The Case of Napster

Paper Summary:

This paper explains that the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) argued that Napster was infringing on copyright and illegally copying, distributing or "bootlegging", and downloading the copyrighted products of musicians. The author points out that the problem of pirating copyright material is not new; but the combination of the Napster technology, the Internet, and the ability of individuals to burn their own CDs off the Internet made pirating very easy, with digital sound quality just like the store bought merchandise. The paper relates that Napster, which is now owned by Roxio, Inc., the software inventor of many well-known CD-burning programs, is a subscription-based service that charges 99 cents per downloaded song; other peer-to-peer networks seem still to be striving.

From the Paper:

"Napster offered its users the opportunity to access music files held on every other users' hard drive. This, in turn, meant that users could download to their hard drive, and then burn to a Compact Disc (CD) if they so desired, literally hundreds of thousands of pieces of music. This threatened the producers of music (the musicians) and the copyright holders, the media companies, such as AOL Time Warner, Vivendi Universal, EMI and others. The revenue they generate by selling Compact Discs and tapes was threatened because Napster users could now obtain music and compile a music library without actually purchasing product from the companies themselves."

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