Since its high profile lawsuit with the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), Napster has almost become a household name.
Napster was founded in May 1999 by Shawn Fanning, a high school student that developed a program for people to share music files over the Inernet. The program caught on with the allure of "free music" and turned into a worldwide phenomena. However, Napster came under legal trouble and was found to be aiding copyright violation through its program. The central server was shut down by court order and the original program ceased. However, the program was bought out by media giant Bertelsmann AG (BMG) and is undergoing a reorginization.
The core concept of Napster has since inspired a whole generation of file sharing devices like KaZaa, Music City Morpheus, and BearShare. Napster may have been the single biggest influence in popularizing the MP3 format.