Downloaded

Downloaded (2013) is a documentary worth watching online for anyone who remembers when music suddenly went free. Director Alex Winter traces the rise of Napster, the program that let millions swap mp3 files straight from one bedroom to another, cutting out stores and record labels.

At its heart are the two kids who built it: teenage coder Shawn Fanning and his partner Sean Parker, who later turned up at Facebook. Winter lines up voices from both trenches — Metallica's Lars Ulrich, who sued and became the face of the industry's war on file-sharing, set against Noel Gallagher, Henry Rollins, Billy Corgan and host Jon Stewart. The film follows Napster's brief life from its explosive launch to the courtroom defeat that bankrupted it.

The angle here isn't who was right; it's how two dorm-room students flipped the music business on its head and basically sketched the streaming world we live in now. Stream Downloaded (2013) online on iFILM.