shawn fanning was born on november 22nd, 1980 in brockton, massachusetts. he is best known for developing napster, the first popular file sharing platform, in 1998. fanning spent months writing codes for this program that could provide an easy way to download music. his roommate gave him the idea to developed this program while attending Northeastern Universityin Boston, Massachusetts. fanning later appeared on the cover of wired magazine and rose to fame. napster was the target of several music industry backed lawsuits.