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Napster is launched by two men by the name of Shawn and John Fanning. It's the first massive scale peer-to-peer network focused exclusively on sharing music through MP3 files mostly.
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Heavy metal band Metallica sues Napster for copyright infringement after finding a leaked song, "I Disappear," being distributed before it was officially released.
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A&M and a bunch of other imprints of the four big record labels sue Napster for copyright infringement on Oct. 2. By now, the service is big enough for the court case to be featured on the cover of Time Magazine.
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An appeals court decides mostly in the record labels' favor, and orders Napster to monitor the service and block access to copyrighted files. An injunction is ordered in March.
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Napster shuts down its service to comply with the injunction.
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Napster announces plans to sell its service to Bertelsmann, and files for bankruptcy in June. But a judge blocks the sale and orders Napster to liquidate in September 2002.
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Roxio, a maker of digital music software, buys the Napster brand and logo for about $5 million.
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Roxio buys Pressplay, a failing subscription music service started by major labels Sony and Universal, for about $40 million in cash and stock, and relaunches it under the Napster brand name.
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Roxio sells its software business to Sonic Solutions and changes its name to Napster, focusing exclusively on the digital music subscription business.
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Best Buy buys Napster for a $121 million ($54 million after accounting for Napster's cash). The company reportedly has about 700,000 subscribers.
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Best Buy sells Napster's customers and intellectual property to Rhapsody in exchange for a minority stake in Rhapsody. The value of the transaction is not disclosed.
