This article presents a timeline of events in the history of file sharing.

1970s

1972

The first read-write floppy disk drive the Memorex 650 is born. Sharing or copying files was done by physically carrying a disk around, also known as Sneakernet. Sneaker refers to the shoes of the person carrying the media.

1978

February, the first BBS (CBBS) is born.

1980s

1980

Usenet established. Usenet is a distributed internet discussion system that evolved from a general purpose UUCP network of the same name. It was conceived by Duke University graduate students Tom Truscott and Jim Ellis.

1985

October, File Transfer Protocol (FTP) protocol specifications are published as an RFC. Using FTP, clients could send files to a central server, which could then be retrieved by other clients.

1988

August, 'Internet Relay Chat (IRC) was created by Jarkko Oikarinen to replace a program called MUT (MultiUser talk).

1990s

1990

November, Tim Berners-Lee publishes a proposal for the World Wide Web and writes the first Web page.

1997

Hotline wins the "Best of Show" award at the MacWorld Expo and becomes a file-sharing vehicle for Mac users.

1998

MP3.com is founded

The first MP3 player, the Eiger Labs MPMan F10 ships in the summer

MP3 Newswire, the first digital media news site, is launched. The site's founder Richard Menta becomes the first digital music news columnist.

Diamond Multimedia ships the second MP3 player, the Rio PMP300, in early fall. Selling for $250 it is the first DAP to enjoy mass success. Its popularity is so strong it spurs a lawsuit in October of that year from the Recording Industry Association of America who call the Rio a tool for copyright infringement. Diamond Multimedia wins the case.

1999

June, Napster is released. (Birth of peer-to-peer file sharing systems). Users could make specific MP3 files available for others to download directly from their computer.

December, lawsuits are filed against Napster by several major recording companies

2000s

2000

March, First Gnutella client is published. Gnutella-network, being the first decentralized file sharing system, is born. (Note that it is decentralized only after initialization.)

March, FURI Gnutella client starts Java development (now called Phex).

June, Slyway.com launches, a site focused on file sharing news aggregation with some original content. In 2001 it renames itself Slyck.com. Led by editor Thomas Mennecke, Slyck increases output of original content, adding key interviews with P2P developers and online commentary.

September, PornDigger! beta 1.0 is published to registered beta testers, introducing use of thumbnails in p2p filesharing.

October, Napster is credited by pundits for driving Radiohead's Kid A album to the top of the Billboard charts. Tracks from the album were released onto Napster three months before the CD was shipped to stores.

2001

March, FastTrack protocol and Kazaa are introduced

April, First version of gtk-gnutella client is released.

July, Napster shut down its entire network. OpenNap servers spring up to replace the old network.

October, First public version of Mutella Gnutella client is published (now defunct).

November, GNUnet is first publicly announced

2002

February, BitTorrent debuts at CodeCon

August, P2Pnet is founded by Jon Newton. The site would grow to become one of the most popular digital media sites and among the most controversial

November, Gnutella2 protocol is announced

2003

November, The source code of Winny is confiscated by the Kyoto Police in the late November or soon after

November, Digital Music News is launched by editor Paul Resnikoff. The site targets record industry executives

2004

May, Winny developer Isamu Kaneko is arrested for suspected conspiracy to commit copyright violation

October 28, the RIAA files an extra 750 lawsuits aimed at alleged copyright violations from file sharing.

2005

June, United States Supreme court judges Grokster developers being guilty of encouraging their users to infringe copyright.

September, Frontcode shuts down its WinMX servers after receiving a cease and desist letter from the RIAA. Developer groups set up new servers days later.

2006

May, Razorback2, a Swiss server and one of the biggest indexing servers on the eDonkey network, is raided and taken down. Traffic moves to other servers to compensate.

June, a Swedish police raid takes The Pirate Bay torrent search engine down; but it becomes operational again after 3 days.

2007

October 23, OiNK's Pink Palace is shut raided and shut down by a joint effort between Dutch and British police. The IFPI and BPI hijacked the sites domain names, with no legal right to do so, and displayed a threat on the page. Control was later regained of the domain by Allan Ellis, OiNK's creator.

November, Demonoid, a prominent BitTorrent tracker at the time operating out of Canada is "shut down" by the CRIA