Ryan McNeil
You never expect to become the precedent.
In the late 90’s, a bunch of computer-savvy nerds from around America came together to work on a project. The project was intended to allow people like them to come together and share their love of music. More specifically, the project was intended to allow people like them to share the music. The project, of course, was Napster, and its effect on the entire music industry was both unforeseen and irrevocable. Now, some fifteen years after Napster’s inception, the story of its mercurial rise and fall has been documented in DOWNLOADED, a new film directed by Alex Winter.
The biggest challenge this documentary faces is that it tells a story so many of us already know. With its events being so recent, and so widely publicized, there’s not much the film can blow the lid off. Instead, what carries the film is how all involved recount what happened. Listening to these guys talk about what they came up with and the reaction it sparked, one can sense traces of bravado, shock, pride, and even post traumatic stress. At the time they were seen as rebels and outlaws, but the truth of the matter is that they were trying to build something viable. They merely got derailed before they could make a deal.
Perhaps it’s the passage of time tempering the discussion, or perhaps it was there all along, but when one listens to Shawn Fanning discuss his ideas, they seem to be coming from a genuinely good place. He frames the inception of Napster and file sharing as a way to spread the love of music. He wanted to give people a way to grow their tastes, and discover new music. None of them were interested in bringing down an entire industry, they only wanted to fully integrate music into the dawn of the information age. Think it was a coincidence that Apple’s iTunes Music Store took hold so quickly after Napster was finally shuttered?
What becomes clear through DOWNLOADED is that the monster lawsuits proved their undoing. As one of the Napster team members points out, the minute your company is spending more money, time, and energy in legal woes than working on innovation, your goose is cooked. In the late going, when Napster’s top dogs are gathered on a couch discussing how things all went wrong, one of them puts a finite point on how much they were ultimately sued for, and jokingly says “Fanning caused all of that”. They all laugh at first, but watching Shawn fanning’s face as the conversation moves on, it’s clear that this is something that still doesn’t sit right with him.
Director Alex Winter seems to have a lot of fun telling this story from recent history. Not only does he get candid new discussion from many of the key players, but he has a razor wit about him when combing archival footage for what was said at the time. Some notable personalities from the time seem prophetic…others blissfully unaware.
DOWNLOADED is an energetic post-mortem on the music industry’s business-as-usual. It show just how clueless the executives were on what was possible in the digital age, and likewise how deeply Fanning, Parker, et al. underestimated their work. Perhaps what’s most amazing about the fight that Napster sparked, is that it left no winner:
The music industry’s profits got shelled, and Napster was forced to close up shop before ever becoming viable. So who wins?
Well, besides the lawyers who racked up massive amounts in billings.
DOWNLOADED plays Hot Docs 2013 once more on Friday May 3rd, The Fox Theatre at 9:30pm.