Napster was a free application that was used to share files through the internet. Its technology allowed for participants to share their music with others without any attention to copyright violation laws. Napster was up and running online from June of 1999 to July of 2001. In the short span of two years, it went through countless obstacles and was eventually shut down through court order. Napster’s inattention and carelessness towards the United States copyright violation laws led to their ultimate demise through the legal system (BusinessWeek).
The service was created by a student at Northeastern University by the name of Shawn Fanning. He and another student, Sean Parker, began Napster because they wanted an easier method of finding music; other than spending hours searching through IRC and Lycos. (Lycos was an entertainment search engine; like Google, only specialized). What Fanning and Parker had not taken into consideration was the fact that their application was going to cheat many artists out of their rightfully deserved money. This misstep in the applications development is what led to the eventual demise of Napster.
File-sharing as a system itself is not illegal; but the sharing of files without regard to copyright violation laws is illegal. In the beginning, back in 1999, many people who had previously purchased the artists’ work on LP or cassette merely used it as a method to obtain a digital copy of the music. This was seemingly justifiable reason to use the service that Napster provided. But as Napster’s popularity grew, people (mostly younger college students) began to use the service to obtain the music for free; without paying any royalties in exchange for the artists’ hard work. This led to people creating their own compilations on CD’s and selling them as bootleg copies for their own profit. At this point is when the legal issues really became clear (BusinessWeek).
In 2000, heavy metal band Metallica noticed that their unreleased recording of a song called “I Disappear” that was meant for the Mission Impossible 2 soundtrack had leaked onto the internet and was therefore acquired by several hundred thousand users without Metallica receiving any payment in exchange. But it was not only that one particular song; they noticed that their album sales seemed to be falling because people decided to download the rest of Metallica’s catalog for free from distributers who had no right to distribute it. Metallica then proceeded to file a lawsuit against Napster (Jones). About a month later, rapper and producer Dr. Dre also filed a similar suit against Napster after his written requests to be removed from Napster’s database went ignored (Reuters). Separately both Metallica and Dr. Dre logged and delivered thousands of usernames to Napster who were believed to have pirated material from the two artists. About a year later, Napster settled the suits with Metallica and Dr. Dre (each artist was getting heat about “selling out” by turning to the legal system). By this time, Napster had already been shut down by the Ninth Circuit Court fin response to a third suit filed by Madonna (Borland). Madonna, who had originally wanted to sign on as a partner with Napster, seemed to have lost her enthusiasm when she became aware that her single “Music” has leaked out and was available before she officially released it. In accordance with the three previous lawsuits filed by Metallica, Dr. Dre, and Madonna; the record companies themselves began to sue Napster for its illegal services. The music industry made the following claims against Napster: 1) The users were directly infringing on the plaintiff’s copyright; 2) Napster was liable for contributory infringement of the plaintiff’s copyright; and 3) Napster was liable for vicarious infringement of the plaintiff’s copyright. Although through appeal, Napster was given the conditional allotment to remain active, they were unable to do so and shut down in July of 2001.
Peer to Peer (P2P) file sharing itself is not illegal, but when users are sharing material that they have no right to distribute, it becomes illegal. Newer P2P software such as Limewire learned from the Napster controversy and now have disclaimers when they are downloaded that state that it is illegal to download copyrighted material and any download of this material is at user’s risk. Therefore they have rid themselves of any blame and only the user is responsible for what they download. Personally, I believe that the easiest way to avoid legal problems with copyright issues is to just buy the album or download the song, video, etc from a licensed distributor. Not to put down the law, but there are enough loopholes that people are willing to find and exploit. For almost anything that people want to do, there is a legal way to do it; if there is not, then the deed should probably not be done anyway.
Works Cited
“Napster’s High and Low Notes” 2000 BusinessWeek.com
< http://www.businessweek.com/2000/00_33/b3694003.htm>
“Unreleased Madonna Single Slips On To Net” 2000 CNET News.com
< http://news.cnet.com/2100-1023-241341.html>
Copyright and Peer-To-Peer Music File Sharing: The Napster Case and the Argument Against Legislative Reform, 2004 Murdoch University Electronic Journal of Law
<http://www.murdoch.edu.au/elaw/issues/v11n1/douglas111.html>
“Dr. Dre Raps Napster” 2000 Wired.com
< http://www.wired.com/techbiz/media/news/2000/04/35749>
“Metallica Rips Napster” 2007 Wired.com
< http://www.wired.com/politics/law/news/2000/04/35670>
