With a meager year and a half existence, Napster has revolutionized the music industry with its leading person-to-person file sharing community. Shawn Fanning, who at the time was an eighteen year-old freshman at Boston's Northeastern University, founded Napster in May 1999. With over 38 million users, Napster is the fastest growing community in the history of the Internet. This number will likely increase in the future as Napster's popularity continues to escalate. According to an October study …showed first 75 words of 874 total…

…showed last 75 words of 874 total…stepping-stone to incorporate and expand their other business areas into the ever-growing demand of the Internet. Their current presence on the Internet through barnesandnoble.com and CDNOW has not been as successful as initially forecasted. As a result, this alliance with Napster can help them revive their lackluster Internet existence. Another advantage for Bertelsmann is the leverage they possess due to the current lawsuit against Napster and their established global presence in the media industry.