Abstract Millions of users worldwide use online file swapping services, in order to download free music. Record companies, needless to say, are not very happy about this, neither are many musicians. This paper presents the historical and legal background of this subject. Then, it discusses the morality of such free music services, based on two major ethical theories: consequentialism and contractianism. Introduction The Audio Home Recording Act (AHRA) [1], states: “No action may be brought under this title alleging infringement of copyright based on the manufacture, importation, or distribution of a digital audio recording device, a digital audio recording medium, an analog recording device, or an analog recording medium, or based on the noncommercial use by a consumer of such a device or medium for making digital musical recordings or analog musical recordings.” The above indicates that individuals can make copies of music recordings for personal noncommercial use and cannot be sued for copyright infringement [2]. In 21st century terms, it can be argued that downloading MP3 files containing music for personal use is not illegal. Napster lawyers thought so too. This argument was used by Napster’s lawyers as one of the two lines of defense at the lawsuit filed against Napster by The Record Industry Association of America (the RIAA) [3]. Unfortunately for Napster, the judge ruling was in favor of the RIAA, and eventually it brought Napster down. Napster was a pioneer in the area of file swapping over the Internet. The Napster web site made available the software necessary for the Peer-to-Peer (P2P) file transfer to work. People used it primarily for copying MP3 music files, thus avoiding the need to actually purchase recorded music. Napster quickly became a very popular web site with a 15 million registered users in less than a year, according to company sources. However, Napster’s remarkable success was not at its best interest. It had drawn the attention of the Record Industry, and raised its concerns of Copyright infringement in large volumes. Barely a year after its launch, it was sued by the RIAA, which represents major recording companies such as Universal Music, BMG, Sony Music, Warner Music Group, and EMI. The RIAA claimed that by allowing users to swap music recordings for free, Napster’s service violated Copyright laws. Eventually, the judge ruled against Napster, and, failing to complete the sale deal with Bertelsmann AG, it had to shut down its operations and liquidate its assets [3].
Before the 1990’s, if people want to listen to music, they just visit a music store and pick up a CD and then put it into a stereo equipment. However, the development of MP3 file format gradually changed the way people listen to music. This format lets everyone download music easily and it can be converted to CD as well. But, there is still a problem: searching MP3 files on the internet is maddening and people seldom can find the music they want. Therefore, the birth of Napster solved this problem, creating a virtual music community in which music fans could use the Web as a “swap meet” for music files. More importantly, Napster is easy to use and it’s free, which expands the range of audience in age. Bandwidth also contributed to Napster’s success. The greater the bandwidth, the faster the file can be transferred. So, Napster really changed the way people listen to music, discover music and interact with music.
The P2P model gained wide scale notoriety with the success of Napster in late 1999. Almost overnight, P2P and Napster became household words. There are essentially two variations of the P2P model – the Napster model and the Gnutella model. Both follow the fundamental principle of P2P sharing ...
In early 1999, Shawn Fanning, a Northeastern University freshman, created Napster software. That summer he made it available for free through his Napster.com website. Napster is a peer-to-peer technology, which makes it possible for users to freely share their music files through the internet with other users all over the world. Specifically, this is how Napster works:
Originally, Napster was a kind of file sharing software. File sharing software had been developed as database managing software. As the internet has grown so huge all over the world, a distributed database system model has been proposed as the preferring system. The file sharing P2P software has become the celebrated information tool for storage system. But now, rapid growth of broadband and the ability to be anonymous on the internet threaten the entertainment industry’s control of the distribution of such products as movie and music. We can get music or movie files with P2P software through the internet for free.
files directly from any computer connected to the Napster network. The software is used by
Napster was an early peer-to-peer file sharing network which could be used for transmitting various files, but which attained massive popularity as a way to share music through .mp3s. Unsurprisingly, major record companies took issue with
We are different. Living amidst a new era, technology has changed our lives forever. For more than a decade, our generation had commonly been referred to as the “net generation.” Our fortune brings us life in the age of digital information, where information flows freely and knowledge is infinite. We have embraced the concept of freedom and taken several levels farther than what our forefathers imagined. Whether we realize it or not, we naturally question the unknown and demand answers to our questions (and quick answers at that). The technology we live with today was nothing more than dream decades ago. Yet with these new technologies and information at our disposal, an issue we fight against unnecessarily is file-sharing music online: a redundant issue with a clear solution. While some question its legality, arguments pushing for restrictions are both weak and lacking in support. For that reason, there should absolutely not be any restrictions on file-sharing music online as its limits would contradict traditional human behavior, and damage the music industry severely.
Is important for anyone who has created any intellectual property to protect it. In the music industry, in order for someone to protect their work, they must obtain a copyright. Music has been around before anyone could obtain a copyright and when the invention of the computer came along it made it easier for someone to steal another artist's intellectual property with the help of the internet. This paper will cover what events have taken a big role in copyright protection for artist, the consequences if someone was to break the rules of a copyright which is called copyright infringement, and how will a copyright hold in the future. Were copyrights enacted without the thought of life changing technology, and how can some music companies surpass copyright infringement and make a profit from the artist? Can a copyright really make that much of a difference in the world we know today?
File sharing popularity increased with the birth of Napster. It allowed users to connect to each other through a central server. Napster pioneered the concept of peer-to-peer file sharing (P2P). With Napster, individual people stored files that they wanted to share (typically MP3 music files) on their hard discs and shared them directly with other people. Users ran a piece of Napster software that made this sharing possible. Each user machine became a mini server.
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 Napster Case). Napster was, however, “copying and distributing most of the songs they traded without authorization” (A Gift of Fire, Section 4.1.6 Sharing Music: The Napster Case). This unauthorized file sharing resulted in a lawsuit - “eighteen record companies sued for contributory infringement claiming that Napster users were blatantly infringing copyrights by digitally reproducing and distributing music without a license” (Communications Law: Liberties, Restraints and the Modern Media, 2011, p. 359).
The story really begins with Napster and its free software that allowed users to swap music across the Internet for free using peer-to-peer networks. While Shawn Fanning was attending Northeastern University in Boston, he wanted an easier method of finding music than by searching IRC or Lycos. John Fanning of Hull, Massachusetts, who is Shawn's uncle, struck an agreement which gave Shawn 30% control of the company, with the rest going to his uncle. Napster began to build an office and executive team in San Mateo, California, in September of 1999. Napster was the first of the massively popular peer-to-peer file sharing systems, although it was not fully peer-to-peer since it used central servers to maintain lists of connected systems and the files they provideddirectories, effectivelywhile actual transactions were conducted directly between machines. Although there were already media which facilitated the sharing of files across the Internet, such as IRC, Hotline, and USENET, Napster specialized exclusively in music in the form of MP3 files and presented a user-friendly interface. The result was a system whose popularity generated an enormous selection of music to download. Napster became the launching pad for the explosive growth of the MP3 format and the proliferation of unlicensed copyrights.
The first online peer to peer file-sharing application was Napster. Napster allowed people to copy music from their CDs onto their computers in mp3 format. They then allowed other members of Napster to download these songs onto their computers. Once this caught on, millions of people were downloading thousands of songs a day. And as you can imagine, this did not make the record companies happy with the idea that people were getting their music for free instead of buying the CD. It also caused a problem with some of the recording artists. Most notably Metallica.
The first peer-to-peer software can arguably be Napster, which let users download songs from other users. Napster restricted its files to songs since most people still had 56k connections at that time, so larger files would take an unreasonably long time. Presently, broadband connections are relatively inexpensive, so full movies can be downloaded in almost the time it takes to watch them. This widespread availability of high bandwidth has led to new applications, such as Limewire, Kazaa, and Morpheus, which let the user download any type of file, the most controversial of which is movies.
Now let’s flash forward back to present day when all that doesn’t happen anymore. Instead of saving of our money and begging our parents to take us to the store to buy a newly released album, we simply get on our computer, go to a website and download the album for free. It doesn’t matter what website it is, whether it is Limewire, Frostwire, or Pirate Bay, people will be happy with their free album. There are still some kids to this day who enjoy going to the store and buying and listening to an album the old-fashioned way but we have to wonder how bad things will get as more and more people are getting equipped with the Internet and the use of downloading music. While the internet might be making life easier for all, the growing use of downloading music on the Internet is growing into a detrimental and illegal problem.
Napster is a company that developed the so-called peer-to-peer technology that lets people search and retrieve music files directly from one another's personal computers. When Napster first came out, millions of internet users worldwide were illegally downloading and distributing copyrighted music, videos, images, and software for free. After being vilified by the entertainment industry, which claims that Napster and any similar programs could make piracy of almost any digital work unstoppable, and many court battles, Napster was ordered by court to be shutdown in 2000. The technology has been praised as a revolutionary development for the Internet—unaware of the problems that would arise from such practices. However, the termination of Napster was not enough, months later, dozens of new, like programs were being developed and used. And since Napster, not much has been done to stop these latest downloading programs.