Napster is a name given to two music-focused online services. It was originally founded as a pioneering peer-to-peer file sharing Internet service that emphasized sharing audio files, typically music, encoded in MP3 format. The original company ran into legal difficulties over copyright infringement, ceased operations and was eventually acquired by Roxio. In its second incarnation Napster became an online music store until it merged with Rhapsody on 1 December 2011.

Later companies and projects successfully followed its P2P filesharing example such as Gnutella, Freenet and many others. Some services, like Grokster, Madster and the original eDonkey network, were brought down or changed due to similar circumstances.

Napster was co-founded by Shawn Fanning, John Fanning, and Sean Parker. Initially, Napster was envisioned as an independent peer-to-peer file sharing service. The service, named after^[which?] Fanning's hairstyle-based nickname, operated between June 1999 and July 2001. Its technology allowed people to easily share their MP3 files with other participants. Its ease of use led to massive copyright violations of music and film media, as well as other intellectual property.^{[citation needed]} Although the original service was shut down by court order, the Napster brand survived after the company's assets were liquidated and purchased by other companies through bankruptcy proceedings.

Lars Ulrich ( /ˈʌlrɪk/ UL-rik; Danish: [lɑːs ˈulˀʁæg̊]; born December 26, 1963) is a Danish drummer, and one of the founding members of the American heavy metal band Metallica. He was born in Gentofte, Denmark to an upper-middle class family. A tennis player in his youth, Ulrich moved to Los Angeles, California at age sixteen to pursue his training; though rather than playing tennis, he became a drummer. After publishing an advertisement in a local Los Angeles newspaper called The Recycler, Ulrich met James Hetfield and formed Metallica.

Lars Ulrich was born on December 26, 1963 in Gentofte, Denmark to Torben Ulrich, a tennis player. Saxophonist Dexter Gordon was Ulrich's godfather. In February 1973, Torben obtained five passes for five of his friends to a Deep Purple concert that was being held in the same Copenhagen stadium as one of his tournaments. When it was discovered that one of the friends could not go, their ticket was handed over to the nine year-old Ulrich. The young Ulrich found himself mesmerized by the performance, buying the band's Fireball album the next day. The concert and the album had a considerable impact on Ulrich, inspiring his entrance into the world of rock and roll and later on, heavy metal. As a result of his newfound interest in music, he received his first drum kit from his grandmother at the age of twelve, a Ludwig. Ulrich originally intended to play tennis, and he moved to America in 1980.

Carlton Douglas Ridenhour (born August 1, 1960), better known by his stage name, Chuck D, is an American rapper, author, and producer. He helped create politically and socially conscious rap music in the mid-1980s as the leader of the rap group Public Enemy.

Ridenhour was born in Queens, New York. After graduating from Roosevelt Junior-Senior High School, he went to Adelphi University on Long Island to study graphic design. He is the son of Lorenzo Ridenhour.

Upon hearing Ridenhour's demo track "Public Enemy Number One", fledgling producer/upcoming music-mogul Rick Rubin insisted on signing him to his Def Jam label.

Their major label albums were: Yo! Bum Rush the Show (1987), It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back (1988), Fear of a Black Planet (1990), Apocalypse 91... The Enemy Strikes Black (1991), Greatest Misses (1992), and Muse Sick-n-Hour Mess Age (1994). They also released a full length album soundtrack for the film He Got Game in 1998. Ridenhour also contributed (as Chuck D) to several episodes of the PBS documentary series The Blues. He has appeared as a featured artist on many other songs and albums, having collaborated with artists such as Janet Jackson, Kool Moe Dee, The Dope Poet Society, Run-DMC, Ice Cube, Rage Against The Machine, Anthrax, John Mellencamp and many others. In 1990, he appeared on "Kool Thing", a song by the alternative rock band Sonic Youth. In 1993, he executive produced Got 'Em Running Scared, an album by Ichiban Records group Chief Groovy Loo and the Chosen Tribe.

Charles Peete "Charlie" Rose, Jr. (born January 5, 1942) is an American television talk show host and journalist. Since 1991 he has hosted Charlie Rose, an interview show distributed nationally by PBS since 1993. He has also co-anchored CBS This Morning since January 2012. Rose, along with Lara Logan, has hosted the revived CBS classic Person to Person, a news program during which celebrities are interviewed in their homes, originally hosted from 1953 to 1961 by Edward R. Murrow.

Rose was born in Henderson, North Carolina, the only child of Margaret Frazier and Charles Peete Rose, Sr., tobacco farmers who owned a country store. As a child, Rose lived above his parents' store in Henderson and helped out with the family business from age seven. Rose admitted in a Fresh Dialogues interview that as a child his insatiable curiosity was constantly getting him in trouble. A high school basketball star, Rose entered Duke University intending to pursue a degree with a pre-med track, but an internship in the office of Democratic North Carolina Senator B. Everett Jordan got him interested in politics. Rose graduated in 1964 with a bachelor's degree in history. At Duke, he was a member of the Kappa Alpha Order fraternity. He earned a Juris Doctor from the Duke University School of Law in 1968. He met his wife, Mary (née King), while attending Duke.

Sean Parker (born 1979) is an American entrepreneur who was a co-founder of the file-sharing computer service Napster and the first president of the social networking Web site Facebook. He also co-founded Plaxo, Causes, and Airtime. As of March 2012, Parker's net worth was estimated to be $2.1 billion.

Parker was born in Herndon, Virginia to Diane Parker, a TV advertising broker, and Bruce Parker, a U.S. government oceanographer. When Parker was 7, his father taught him how to program on an Atari 800. Parker’s father, who put his family over his entrepreneurial dreams, told Parker "if you are going to take risks, take them early before you have a family."

As a teenager, Parker’s hobbies were hacking and programming. One night, while hacking into the network of a Fortune 500 company, Parker was unable to logout after his father unplugged his computer keyboard. Because his IP address was exposed, F.B.I. agents tracked down the 16-year-old. Since Parker was a minor, he was sentenced to community service.