Downloaded Page #3

---

it was an actual closet.

I think he might have some pride

Or just want something more,

but for me,

It was, i was having so much fun

building it,

I just didn't care.

You know, i get occasionally

A little bit uncomfortable

when people would show up

And you'd be crawling out of,

you know,

Your sleeping bag.

So fanning had written

his version one

And being not

professionally trained,

Uh, not trained at all...

uh, and just, just having

his ideas and ah,

Here's a computer

and this wonder for learning

And for for absorbing, uh,

We'll just go and try

and make it work.

And it didn't work. Like every,

everyone's first hello world program.

His was file sharing stuff.

Didn't work,

so listen to the group for help.

And i was there.

At the start was

pretty much myself

And a lot of people online

that were helping out

Just to make it work.

Helping fix problems,

stuff like that.

He sort of asked, hey, how,

This thing keeps crashing.

What do you think?

But unlike anyone else,

He wouldn't let us

see the source code.

I was like, oh really?

Well that sounds

like it's probably

A... A buffer overrun or an

unchecked battery condition.

Or something like that.

And show, show us the code

and we'll fix it for you.

And he was like, no.

Okay. This was kind of cool

because

It came out as a challenge.

It's like,

i'm not going to tell you,

But i'm going to keep soliciting

for help.

So, we're all hackers.

This is what we do.

We, you know, [stammers]

Establish commercial vendor x

Does not want to share

anything with us.

Yet, we are going

to find a way in.

Just the idea that

we were gonna build

The first decentralized

file system.

I think the patent, actually,

the napster patent

Uses this terminology.

You talk about a

distributed file system.

Since 1998.

We've been discussing it

with various different people

In our community

and we've been told

By a lot of, you know,

pretty experienced

Technical minds

That the technical challenge

associated

With a decentralized file system

Was actually too difficult.

It was believed

that this wouldn't scale.

He would load up this app

and it would basically

Connect to one of our servers

And ask for a napster server

That would be accessible

In like the lowest

possible load.

Allowing you to search the uh...

file names to find,

you know, what, whatever

You know, noncommercial

uh, legal, legal music...

uh, was available.

But you would basically

have a, a chance

To kind of search all,

some of all those files

That were out there, that once

you've decided you wanted one,

It would actually, um,

facilitate the connection,

Would happen directly to that,

'that um, that source.

It's funny that a lot of the

file sharing technologies

Are stressed when people

talk about napster.

But as i said, i mean

sean and i met through irc,

Which is like a chat community,

you know,

A chat based community.

And that's a huge part

Of like why

we created it as well.

You know,

just wanted to create a way

To meet people through music.

Sometimes that's overlooked

and yeah,

I think that you know,

what we're providing

Is just a way

for people to share

Their personal material

and meet people

With similar interests

and communicate with them.

That's exactly how people

discover music

In the first place. You know,

You find out about music

from your friends

Who maybe listen

To something similar

to what you listen to.

And they turn you on to

something completely new.

You go out and buy the cd.

That's how people

experience music

And that's a big part

of the experience.

But this was the first time

i know of,

In mainstream history,

Where people had a social life

online.

And then after napster went down

a few years later,

Started hearing

about friendster.

Myspace and then of course,

facebook and all that.

But, but um, everyone

just thinks of it

As being the file sharing

technology,

But i really think

that it was the seed

Of that stuff too.

We were basically, you know,

Trying to create a platform

That would allow music

to be shared

More widely uh,

On a larger scale

than ever before.

That would um...

that would galvanize

enormous excitement.

Would, it would re-Energize,

Re-Energize the conversation

about music

And, and ultimately

that would lead

To a golden age of music.

We knew it was a long way off

From all the music

being available digitally.

I mean you opened up napster

and there it was.

Its difficult to

describe to people

Who weren't experiencing

at that time,

How much material

was suddenly available.

I mean there has

never been a time

Before or since that you could,

you could get

As many different things online.

And experiences,

many different kinds of music.

And of course,

what people forget is,

What was interesting was not t

hat they could get

The latest madonna album

for free.

It's that they could get

all different versions

Of recordings of

particular music

From all the way back

to the beginning of recording

Available in

this library-Like forum.

The vast majority of which,

Was not accessible

commercially at all.

And you know,

i just felt like this was,

This was one of the

great moments

In human history.

And i still do.

But of course, uh, great moments

in human history

Usually have uh...

...an opposition

And it is exactly

uh, proportional

To their greatness.

So it was in la,

it was the four seasons hotel.

It was all of t

he top label heads.

And a lot of them knew

that we'd filed a lawsuit

Against this kind of

rogue website,

But not too many of them

were paying attention

To what it was.

So i set up a computer

and i said,

'Okay, you know,

tommy what's your, you know,

Give me your latest single,

or michelle,

What's your latest single,

you know.

Richard, give me

your latest single.

Literally, it, we played

like stump the napster.

And it was,

[stammers]

It was quite a sight.

All the heads

of all these record labels

Freaking out

That a lot of pre-Releases even,

Were, were on there.

Um, i would say,

That was a pretty big

aha moment.

We saw the clicks of the numbers

And that's what they

were downloading

At that particular time.

That was shocking.

Not that it wasn't

happening before,

And not that we were naive.

But we actually saw it.

And that was startling.

For all of us that were

at that meeting that day.

If some day soon

you can store

Your whole music collection

On your hard drive,

instead of your shelves,

What's going to happen

to record stores?

I thought that the way

that people got music

For the last 50 years worked.

You went to the record shop,

you bought a record,

You took it home

and you played it.

You loved it.

You went and seen the guys live,

Everybody lived

happily ever after.

There are no record stores

anymore.

Or hardly any, you know.

Amoeba on the west coast.

And there's a few,

a few in england.

Rate this script:0.0 / 0 votes