Irresistible Forces: The business legacy of Napster and the growth of the Underground Internet by Trevor Merriden
Capstone Publishing, £15 ISBN 1-84112-170-3P
The story of Shawn Fanning and how he created Napster with a couple of friends is an intriguing one. The sequence leading up to how he lost control of the company and the disillusionment felt by some of his colleagues is another; the devastating legal battle the company suffered on copyright grounds is one more, while the effect that Napster's music distribution program has had on the rest of the industry is another still.
Packing all four stories into a single book, and one of only 178 pages at that, is not an easy task and it is easy to end up wondering whether you have actually been told the whole of any of these stories. This is a rapid trip through some very recent history about music and the internet. For anyone who doesn't know, Napster was the company responsible for setting up a massive peer-to-peer network that allowed the "sharing" ("copying" in English) of music among internet users on an unprecedented scale.
Fascinating though the history of this is, and Trevor Merriden has certainly researched the factual side of things and spoken to as many of the major players as he can, cramming so many facets of the business into the one volume tends to alienate the reader rather than draw him in.
It is wonderful journal-of-record stuff, but the drama of the start-up, off-the-wall phase is lost, and the subsequent near-dissolution of the company looks clinical rather than involving as a result. On the plus side, Merriden deals with the copyright issue with admirable even-handedness, and the entire chapter quoting user reaction to the recording companies' virtual demolition of Napster brings events to life.
Overall, however, it is just too early for this book. There is no doubt a superb volume to be written about Napster and its effect on business and the internet, but it will need hindsight to be truly authoritative and the events are too recent for this as yet.
