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An interesting perspective on the matter comes from Shawn’s mother. First, John Fanning is her brother. Second, it was she who steered Shawn to him. And third, she currently is making ends meet by cleaning Fanning’s house for pay. Even she leaves little doubt that both she and her son were unhappy from the beginning about the split and what it led to. “My main concern was that he have the proper people to guide him,” Coleen said. “When there’s so much money involved, there’s going to be people that don’t have his best interest in mind. I would like to think that what [John] really wanted was for Shawn to succeed—what he really had in his mind, I don’t know.” As for Shawn, “he regrets that—giving so much control away,” his mother said.

In May 1999, Shawn signed the paper that his uncle told him to sign. At the gym one day with Loubani not long afterward, Shawn talked about how he could get more of Napster back from his uncle. But he didn’t see a way. “He never forgot that it was his uncle that did this to him,” Loubani said. “From then on, the relationship became really strained.” Always guarded about personal matters, Shawn himself has declined to criticize his uncle’s actions in public. But there is unanimity in Shawn’s circle about his real feelings. “Shawn was upset, and he continues to be upset” by the split, Jordan Ritter said. When Shawn told Sean Parker about it, Parker couldn’t believe it: “What did you sign, exactly?” Shawn said he didn’t know. In the next two years, Parker and others wondered if Shawn had legally turned over the rights to his creation or not. In private, Shawn and his uncle sparred, broke off contact, and eventually made some kind of peace. When it comes to his uncle, “Shawn is like a battered wife,” said one former Napster official who knows both men well, referring to Fanning’s unchecked sway over Shawn. It’s just too hard emotionally for him to let go.

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