Software:CMU Connector

CMU Connector was a popular file transfer program and service that was created in the Fall of 2005 by Kiley Williams, a student at Carnegie Mellon University at the time. It was shut down in early 2007 due to pressure from the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and school officials. The service spanned several universities on the east coast and boasted over 20,000 users at its peak. Users were required to have an invite code in order to use the service. This was a way to mitigate potential problems from illegal usage.

Williams created the program to honor his best friend, a student at the Rochester Institute of Technology, who had been sued by the RIAA for illegal file-sharing. When he was unable to pay the $5,000 tab, his scholarship was revoked, which forced him to transfer to a community college and subsequently drop out of college altogether.