To celebrate the ‘success’ of Napster, Shawn Fanning is having a party at his apartment for the (disgruntled, but never turning down free alcohol) music industry.
7.30pm Shawn warns the party attendees that no bots are permitted at his party – if anyone is found running one, they will be permanently banned from his apartment.
7.42pm A group of Universal executives comment that his apartment is illegal in the first place and wasn’t approved with the local authorities, so why should they not run a bot?
7.43pm An EMI executive notes that they don’t even know what the hell a bot is.
8.01pm Shawn’s uncle has bought snacks! (Shawn’s uncle buys him a lot of things). Shawn distributes the lollies and chips around the party. Some attendees put their own contributions into the snack bowls, which Shawn grimaces at, but agrees to share them with everyone else.
8.23pm Lars Ulrich gatecrashes the party screaming that he’s never seen someone use the ‘La la la la I’m not listening’ technique of legal defence applied so well.
8.34pm In an attempt to revive his career, Rob Zombie begins following Lars around the room, hoping to be noticed.
8.46pm A Geffen Music representative pulls Rob aside from the crowd and asks him if he’s still on their books.
8.47pm Rob Zombie bellows to the room that he’s been dropped from Geffen, and is now available to be signed.
8.48pm Shawn Fanning offers to sponsor a Rob Zombie Napster tour, as long as Rob agrees to sign away any rights he may have as a musician.
9.10pm Sniggering Geffen Music executives giggle that Rob’s just a poor man’s Marilyn Manson.
9.58pm Courtney Love enters the room and begins screaming something about MP3s. Geffen executives turn their heads away, embarassed.
10.32pm Courtney’s still screaming, but everyone’s still listening, enthralled; but completely unsure what she’s actually talking about.
10.35pm Shawn inches towards Courtney in the hope of recruiting another ‘Positive Buy-cott’ member, but oddly Courtney keeps moving away whenever he approaches.
11.42pm Lars Ulrich demands to be presented with a list of songs that Shawn has downloaded using Napster, secretly harbouring hope that Shawn’s a closet Metallica fan and he can shatter a fan’s dream.
12.02pm Rumours begin spreading around the party that Shawn has only downloaded 18 MP3 files ever – all of them Madonna.
12.22pm Madonna hears of Shawn’s appreciation for her music and faxes a request to be featured on Napster’s “Discover” page.
12.23pm ‘We have a “discover” page?’ Shawn asks his uncle.
12.49pm CDnow representatives at the party wonder why they’re actually attending.
1.02am Shawn asks everyone to leave. Nicely. It’s past his bedtime.
1.32am After turning his baseball cap backwards and assuming a more agressive tone of voice, Shawn again asks people to leave. Many of the record company execs snigger.
1.40am BMG representatives ask Shawn to please lighten up – he’s embarassing them in front of their colleagues.
1.45am Shawn humps the leg of every BMG employee he can find. Said employees try to hide in embarassment and distance themselves as far from Fanning as possible.
2.02am The big three record companies excluding BMG incept a settlement idea for Napster: they can take any of Shawn’s belongings and replace them with their own – if they want.
2.09am An all-out scuffle begins as most of Shawn’s personal property is stolen.
2.15am Desperately, Shawn pleads with everyone to get out of his apartment.
2.16am His pleas are ignored, as members of Sony Music discover a seemingly bottomless drawer of baseball caps.
2.20am Shawn yells above the crowd that he’s announcing a Napster IPO. Crowd leaves within 30 seconds.