Shawn Fanning

Shawn Fanning on December 14, 2007

Shawn Fanning (* 22. November 1980 in Brockton , Massachusetts ) is an American Internet - entrepreneurs .

Projects

• Napster: He developed in 1998 Napster , the first popular peer-to-peer - sharing platform. Fanning developed the program while attending Northeastern University in Boston . The media hype surrounding Napster brought more and more users to the file sharing network, but Napster was soon the target of some of the processes supported by the music industry - which eventually led to the network being shut down. Since 2002 the trademark rights to Napster belong to Napster , Inc. (formerly Roxio, Inc.).

• Snocap: In 2003, Fanning founded a new company, Snocap Inc. , which aims to enable file sharing networks to sell legal music . However, the business idea initially failed to take hold. In 2007, 26 of the 57 employees were laid off to make the company more attractive to buyers. In 2008 the Web 2.0 service provider Imeem took over the company.

• Rupture: In 2006, Fanning started his third project, Rupture , a social network for players and characters that was acquired by Electronic Arts in 2008 for $ 15 million . In 2009, Fanning was released.

Others

Shawn Fanning made a small appearance in the 2003 film The Italian Job . He played himself alongside Seth Green as Lyle, who claims to be the real inventor of Napster. In a flashback you can see Shawn Fanning, as a roommate of the sleeping Lyle, stealing a floppy disk with the program from his computer.

swell

• Shawn Fanning: From Rebel to Agent? In: Spiegel Online, accessed on February 20, 2014.
• In profile: Shawn Fanning: Programmer of the Napster copy software and founder of the music exchange. In: Süddeutsche Online, accessed on February 20, 2014.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ heise online April 7, 2008
2. ^ The press of October 11, 2010

Web links

Commons : Shawn Fanning  - collection of images, videos and audio files