The Influence Of Napster's Contribution To The Culture Of Music

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

Although, an important fact to consider before making such decisions is the consumer preference. After the consumers were introduced to Napster, they would not accept to pay for music again, because they already have had experienced a better service with a lower opportunity cost (no need to leave their houses to buy CD’s, huge supply of all kinds of music and zero cost).

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.

Technology has evolved over the years especially in the music industry. We went from buying hard copy CDs to developing music streaming services. The music industry changed once Napster was created. Napster allowed people to easily share Mp3 files from each other's computers. It was a free streaming service that enabled you to download anything you wanted without having to pay a dime. It made CD sales plummet and hard copy CDs became obsolete. Napster was the foundation of torrenting. It made Limewire, Bearshare, and other file sharing services where you can illegally download for free. It revolutionized everything from burning CDs to CDs to doing it electronically. Napster influenced the music industry to develop Mp3s, iPods, and other music

What is Napster? According to SearchCIO, Napster is a controversial application that allows people to share music over the Internet without having to purchase their own copy on CD. Not only that, Napster allowed people to download the music on to their own CD and could be played from their own server and use chatting forums. (Rouse) Napster was created by a college dropout named Shawn Fanning and one of his friends who was only nineteen. He became quickly popular on college campuses. Some colleges were banning Napster due to the high bandwidth demands. (Rouse) By the year of 2000, Napster had already had over 26 million users. Basically, according to The Observer Napster was programmed to go into someone else’s music files and choose the songs they wanted and download them on to their computer, which also known as peer-to peer or file is sharing. (Lamont)

It’s intriguing how the music industry has significantly changed throughout the years due to the constant increase of technology. There are many different reasons to show how technology has made a huge impact whether positive or negative on this phenomenal industry. Music cultivates so much meaning to the world, and speaks volumes on the behalf of individuals when they don’t know what to physically say. That being said, whether it’s listening to music, creating it, or marketing it, technology has opened many new opportunities and ways for people to express themselves through music.

<br>The fact that Napster is free and more convenient than visiting a record store makes it an appealing way to get music for consumers. The problem the record companies have is that there is no way of regulating who has access to the information, and hence no way of profiting from it.

Napster, which was created in 1999, became an internet sensation in the blink of an eye. It was a free file-sharing community that involved millions of users. Napster linked numbers computers to a centralized server, which was accessible to almost anyone that had access to the internet. When logged onto the server, users could see music files along with their location, and begin to download them to their computer library. Users had the ability to search for music on peoples computers around the world.

O.C Ferrell and Michael D.H (2007: 373) argues that the introduction of a peer to peer website known as Napster allowed online users to share their high quality MP3 digital copies of music recordings through its MusicShare software. With the materialization of such a progressive online distributing site, internet users were rapidly drawn to its straightforward methods of downloading music. ‘’ Indeed, so many college students were downloading songs from Napster that many universities were forced to block the site from their system in order to regain bandwidth.’’ O.C. Ferrell and Michael D.H. (2007, 373). Granting Napster took on the role of providing the society with immense music downloads, it also caused a lot of dispute involving the RIAA which sued the site for violating copyright laws.

Music has a great influent on people in our daily life, just like technology’s effect on the music. In the last 100 years, pop music has been a major part of American culture. There’s always discussion on how great can a pop music affect one’s daily life. Both technology and music can affect one’s life in either good or bad way such that they are also related to each other. Technology had always had a dominant role in human history like music since the 1900s. Since then, the advancement of technology had create ‘miracle’ with music such that people won’t be able to imagine the effect back in 19th century. The effect of the technology on pop music can be observed through the instruments, composition and mainly the recording and transmission

And the fact that Napster is free and more convenient than visiting a record store makes it an appealing way to get music for consumers. The problem the record companies have is that there is no way of regulating who has access to the information, and hence no way of profiting from it. This is where Burke, had said that people take things and people are what make them negative. It is obvious here, that the record companies and a scared panic have seen Napster as an easy scapegoat and have tried to show it in a negative light so that Napster will not benefit from them any longer.

Users linked to Napster were able to share files with other and download music from almost any other computer present on the network. Napster claimed to have over 20 million users in July 2000, all of them making copies of each others’ music.

Napster was the first, very innovative music technology application that allowed users to download MP3 from the internet and other peers for free, or at a cost. Napster strongly adapted the word sharing and put it their own terms to avoid any copyright infringement but it ended badly on their part. This disruptive technology was leading the market and had over 60 million users by 2001. Although very similar technologies were soon after developed, Napster was still on top and lead the market. Many users knew exactly what they wanted but getting it seemed to be the difficult part once Napster and the RIAA went into a legal battle. More commonly, the industry has been shaped

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 original Napster, created by then–college student Shawn Fanning in May 1999, was an online music service that enabled users to trade digital music flies. Napster used a technology known as peer-to-peer (P2P) networking. P2P networking essentially enables users to link their com- puters to other computers all across the network. Each user linked to the Napster network was able to share his or her music files with all the other users on the network, and each user was in turn able to download a copy of any music file on almost any other computer in the network. Napster claimed to have over 20 million users in July 2000, all of them making copies of each others' music.