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Napster Founded
Founded by John and Sean Fanning in a college dorm room, Napster was the first peer-to-peer file sharing platform to hit the internet. -
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Kazaa Launches
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Napster goes off-line
After a lengthy court battle Napster, as it was originally known, closes it's doors before being bought by Sony. -
Rhapsody Begins Service
First monthly subscription to a music library without the actual download of songs. -
iTunes Music Store Launches
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Kazaa begins charging for songs
Kazaa, under pressure from the courts decides to attempt to go legitimate and sell songs, the endeavor does not go over well as users run from Kazaa. -
iTunes hits 25 Million Downloads
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MGM Studios, Inc. v. Grokster, Ltd.
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iTunes Store Reaches 1 Billion Downloads
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Lil Wayne Release "Dedication 2" Mixtape For Free
Lil Wayne begins releasing music for free as mixtapes and begins a trend that has seen millions of original works given away for free, thus drastically changing the music game. Download Here -
Radiohead releases "In Rainbows"
The indie-rock pioneers make a statement by releasing the album on their own website and allowing fans to "pay what they wanted" meaning as little as a dollar or as much as one could afford. It put the power in the hands of the fans. -
The iTunes Store passes Wal-Mart as top Music retailer in America
Marking a huge victory for the online music giant, iTunes surpassed the music sales of Wal-Mart making it the main purveyor of tunes in the world. -
Tha Carter III goes 3x Platinum
Tha Carter III, released less than two years after <i>Dedication 2<i/> sold over a million units in one of the darkest times for record sales in the United States and proved that fans will buy what they like after recieving mixtapes from the young MC. -
iTunes hit 10 billion downloads
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Beatles Catalog Appears on iTunes
Seen as one of the largest holdouts of the digital music industry, The Beatles are finally convinced by Steve Jobs to sell their music for .99 a song on iTunes giving the site ultra-credibility. -
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Steve Jobs dies
The Apple head was the inventor behind such products as the iPod, iPad, iPhone and iTunes, all of which have had a hand in changing the landscape of the music industry in as little as ten years. -
RCA shuts down Jive, Arista and J Records
As a show of the tough times the traditional record industry was experiencing, RCA shut down three of its record label branches that thrived in the 90s.Latest Casualties of Digital Music
