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Richardson also stayed quiet. The only negative press Fanning received by early 2003 were articles in the now-defunct Industry Standard, which Fanning threatened to sue for libel, and the Los Angeles Times. In August 2002, John Fanning fulfilled another long-held dream, to grace the cover of a business magazine. Red Herring trumpeted NetMovies’ plan, by then one of many by technology firms, to distribute film content online—if it could get licenses from movie studios. The magazine bore the cover line “The Next Movie Mogul?” and said that Blockbuster Inc. had led a $4.8 million investment round in NetMovies, though the video-rental giant wouldn’t divulge how much it had put in. The article said Fanning had “created” and “masterminded” Napster and was trying to shepherd a political solution to the music-licensing problem in his spare time. “This political activity could well be his greatest legacy,” the story intoned.

The 1999-style hype notwithstanding, Fanning’s firm needed more money than it had. Much of Fanning’s Napster windfall had gone to pay lawyers, and NetCapital grew late in paying some bills, a creditor said. At least in part, Fanning blamed, of all people, Thomas Middelhoff, who Fanning believed would help NetMovies. “In July of 2001 we met to discuss partnering with us in the online movie deal with Blockbuster,” Fanning reminded Middelhoff in an e-mail complaining that the then-CEO wasn’t returning Fanning’s calls. “[Eight] months later we are still having discussions and my relationship with Blockbuster has suffered because of it.”

SHAWN WAS LIVID WHEN THE Red Herring story came out. But even then, and even soon after, as Napster was at last melting down around him, he tried to tune out the drama. It was the one habit that most frustrated his longtime friends Parker and Ritter, all the way back to Shawn’s acceptance of the 70/30 split. “John Fanning believes in the ascendancy of will,” Parker said. “Shawn is the polar opposite. He thinks there’s an angel on his shoulder, that everything will work out for the best. And this belief in the predestination of what was happening engendered passivity that paralyzed Napster.”

But Shawn had changed in many ways, becoming more jaded about the business world and the motives and methods of the people running it. A healthy effect of that process was that he paid more attention to the

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