Salon.com: mp3 FREE-FOR-ALL

"The tiny Napster is shaking the music industry to its foundation."

"Just last summer he was a college freshman at Northeastern University majoring in computer science, and hanging out on IRC in his free time. Napster was the very first Windows program he ever wrote: He had to buy a book to figure out how to code it."

"Today, Fanning is surrounded by the chaos and bustle of his new start-up, also called Napster; he's dropped out of school to work full time on it and he's been suddenly enveloped by a seasoned CEO and layers of vice presidents and managers who are scurrying about trying to invent business models and marketing strategies and revenue streams for his barely-in-beta product. Napster the software program -- a downloadable application that lets users temporarily turn their computers into servers for the purpose of swapping MP3 files -- is growing faster than anyone could have imagined."

Complete story.

Related Stories:

• CNET News.com: Blocked students find backdoor to Napster(Feb 03, 2000)
• CNET News.com: Copyright defendant Napster finds its code posted(Jan 26, 2000)