Oh what a an incredible find Napster was back in the day. All my vinyl that had been stolen magically re-appeared in MP3 format on my computer. Happy times. Tall Dark & Handsome on B-Boy records? No problem, Napster had ‘em. If you are at SXSW, then maybe you got to see the screening of the new Napster Documentary flick Downloaded. If not, peep the promo and check for it on VH1 in April.
Downloaded — directed by screenwriter and Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure actor Alex Winter (he was Bill) — took more than a decade to make. Winter infused the documentary with interviews and footage from key players, both proponents and critics of file sharing.
“So much of it was a blur,” Fanning said. “[Alex] managed to wade through the bullshit.”
In an hour and 40 minutes, the documentary takes viewers through what happened, where the world is now because of Napster’s tumultuous journey since 1998, and the conundrums everyone involved, including consumers, face as the battle over copyright laws continues to rage on.
“Napster was the first working, completely integrated global community that moved quickly,” Winter added. “Thirteen years later there isn’t a service that does what Napster did at its height, which was combining chat, community and media.”
Winter first met Fanning in 2002. At that time, the initial plan for what eventually became Downloaded was to create a film with a narrative, not a documentary.
“Originally, I was writing a movie about a 17-year-old kid from the ass-end of Boston who changed the world and got devastated by the results of that,” he said.
(via Mashable)
