A dubious question I guess, but it wasn’t Steve Jobs: reading this it seems more like it was Tony Wilson (of Factory Records fame), only he was too early…
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Duh! Al Gore.
No, wait…he invented the internet. Same thing though, right?
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Whoever built Napster, most likely, followed by Audiogalaxy and Limewire, and then Gnutella and Kazaa and the other BitTorrent networks.
It all still goes on I guess, but Tony Wilson may have been the first to try and work with record companies and pay artists 
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Oh man, so much music on napster–with a side of computer cancer.
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The book “How Music Got Free” is a great read (and crazy story).
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Thanks for the suggestion I’ll look it up
Probably helped anti virus become popular…
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Surely downloading of music would have been done by TV broadcasters. Initially analogue but the BBC designed NICAM stereo using 14 bit (I think) digital.
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Ha and FM stereo - recording songs from the Top 40 on Radio one on a Sunday evening
Yes I think Nicam was 14 bit, the beeb were very proud of it too!
My vote goes to Napster.
Maybe the question should be who invented … legal … downloads. Hmmm.
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Karlheinz Brandenburg probably should be credited with developing the tech allowing music to be downloaded (hairs can easily be split as to whether that equals actually inventing downloading audio).
While a grad student, he developed the algo for compression of audio using psychoacoustic theory (essentially the mp3). If memory serves, I think his team also built the first portable digital music player.
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The invention of MP3 was certainly necessary for downloading to become popular.
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whatever the answer, the original article posted is worth a read - Tony Wilson is always remembering
Al Gore invented the internet so he could download music…
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Great book, and answers the question of who invented it… it began in the land of pirates.
I know it was somewhere in the late 80s or early 90s, as I started using The Internet Underground Music Archive when they started in 1993. And I had downloaded music at least 2-3 years prior to that, but can’t remember how or through whom. (Maybe America Online or CompuServe???)
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I remember recorded music off the radio (a 1940s tube model, so AM only) via a cheap mic plugged into a portable RCA reel to reel recorder mostly at 1 7/8 ips, or if it was one of the better sounding stations, 3 3/4 ips. Ahhh, the good ol’ days.
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I just found that the AIFF file format was invented by Apple in 1988. I also just remembered that pre-mp3, there was an mp2 music file, but I can not find any history on it.
The UK DAB (we do not have DAB+) digital radio system still uses mp2 compression. Since many music channels only have 128kbps streams I have switched to Internet listening. Still only 128kbps, but at least they tend to use the AAC codec, which is noticeably better at that bit rate.
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Agreed - and the (for example) BBC 320 kbps AAC streams sound great