I think it's pretty obvious to most people that Napster is not media specific, but I could see a system like Napster evolving into something that allows users to locate and retrieve different types of data other than just MP3s or audio files.

I had to actually purchase a book to learn the API and write the client. It was pretty frustrating trying to learn the API and develop a product quickly.

Napster works because people who love music share and participate.

It was very early, and we were still like beta or alpha stage, and so we started receiving a ton of download. The server became overloaded, and that's when I realized that this had a huge market.

I think the most difficult thing had been scaling the infrastructure. Trying to support the response we had received from our users and the number of people that were interested in using the software.

I am grateful they are now showing that leadership when it comes to using technology to make music more accessible.

There really was nothing like it at the time. We had good ideas for implementation, so we proceeded. I think it was an excellent solution to the reliability issues with existing search engines.

So the bandwidth issue is definitely a big concern of ours.

Nobody has ever built a reliable peer-to-peer service, where people can really access all the music they want in one location,... Once I got it into my head, I couldn't imagine the media space without one.