They Sued Two Teens. Then Lost Billions.

In 2001, two teenagers offered the music industry $1 billion. The industry said no — and spent the next decade watching its revenue collapse. This is the story of Napster: how 18-year-old Shawn Fanning and 19-year-old Sean Parker built the fastest-growing app the internet had ever seen, why a $14.6 billion industry decided to sue it out of existence instead of selling what its customers wanted, and how one of those teenagers went on to help bring Spotify to America. The record labels won in court. Then they lost billions. In this video: • How a college freshman's side project reached tens of millions of users with no advertising • The dorm-room economy of dial-up downloads and burned mix CDs • The lawsuits, the artists on both sides, and the one record label that broke ranks • The $1 billion settlement offer — and why the industry refused it • What happened after the servers went dark, from Kazaa and LimeWire to iTunes and Spotify What was the first song you ever downloaded, or the first CD you ever burned? Tell us in the comments. Subscribe for documentaries on the decisions, rivalries and turning points behind the world's biggest companies. Every empire has a story. This is Titan District.