He’s the most famous 19-year-old in America. His name is Shawn Fanning, and his music website, Napster, has changed the world.

Before Napster, it was difficult to find all the good music that you liked. There were three problems. The first was about money. People heard a good song by a new group. They bought the CD, but then found that all the other tracks were bad. The second problem was the record companies. They often stopped selling music that people wanted to hear. The third problem was the Internet. It was difficult to find songs and difficult to download songs from music websites.

Early in 1998, a college friend of Shawn’s was talking about these problems. ‘I don’t think it’s difficult to write a program to exchange music on the Internet.’ Shawn thought as he listened. ‘I could do it myself.’

Soon, Shawn could think of nothing else. He took his computer everywhere. One day, his cousin was driving him back to college. When they arrived, Shawn said goodbye and left the car. But then he got back in and said, ‘I’m not going back to college.’

Shawn’s parents were very unhappy. Shawn was sorry, but his music program was more important than college. He went to live in his uncle’s office by the sea in Hull, Massachusetts. He slept on a sofa, but sometimes went sixty hours without sleep. After three months, his program was ready. He called it Napster.

In 1999, Napster went on the Internet. Soon, it was the most popular website in the world. Why? Because it was easy to use. With Napster anyone could easily put all their CDs onto the Internet. And it was easy to find songs as well. Napster just gave the names of music tracks and the Internet addresses of people who had them. Users then downloaded tracks from each other. And it was free.

Shawn was only interested in writing a good program. He asked some businessmen to run the Napster company and pay him enough money to live. Now he owns only 9% of Napster.

The record companies weren’t happy. ‘Free music takes money away from artists,’ they said. Many people said this wasn’t true. More CDs were sold after Napster than before. The record companies didn’t listen. They decided to sue Napster.

Was this goodbye to free music on the Internet? Everyone waited to find out. But then, a surprising thing happened. Napster and Bertelsmann, one of the record companies, decided to work together. ‘From now on,’ they said, ‘Users must pay a monthly fee.’ Now Napster can make money as well as the record companies.

Many people were unhappy with this idea. ‘Napster was for us,’ they said. ‘Now it’s just another company.’

What does Shawn Fanning think? Nobody knows. He’s working on a new idea. Will that change the world, too? We must wait and see.