Napster

Paper Summary:

This paper looks at why the website was obviously so popular with the youngsters and students and why the music industry was furious. It examines laws and court cases brought against the company and what the outcome of these confrontations were.

From the Paper:

"Napster is a peer-to-peer file sharing software application that allows users to trade music that is encoded in a format known as MP3. The MP3 format compresses the music into small files that are quickly downloaded or uploaded. Napster grew from a small site where its founders were delighted to be able to host 100 users at the same time to a site with membership "approaching 50,000,000 registered users with as many as 1.3 million using the service at the same time." But it hasn't been an easy path. Right from the beginning there was discussion in legal and media circles about copyright infringement and who could possibly get sued -- Napster for providing the capability of easy file swapping, or the user for downloading and uploading copyrighted music. Napster was in litigation before they even opened their doors, while their software was still in beta. (ARCHDEC2000, WIRED1, CNN1)"

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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