Alex Winter, yes the one from Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure took it upon himself to make documentary about the insanity surrounding Napster and the crazy way it revolutionized the digital world as we know it. In his film, titled Downloaded, Winter takes us into the lives of Shawn Fanning, a teenage hacker who would go on to write the code for Napster in 1998, his business partner Sean Parker and the other main players who would help launch a program that would unknowingly take the world by storm. The film follows the rise and fall of Napster, its employees, it proponents, and its enemies, using interviews from today and the past along with archival footage from back in the day. It’s through all of this that we are painted a complete picture as to why the company rose and fell the way that it did and how it affected the people involved.
As a kid who grew up during this mp3 revolution, it was really fascinating for me to watch the story unfold on screen as I never knew exactly how Napster came to be, all I knew was how it fell and who lead the charge (Lars Ulrich from Metallica and Dr. Dre). Winter divides the film into seven parts to help give some clarity to the audience as to what each section will focus on and to show that he is making sure every angle is covered as he tells this incredible story.
The biggest revelation that I took from the film was that while the music industry was trying to shut Napster down, Napster was looking for a way to actually work with them and make them money. What started off as a venture that resulted in piracy was trying to transform itself into a legal business that could do wonders for the major labels but nobody ever responded, no one wanted anything to do with them. It’s this lack of cooperation that basically screwed the record biz and caused this digital explosion to work against them rather than for them. The exponentially declining numbers since the advent of Napster is all the proof you need to know for this to be true.
As the film continued, it was interesting to see which musical artists despised the program and which ones loved it. For example, I had no idea that Dispatch’s success was a product of Napster’s file sharing service. They started off only being known in NY and LA and then they went on to play a show in the Midwest and crowds were monstrous in comparison to the shows where they knew they had fans. On the flips side it’s easy to understand why Metallica was pissed with the service after an unreleased track from their forthcoming album somehow ma
de its way onto Napster but it’s the way Lars went about attacking them that was ridiculous to watch.
One of the most profound things I took away from the film was the comparison between the war on P2P sharing and the Vietnam War. People hated the government for its persistence in Vietnam and the record industry’s attack on P2P users was viewed in the same way. People were being hunted and tried for downloading songs, treated like murder criminals when in fact instead of attacking the sources only they attacked the users, sparking a war that could never be won (like Vietnam). File sharing has grown too much that it’ll be impossible to stop it unless the internet ceases to exist. This comparison was on-point and something I really appreciated.
Downloaded is one of the most well rounded and thorough documentaries that I’ve seen in a long time and, what makes it actually fulfilling, is that it goes into great detail about the entire debacle from the founders’ perspectives, something we the public were never granted a chance to hear thanks to the media’s constant focus on the problem and lack of interest in a solution. It’s because of this change in focus that allows Downloaded to stand out and appeal to all those who have taken part in this revolution or want to know more about it. Oh, and when you watch it, you’ll be shocked to hear how smart and how progressive some of these tech guys were and when they explain what the future holds your jaw will drop from how spot on they were (think of Minority Reports technological take on the future).
Rating: Well rounded, informative and a must-see for those who lived and participated in this unlikely revolution(7.5/10)
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