Critic Reviews

No one is as intriguing as the thoughtful, soft-spoken Mr. Fanning, a onetime idealist thwarted by the piracy label and the dated assumptions of a calcified communications infrastructure.

Downloaded is still a vigorous retelling of Fanning's and Parker's wildfire achievement and its ethical pitfalls, even if there's little in the way of journalistic balance.

Winter's detail oriented approach does at least give the best recounting of Napster you're going to get, even if it's a biased one. And while some contrasting opinions would've been appreciated, Downloaded is still worth a click.

A fascinating, alternate-universe look at the dawn of the music-sharing phenom — once a cause of concern in the industry, yet now a footnote to our all-digital music marketplace.

Winter hits his stride detailing how the music bigwigs hung Napster out to dry, but couldn’t do a thing about their industry’s permanently altered business model. This exercise in recent nostalgia (the original Napster went bust in 2002) might have been better if the tart cynicism of that section had shown up earlier.

The doc is only about as revealing as a middling magazine article on the subject.