Its technology allowed people to easily share their MP3 files with other participants. The service operated between June 1999 and July 2001. Initially, Napster was envisioned by Fanning as an independent peer-to-peer file sharing service. Napster was founded by Shawn Fanning and Sean Parker. Some services and software, like AudioGalaxy, LimeWire, Scour, Kazaa / Grokster, Madster, and eDonkey2000, were also brought down or changed due to copyright issues.

Later, more decentralized projects followed Napster's P2P file-sharing example, such as Gnutella, Freenet, FastTrack, and Soulseek. Best Buy later purchased the service and merged it with its Rhapsody branding on December 1, 2011. Its assets were eventually acquired by Roxio, and it re-emerged as an online music store. It ceased operations in 2001 after losing a wave of lawsuits and filed for bankruptcy in June 2002. As the software became popular, the company ran into legal difficulties over copyright infringement.

It was founded by Shawn Fanning and Sean Parker. Audio songs shared on the service were typically encoded in the MP3 format. It originally launched on June 1, 1999, as a pioneering peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing software service with an emphasis on digital audio file distribution. Napster is an audio streaming service provider owned by MelodyVR.

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