UK Only Article: 
standard article

Issue: 

Creative destruction

Fly Title: 

Schumpeter

Rubric: 

Napster’s founders demonstrate the challenges of entrepreneurial second acts

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SOON after Napster’s launch 15 years ago, in June 1999, the music-sharing service became America’s most talked-about firm, and one of the fastest-growing companies yet seen. Its teenage founders, Shawn Fanning and Sean Parker, were commissaries of cool. But Napster’s glory was short-lived. Record labels pummelled it with lawsuits, saying that its peer-to-peer file-sharing technology, which made it easy for people to pirate music, was as dangerous and illegal as a punk rocker’s drug habit. In 2001 a court ruled that Napster helped facilitate copyright infringement. The firm later filed for bankruptcy and its brand was sold.
Having become the music industry’s Antichrists, Messrs Fanning and Parker have spent the past 15 years trying to rebrand themselves and launch new ventures, with decidedly …

Source: Assets