Napster, a peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing network where users could upload and download MP3 files freely, broke all music industry conventions when it launched in early 1999 out of Hull, Massachusetts. The platform was developed by Shawn and John Fanning as well as Sean Parker. In an interview from 2009, Shawn Fanning explained that Napster "was something that came to me as a result of seeing a sort of an unmet need and the passion people had for being able to find all this music, particularly a lot of the obscure stuff which wouldn't be something you go to a record store and purchase, so it felt like a problem worth solving."