Software is nothing but an icon, here in a click, gone in a click. After several years of slow but rapidly growing piracy trends in the underbelly of the internet. What is termed as the "file-sharing revolution" occurred. The software known as Napster was released in 1998, and with it came the death of the multimedia industry. Napster allowed the trading of any type of media through the use of servers which it owned and operated. Any user who downloaded the software and logged on(for free of course) could search through the library of anyone else connected. As the revolution primarily occurred in the music and video files. This revolution included not just the underbelly of the internet, but regular middle-class America learned of it quickly as well. When I myself learned about it, I was amazed when I could download any song I had ever heard instantly. Within months Napster servers exploded, at its peak Napster had 300 million users trading on it at once. The recording industry intervened and eventually coerced Napster to change its ways to prevent copyrighted material from being downloaded. Users suddenly frustrated by corporate defense mechanisms flocked to rebel against it in huge groups dedicated to open-source file sharing which gave way to OpenNap. Since OpenNap servers were centralized, they could easily be targeted for enforcement. A large conglomerate of OpenNap servers formed "music city". OpenNap eventually decided to produce its own client called "Fast track". Although fasttrack is a closed protocol, other companies could license it to be used with their software. Hence Kazaa and Morpheus were born. Kazaa and Morpheus presented an evolution of the revolution in which the network of file-traders became completely decentralized. Kazaa and Morpheus would and still do present the biggest threat to the recording industry. With ever growing bodies of users, and no way to attack one entity, the recording industry is headed towards disaster if it does not attempt to thwart users ultimate wishes.
