How Napster Worked
Napster was the original file sharing program. From it sprang many offspring, such as Kazaa, Morpheus, and Gnutella that are still thriving after Napster was defeated in the courts. The following is how Napster worked during its existence.
Once you download and install Napster, it will make a database of all of the music on your computer when it is first run. When you launch Napster with an Internet connection open, Napster will contact a Napster server, and tell it your name, your IP address, and where all of your music is on your computer. Napster takes all of that information and puts it into a database of its own. That database has the information about every Napster user that is online.
To find music, you must type the song’s artist and title into Napster’s search fields. The Napster server searches its database for the song and artist you requested, and brings you back a list of all of the copies of the song, and tells you on whose computer you can find them. You choose from who you wish to download the song from, and you download the file directly from their computer.