Napster The Copyright Battle Essay - 1363 Words

Once upon a time a website provided free music through peer-to-peer file sharing. This was a new technology for the public for a several reasons. The price of home computers had declines dramatically and many people could now afford one. Because of the affordability, many people who had never used a computer suddenly found themselves enmeshed in the new media. Not only could people do their e-mail, do paperwork, play games and use all the different applications they now could also share their files with others. Of course, they wanted to share one of our most valued pleasures, our love of music. The public was not aware that this type of file sharing was illegal because it was not clear on the website disclaimer. Most people did not†¦show more content†¦This actually was a promising idea. There are many independent musicians, writers and various other artist that cannot afford to promote their work and develop a following. This was virtually a free way to advertise their p roduct without trying to get a contract with a company to distribute and promote their work. As long as the artist had given permission for the use of the work, there was not a problem. The copyright laws of the United States provides for the artist to benefit from his/her intellectual property for a set period. Then the work goes into the public domain. However, this was not the case with Napster. The first problem was that they were allowing distribution of copyrighted work without permission or compensation to the artist. Second, it appears that they knowingly promoted their product once they were informed that copyright infringement was being practice with the assistance of their site. According to Jeff Tyson, there were several reasons why the music industry was upset with Napster, Tyson states: The problem that the music industry had with Napster was that it was a big, automated way to copy copyrighted material. It is a fact that thousands of people were, through Napster, making thousands of copies of copyrighted songs, and neither the music industry nor the artists got any money in returnShow MoreRelatedThe Legal Issue with Napster and the Music Industry Essay1131 Words   |  5 PagesThe Legal Issue with Napster and the Music Industry The issues that will be slugged out in federal district court in San Francisco sound a little too pop culture to be all that serious. How many music CDs are people buying these days in record stores throughout the nation because of Napster? Is the technology that Napster uses legal? Napster is, of course, the wildly popular file-sharing service whose 20 million users have downloaded some half a billion songs--most copyrighted for free. Read More The Rise and Fall of Napster Essay1292 Words   |  6 Pages The Rise and Fall of Napster It started as an accident. Shawn Fanning was just experimenting and thinking of an easier to go through a search engine for music. What was a simple idea turned out to be a phenomenon in the Internet world. The creation of Napster led to many problems and brought about new issues that involved the entertainment industry and piracy laws. Napster is a software where a compilation of all of its user’s files are held in a central unit and each user is able to useRead MoreThe Rise and Fall of Napster1355 Words   |  6 PagesThe Rise and fall of Napster It started as an accident. Shawn Fanning was just experimenting and thinking of an easier to go through a search engine for music. What was a simple idea turned out to be a phenomenon in the Internet world. The creation of Napster led to many problems and brought about new issues that involved the entertainment industry and piracy laws. Napster is a software where a compilation of all of its users files are held in a central unit and each user is able to use itsRead MoreEssay on Music Copyright Infringement1224 Words   |  5 PagesMusic Copyright Infringement MP3 is an audio format that allows users to compress and send music files easily over the Internet. The major problem with this music sharing is that most of the files are pirated, which has caused a stir in the music industry. Music companies and music artists have been complaining about how their music is being stolen and therefore lowering their album sales. The major blame has been put on Napster and other file sharing software available on the InternetRead MoreDigital Music Distribution: Napster Vs. Kazzaa Essay example1735 Words   |  7 Pagesthat consumers are more or less resistant to and others hover ambiguously over the boundaries of copyright law, attracting users through questionable means. Roxios Napster 2.0 and Altnets Kazaa utilize two vastly different business models and, when compared, serve as a good illustration of the contrasting approaches companies use to capture the frontier market of online music distribution. Napster allows major labels to retain th eir strong grasp on the industry by primarily providing and featuringRead MoreNapster: The Devil in Disguise567 Words   |  2 PagesSound recordings stepped into new hands known as Napster. Napster, to other sound recording companies, was like the devil in disguise, ruining the sound recordings profits and business. Napster started something for consumers but soon came to an end. What is Napster? According to SearchCIO, Napster is a controversial application that allows people to share music over the Internet without having to purchase their own copy on CD. Not only that, Napster allowed people to download the music on to theirRead More The Growing Problem of Music Piracy Essay1254 Words   |  6 Pagesvery foundation - mass scale music piracy. The decline of CD sales in the past three years have been blamed on the availability of songs that can be downloaded from Internet sites and service providers like Napster, KaZaA and Morpheus free of charge. Today the issue of intellectual copyright infringement in music has been taken more seriously than ever before, as large record labels and companies like Sony and EMI struggle to maintain healthy album sales in the face of online music piracy. In additionRead More The Digitial Millenium Copyright Act Essay3311 Words   |  14 PagesThe Digitial Millenium Copyright Act As current lawsuits unfold and the history of the Internet progresses, the debate over the future of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act thrives. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act, signed into law by President Clinton on October 28, 1998, was written in an attempt to strike a balance between the rights of a work’s creator to receive adequate compensation and society’s fundamental right to freedom of information. The bottom line is that the objective ofRead More File Sharing Essay1278 Words   |  6 Pagesfine of up to and including $20,000. Since the introduction of Napster in 1999, copyrighted music has been illegally duplicated more than eight trillion times. In recent weeks, the Recording Industry Association of America has filed more than three hundred lawsuits against American consumers who illegally downloaded copyrighted music. File sharing has long been a problem for the recording industry, which has only begun an uphill battle to alleviate illegal file sha ring. In addition to the lawsuitsRead More MP3s Benefit both Consumers and Record Companies Essay1246 Words   |  5 Pages000 MP3 websites and 6,000,000 people downloading a day (Knab). No one was concerned, but then Napster arrived (Jones). Napster will probably always be remembered as the MP3 software that allowed just about any song to be downloaded at any time by anyone who had an internet connection. The music industry was successful in changing Napster from a free source to a charging subscription. Others like Napster still exist because they have found ways of getting around all of the problems, but they are