Napster changed the face of the music business, and its ramifications are still being felt thanks to a generation who grew up thinking downloading music for free was OK. The story behind it, and of its creator Shawn Fanning, just screams out for a movie adaptation. Unfortunately, The Social Network sort of went with the same “game-changing technology” premise and now any Napster narrative feature will just look like a rip-off.
Alex Winter, famously Bill of Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure, but also an accomplished writer/director, understands this and has shifted gears. Deadline reports that Winter’s Napster project which was originally going to be a feature film, is now becoming a documentary instead. Winter is shooting it with the backing of VH1, who were famously behind the 2008 documentary Anvil!: The Story of Anvil. Here’s what Winter told Mike Fleming of Deadline about the project:
The rise and fall of Napster and the birth of peer-to-peer file-sharing technology created by Shawn Fanning when he was a college student, changed music to movies, and made possible everything from Julian Assange, WikiLeaks to the iPod and Facebook,” Winter told me. “It became an expression of youth revolt, and contributed to a complete shift in how information, media and governments work. And it is a fascinating human story, where this 18-year-old kid invents a peer-to-peer file-sharing system, and brings it to the world six months later.”
Winter is in the process of getting all his interview subjects in order, including record execs and artists who will probably not have great things to say about Napster (more the execs most than the artists I assume), as well as Fanning and his partner-in-crime Sean Parker (who was portrayed by Justin Timberlake in The Social Network). Once that’s done, he’ll begin production and frankly I can’t wait to see it. Napster really did change the way the music industry and the internet operated, and it’s a story that I don’t doubt will be compelling. Especially if they get Lars Ulrich to do a quick rant about it; his whining over Napster was some of the funniest stuff that came out of those lawsuits.
Are you excited for a documentary about Napster, or do you think that they weren’t actually as responsible for the file sharing revolution that exists today?