> So maybe not the general public, but in 1997 someone released a search engine specific to finding MP3s, because people already had large collections.

I was the author of MP3 Fiend around this time.

It was a desktop metasearch engine for MP3s that worked in conjunction with multiple download clients.

It was very successful at the time, only for Napster to come along and eat my lunch.

It got ... called out a lot by the press.

https://i.imgur.com/0hnIG5Y.jpg