Research Paper On Intellectual Property

In 1999, Shawn Fanning and his little program called Napster created quite a stir in society. Napster's software allows music listeners to open pieces of their personal hard drives to everyone using Napster, sharing whatever MP3 songs they have already downloaded or stored. At any time, thousands of people are online, sharing hundreds of thousands of songs, many of which are technically illegal to download without the permission of the copyright holders. [1] This led to a lawsuit filed by the Recording Industry Association of America, with the rock group Metallica as its frontman. In this case, several issues were brought up, one of which was the right of the creator of the music to control what happens with

A&M Records vs Napster was one of the biggest copyright infringement cases that later defined the legality of file sharing. It was a class action lawsuit that include over fifteen major record labels including Universal Studios, Warner Bros, and Sony Entertainment. The official case though is called A&M Records vs Napster. A&M Records sued Napster claiming they were infringing on their plaintiff's intellectual property. Napster was a peer to peer file sharing service. It was mostly used to share mp3 music files in mass volumes. This was right at the start of mp3 players. Music was starting to become easily accessible through digital copies.

In the case of Metallica v Napster (2000), Metallica filed suit against Napster for infringing upon their ownership of their unique music. “The suit claims that Napster ‘devised and distributed software whose sole purpose is to permit Napster to profit by abetting and encouraging’ piracy” (Doan, 2000). The music was original and copyrighted by Metallica. The Napster song downloads were being done without their consent or royalties paid.

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).

In 1999, three young men who were passionate about computer programming created a website that would bring an entire industry to its knees. As the three boys, Shawn Fanning, John Fanning, and Sean Fanning, worked hard on their project, they could’ve never imagined that their invention, a peer to peer music file sharing service called, Napster, would effectively revolutionize the way an entire generation created, delivered, and received its entertainment. Since then, the internet, file sharing, and the music industry has changed drastically. Since Napster’s invention in 1999 we’ve had millions of different similar services come about such as iTunes, Rhapsody. Roxio, YouTube, Spotify and NoiseTrade. Napster’s creation and then subsequent demise in 2002, sparked a controversy that still exists today, the effects of music downloading on music industry revenue.

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

Napster was a music sharing software that was shut down because of copying and distributing unauthorized MP3 files that violated the United States and foreign copyright laws. One of the major reasons why Napster was shutdown is

The RIAA evidently disagreed with the 20 year old due to the filed case, however Napster did have one substantial legal advantage. Because Napster’s system only hosted file names from millions of users from all over the world, Napster could not be held liable under the DMCA. According to the DMCA, it is illegal to directly share and download copyright music; Napster was simply a distribution channel. In terms of legality, the user is liable for illegally sharing music, but it is nearly impossible to apprehend these individuals because there are so many of them.

The issues that will be slugged out in federal district court in San Francisco sound a little too pop culture to be all that serious. How many music CDs are people buying these days in record stores throughout the nation because of Napster? Is the technology that Napster uses legal? Napster is, of course, the wildly popular file-sharing service whose 20 million users have downloaded some half a billion songs--most copyrighted for free. The technology that Napster has brought to music listeners across the globe has allowed the freedom of obtaining music for free and should not be shut down by the entertainment industry's argument in federal court.

Intellectual property, or IP, is an area of secular law dealing with copyright, trademarks, and patents and is largely misunderstood area of law to the average user. Everyday people from all over the world go on the internet and copy and paste words, videos, and ideas for their own needs; “but the results of eras developing legislation and precedent now transitioning into the current digital age” have left most of us oblivious of how deeply it affects our lives (). The ignorance of the secular world in IP has not come full circle on “what is right” and “what is wrong”. At times it seems as if it was easier to ignore this thing called “copyright”, “patent”, or “trademarks” and keep moving on with our lives. “The digital age changed everything” ().

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).

Digital and networking technology have vastly reshaped the way the world acquires and uses knowledge; by increasing the amount of creative content that is available to everyone worldwide and the variety of sources from which an individual can choose to acquire that data. This content is often created by many individuals collaborating to form large groups of people who all contribute creative content. Intellectual property (IP) is the content that is created by either an individual or a group of individuals. The distribution of free content, software, and ideas has successfully limited many societies dependency for established channels of distribution and production [cyberethics]. More and more however as the internet becomes a digitally real the ability to go to the internet and escape the established channels of distribution has become increasingly difficult, concerns over the legal issues with the way some, or at times most, of the ways material is acquired. Some experts believe that intellectual property laws have stifled the access to many of these works, and in doing so have decreased the rate at which the creative content can expand, grow, and progress. Laws like the Digital Millennial Copyright Act (DMCA) and the Copyright Term Extension Act (CTEA) have shifted, perhaps unfairly, the balance between intellectual property owners and the general users of these creative works. These laws have been put into affect for the sole

In fact, Napster’s only concern was to provide a service to anyone and everyone connected to the Internet who was searching for music. So by 2001, Napster had lost its fight in court against the music industry causing its free music file-sharing services to be shut down (Weiss, 2006). However, the company eventually changed its ways and decided to work with copyright holders to avoid legal issues.

“The controversy which defined file sharing for this period surrounded one file format - the mp3” (Smith). In the late 1990s, Napster, a web service that provided mp3 files to people who paid a small subscription fee, was founded and was known for hosting a large amount of mp3 files that anybody could download. That same year a service called Audiogalaxy was created as well. The two sites had friendly competitions to see who could get more web traffic and downloads. Napster was shut down due to copyright infringement in 2001. Audiogalaxy closed soon after due to pressure caused by the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) and was sold to Vivendi Universal, a company that would later turn the service into Rhapsody.

Since the late 1990’s, Americans, especially broke tech-savvy college students, have opted to download and stream music illegally as opposed to buying it. In 1999, Napster debuted, allowing users to download MP3 music files from the computers of other Napster users. The program was quickly banned on most college campuses due to its shaky legality and bandwidth that the downloading used (Tyson). After coming under fire in early 2000 by artists Metallica and Dr. Dre for unreleased demos appearing on Napster, the company was forced to remove all copyrighted material from the website to comply with court orders (“Napster Loses …”). Napster is one of the most popular examples of a high-profile music platform failing due to not compensating artists and labels for the music that it provides to listeners. After Napster’s collapse, the next free music service to burst into popularity was Pandora in 2004. Pandora is an online radio service that has both a free, ad-run tier and a premium ad free tier that costs