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With so much glory to go around, it looked as though Ritter was going to be able to get a piece of it later that month. Wired magazine had conducted its annual poll of techno-enthusiasts and was giving its Rave Awards October 12 at the Regency Theater in San Francisco. As with most similar awards where the public had any say, Napster cleaned up. An e-mail sent to Napster hands the day before the ceremony told staffers that Napster had won for Best Music Site, Most Innovative Web Start-Up, and Best Guerilla Marketing. In addition, fifteen thousand Wired readers had voted Shawn Tech Renegade of the Year, ahead of Nullsoft founder Justin Frankel and Ian Clarke, the Irish creator of FreeNet, an even more decentralized peer-to-peer system. As was the case with many Napster administrative communications, the e-mail came from Alicia Morga.

David Spade was hosting the Rave Awards, and musician Beck would perform at the party afterward. Also attending were San Francisco mayor Willie Brown and Daisy Fuentes, the MTV personality. The morning of the event, spokesman Robey e-mailed a dozen top employees, inviting them to the VIP party beforehand. An hour later he disinvited them, saying that he had “just been informed that the space for the pre-party is tight and can’t accommodate all.” Ritter and product marketer Brandon Barber, who had both planned on accepting awards, couldn’t believe the snub. Four awards, and only Shawn and Barry would be there to bask in it? After a flurry of discussions, Robey reinvited Ritter, Barber, and marketing VP Brooks to the VIP party. When the actual event began, he wrote, “Jordan will go up with Shawn to accept best music site. Brandon and Liz will go up to accept best guerilla marketing.”

It wasn’t national television, but Ritter was truly excited. Bill Joy, the principal author of a popular version of the Unix programming language and a cofounder of Sun Microsystems, was getting the Wired Visionary award on the same night. And for once, Ritter would be on stage next to Shawn. The preparty went fine, and Ritter was enjoying himself as he sat at the Napster table for the awards ceremony. Then someone approached and said that Courtney Love had requested that Shawn alone come up to accept the best-music-site award. The Wired editors sided with Love, who was one of the night’s top draws and sported a famously indomitable will. Ritter was flabbergasted, but there was nothing he could do. When

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