fanning of stealing Napster from him while he was taking a nap. In December 2006, Fanning developed Rupture, a social networking tool designed to handle the task of publishing gamers' individual profiles to a communal space and facilitating communication between World of Warcraft players.

As of 2008 SNOCAP has been acquired by imeem. Rupture was later acquired by Electronic Arts for a reported $30 million.

In the spring of 2008, Fanning appeared in a Volkswagen commercial directed by Roman Coppola, in which he poked fun at his illegal file-sharing past.

He is currently dating professional poker player "Jennicide"

External links

• 1up article about the new service
• Rupture site