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Napster was a small Internet company created by Shawn Fanning and Sean Parker in 1999 that was designed for the simplification of file sharing of music over the Internet. It was a centralised version of peer-to-peer filesharing based around a central server used to direct exchange between the systems users. The resulting system enabled its users to download music files from other users’ computers logged on to the network directly to another users’ computer without the involvement of a central directory that contains the files. It is this direct transfer from computer to computer that categorises Napster as a peer-to-peer network. The use of the system only required the free download of the Napster software that acted as a, “kind of matchmaking service – responsible for finding the links, but not responsible for what happened after that (Lessig 2002:pg130).�?
The recording industry’s ( RIAA )opinion that Napster is a system designed to enable the stealing of copyright material was supported by the courts in A & M Records v. Napster. In this case the recording industry successfully argued that systems like Napster not only operate in infringement of copyright law but also remove the need for people to purchase music thus effectively removing the rights of the copyright owner and harming the market.
Despite the decision of the court alternative views exist in the media and legal academic circles on the nature of Napster and its relationship with intellectual property . These viewpoints base themselves around one central theme; that the decision to shut down Napster effectively left the recording industry to determine what sort of innovation in the distribution of content would be tolerated and allowed to develop. Academics such as Lawrence Lessig argue that the delicate balance between innovation and regulation that lays at the foundation of copyright law has been tilted towards the latter making it increasingly difficult for the legal development of new filesharing technologies.
There is also criticism of the application of law to the Napster scenario. Previous technologies that enable the reproduction of copyright works and have faced legal action have had opposite outcomes. This establishes viable legal precedent to suggest that in certain circumstances the infringement of copyright will be made secondary to technological and creative innovation (eg the dispute over VCR’s in Universal City Studios Inc v Sony Corp of Am). However…
‘…when this claim was made to Judge Marilyn Hall Patel in California, she unlike Judge Ferguson in the Sony case had no patience for the argument. Without a trial, and with barely contained contempt, she ordered the site [Napster] shut down’ (Lessig 2002:p196).
Also in defence to the official line that programs like Napster result in the decrease of CD sales is the idea of ‘sampling’. This practice involves an individual downloading a song in order to sample a CD before going to a record store to purchase it. The argument here lies in the possibility of filesharing to be used to foster and promote the sale of CDs thus bolstering the recording industrys strength.
See Also:
Lessig, L.(2001) The Future of Ideas: the fate of the commons in a connected world. New York: Vintage Books.
--Lara Cresser 14:02, 13 Oct 2005 (EST)
