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.
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