The kid that started all the trouble was 18, a college dropout named Shawn Fanning. He created a piece of software called Napster, which started a peer-to-peer music download craze. Record companies were in a flat spin. Now, eight years later, the game may finally be up for the record companies. They spent those years accusing peer-to-peer networks of facilitating music piracy and building their businesses on the back of artists and copyright owners. The notion of fat-cat record company executives appealing to fans` sympathy for starving artists sounded just a little hypocritical, and consumers accused the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) of profiteering.

It, in turn, argued that copyright was designed to reward artists fairly, while paying record company executives for providing services to artists such as marketing, producing and distributing their music. Without them, the RIAA argued, new music would be stifled.