Napster

Paper Summary:

This paper studies the legal case against Napster, an Internet company that provided a service which allowed users to download and share copyrighted music. The plaintiffs in the case accused Napster of violating copyright laws, and Napster argued that preventing them from offering their service was an infringement of their basic rights. This paper highlights the arguments and issues on both sides of the debate and then discusses the Court's decision on the case, why it made such a decision, and the implications of that decision.

From the Paper:

"Music lovers in the US and around the world mourned the death of a cultural phenomenon when the US Court ruled against Napster a year or so ago thereby intermitting the Internet trend of music file swaps. The company had become tremendously popular with 13.6 million US users in 2001 (Ahrens 2002). Napster, a company which developed a service tool that allowed users to swap copyrighted music files through the Internet, created havoc in the music industry for quite sometime until it was sued by music companies who blamed the company for their decreasing CD sales volume."

More papers on Napster:

• Analytical Essay # 87730 : "Napster: An Analysis of Issues and Implications"
• Essay # 71789 : "Napster"
• Case Study # 3069 : "Case History on Napster"
• Persuasive Essay # 5253 : "The Napster Controversy"

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