Essay Digital Music Piracy

Napster, a free online file sharing network, allowed peers to share digital files directly with each other by way of connections through its software and system. The no cost peer-to-peer sharing gained popularity, particularly with trendy music. A&M Records took notice of the free digital music downloads and brought suit against Napster for direct, contributory, and vicarious copyright infringements (Washington University School of Law, 2013).

Napster changed the internet forever. “...Napster is considered the pioneer in the music industry…”(American Broadcast Company News). This shows how important Napster was to the music industry. They were the first company ever to be able to stream music through the internet. They were the birth of the online music business. “In the year 2000, a new company called Napster created something of a music fan's utopia—a world in which nearly every song ever

Starting in the year 1999, a company called Napster opened up a whole new world to the Internet where every song ever made was instantly available to you on your computer for free. It was created by an 18-year-old Northeastern University student named Shawn Fanning. Napster transformed personal computers into servers that shared mp3 files all across the Internet (Mayer, 2008). It became popular very quickly because exchanging mp3 files freely and having any music desired right at your fingertips had never been possible before. However, this program that provided the privilege of having free instant music to download did not last long, it was shut down after just two years by

According to the text A Gift of Fire, Napster “opened on the Web in 1999 as a service that allowed its users to copy songs in MP3 files from the hard disks of other users” (Baase, 2013, p. 192, Section 4.1.6 Sharing Music: The

Although the action of retrieving music illegally can be easily accessed as group three states, “majority of the music that is consumed illegally by the individuals...would not have been purchased if illegal websites were not available to them” it provides a weak point because either way people see it music is available to them with purchase and if that is the only option than that process will occur. The society that illegally downloaded music created can be seen in one huge source known as, “Napster” in an article, by Stephen Seigel he states, “ Napster allows its users to "share" songs with other users, completely bypassing the traditional forms of music distribution” (“Nipping at Napster”). Napster allows people to share all types of

In 1999, Napster hit the scene with a peer-to-peer file sharing application that changed the world. Within a year, millions of people were trading songs from a simple download. It didn't take long for Metallica to sue Napster and to ban users from access. Napster was forced to shut down in 2001 (Mason). This opened the door; in the next few years, P2P networks and file sharing across the world grew exponentially. The torrent protocol and sites such as The Pirate Bay, Torrent Reactor and TorrentSpy became very popular. This created a major problem as the financial loss from file sharing escalated to billions of dollars. "In the decade since Napster emerged, music sales in the U.S. have dropped 47 percent, from $14.6 billion to $7.7

Music piracy has been detrimental to the music industry and I believe it will only get worse with time. Music has become much easier for people to steal off the internet without paying the artist a dime. Technology continues to improve exponentially every year, because of these improvements in technology piracy has become much more accessible to music pirates. Overall album sales have gone down from 500 million units sold in 2007 to 200 million units sold in 2016. If this trend continues it will eliminate some of the smaller artists who depend on album sales to pay for studio time and other expenses. These lesser known artists also usually lack the funds to try to prosecute these music pirates and get their music off of the sites they are being

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 Internet.

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 use its search engine to look for a song from another person’s computer.

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 return

The music industry has developed in a series of technological advances, from the development of vinyl to the digitization of music and the creation of formats such as compact disc (CD), digital audiotape, and minidisk (Leyshon 2001). Although the digitized music facilitates consumers, it causes the appearance of piracy and the drop of sales. The subject of piracy has occurred for a certain period. Since 1920's, music piracy has appeared into the world with the production of cassette tapes, voice recorders, and CDs, which brought a new kind of event to court. Moreover, music piracy has become a worldwide issue due to the development of downloading music via the internet.

Napster, a free online file sharing network, allowed peers to share digital files directly with each other by way of connections through its software and system. The no cost peer-to-peer sharing gained popularity, particularly with trendy music. A&M Records took notice of the free digital music downloads and brought suit against Napster for direct, contributory, and vicarious copyright infringements (Washington University School of Law, 2013).

Illegal music downloads caused a massive fall in the sales and income of the labels and artists, which has been driving them to bankruptcy quicker. According to the

Ever since 18-year-old Shawn Fanning created Napster in his Northeastern University dorm room in 1999, downloading and sharing music online has become one of the most popular things to do on the Internet today. But why wouldn't it? Getting all your favorite songs from all your favorite artists for free, who wouldn't want to start sharing music? The answer to that question are the people who feel that stealing from the music industry is not morally right, because that is exactly what every person who shares music is doing. People who download music think it's something they can get away with but now it might be payback time to a lot of those people.

Companies like Apple, have decided that it is best to get in with the downloading business. However, an end to the illegal downloading conflict remains to be realized. The RIAA and associated artists continue to wage war against illegal downloaders while computer savvy audiences persist in sharing music files online every day. While it is undoubtedly true that downloading music is a crime, it remains to be proven that it is wrong. Without establishing this principle, most downloader's are likely to continue the activity. Even with new, inexpensive and available means of downloading files, they can still be shared for free online. The rift must be repaired between music lovers who feel that they have been taken advantage of in the past and recording companies and artists who worry about their future livelihood.