Speakers

Animal Advocates, Political, Motivational and more.

Shawn Fanning

Shawn Fanning is famous for developing Napster, one of the first popular peer-to-peer file sharing platforms, in 1998.

Booking Fee: Contact us below Artist Location: United States IMDb Wikipedia

Shawn Fanning's Bio: Fanning was born in Brockton, Massachusetts. He worked summers at his uncle, John Fanning's Internet company, Chess.net. During this work, Fanning spent months writing the code for Napster, a program that could provide an easy way to download music.

After graduating from Harwich High School in 1998, Fanning enrolled at Boston's Northeastern University. Shawn spent Christmas break working at the Hull, Massachusetts offices of Chess.net with his uncle John, pushing himself to get the Napster system completed. In early 1999, the system was launched. Later he appeared on the cover of Wired Magazine and rose to fame. Soon after, however, Napster was the target of several music industry-backed lawsuits, which ultimately led to the end of the service. Roxio purchased the logo and trademark effectively changing its name to Napster, LLC. Best Buy later purchased the company.

In 2003, Fanning opened a new company, Snocap, along with Jordan Mendelson, and Ron Conway. The company aspired to be a legitimate marketplace for digital media. In late 2007, Snocap laid off 60% of its workforce. ValleyWag wrote an article that Fanning had long left Snocap and began to work on another venture, Rupture.

In December 2006, Fanning developed Rupture, a social networking tool designed to handle the task of publishing gamers' individual profiles to a communal space and facilitating communication between World of Warcraft players. Rupture was later acquired by Electronic Arts for $15 million.

In 2000, Shawn Fanning appeared as a presenter at the MTV VMAs. He appeared wearing a "Metallica" T-shirt, and when asked where he got it, stated, "a friend of mine shared it with me." Lars Ulrich's reaction was shown as yawning and feigned sleep.

In 2003, Fanning had a cameo appearance, playing himself, in the film The Italian Job. In the film, Seth Green's character accused Fanning of stealing Napster from him while he was taking a nap. … Read more

Booking info for Shawn Fanning

To learn more about Shawn Fanning's booking fees and availability for your event, please fill out the form on this page. One of our dedicated booking agents will respond to your request quickly, and in most cases that'll be within 24 hours.

Appearance and/or performance fees for Shawn Fanning are determined by a number of factors, including availability, location and date of your event, tour routing schedule, and most importantly, Shawn Fanning's interest in appearing at your event. When contacting us, please be specific about your event details, including your talent budget, so that we can suggest suitable alternatives in the event that Shawn Fanning is not available or isn't a good fit for your event.

Book the Best is the booking agent working on your behalf as an entertainment broker/producer. We do not claim to be or represent ourselves as the exclusive booking agent, booking agency or management for Shawn Fanning, unless specified above. Because we are not Shawn Fanning's agent, we are unable to answer fan club information requests, fan mail, public relations inquiries, or provide direct contact information for Shawn Fanning. We are unable to respond to inquiries regarding entertainers' availability inquiries that do not meet our guidelines.

We look forward to helping secure Shawn Fanning for your event.

Check Availability & Fees for Shawn Fanning:

Please fill out this form as completely as possible so we can best serve you.

Your Name: * Organization: * Your Email: * Your Phone: * Your Talent Budget: How did you hear about us?

Talent Category Desired: * Sub Category Desired: * Performer Desired: Other Possible Talent Options: Event Date: Event City/State: *

Is there anything else you can tell us to help us understand your talent booking needs?

We'll be in touch with you shortly!

Processing your request...
Please do not navigate away from this page.

Please note: Book the Best acts as a talent consultant and/or broker and does not claim or represent itself as the exclusive agent, booking agency, representative or management for Shawn Fanning or for other artists listed on this website.