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In December 1999 the Recording Industry Association of America RIAA on behalf of every major record label in the music industry initiated legal actions against Napster for the following copyright infringements on the plaintiffs exclusive rights for reproduction and distribution of their copyright works:
1.Napster users were directly infringing the plaintiff’s copyright.
2.Napster was liable for contributory infringement of the plaintiff’s copyright.
3.Napster was liable for vicarious infringement of the plaintiff’s copyright.
Napster did not dispute the allegations of direct infringement by its users. Therefore the court held that at least some of Napsters’ users were direct infringers through their activities of reproducing and distributing copyright music without permission.
Contributory infringement of copyright requires that the defendant has knowledge or reasonably should have had knowledge of the direct infringement undertaken by the exterior party and must have materially contributed to the direct infringement. The court had already determined that Napsters users directly infringed the plaintiffs copyright. Napster’s knowledge of these infringing activities was proven by a list of 12,000 files that had been subject to copyright violations via Napster, the down loading activities of company executives and the appearance of well-known song titles in promotion screens. Finally, material contribution was demonstrated via Napster’s provision of the site and facilities used in directly infringing activities. The court consequently held that Napster was liable for contributory infringement of the plaintiff’s copyright.
Vicarious liability arises when financial benefit is gained via the failure to control or supervise a direct infringement of copyright where there is the ability to do so. The court held that Napster was liable for vicarious infringement as it retained the right to block a user from accessing the network. The retainment of this right amounted to the ability of Napster to control infringing activities. However, Napster failed to wield this right for this purpose. Napster was found to rely on the infringing activities of its users as a major attraction for the use of the system. Considering that the systems financial viability related directly to the size of its user base the court found that Napster obtained direct financial benefit from the infringement of users.
Napster unsuccessfully argued four defences to the allegations made against them. Firstly Napster argued that their right to free speech allowed the legal continuance of their system. The courts determined that free speech is inapplicable to the illegal down loading of files in the absence of a redeeming purpose. Secondly, Napster argued that the placement of any injunction against the company would result in significant financial hardship. However the court held that the hardship borne by Napster did not ‘trump’ the interest of the copyright holder. Thirdly, Napster relied on a legal principle (the Betamax Defence )that states that creators of new technology should not bear the burden of preventing copyright infringement where technology is capable of substantial non-infringing use. The courts determined that despite Napster non-infringing uses, this principle did not apply as Napster possessed actual knowledge of specific infringements and maintained the ability to control them without doing so. Finally Napster attempted to rely on section 512(a) Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA)This piece of American legislation allows an Internet service provider to provide connections for material that is temporarily stored on its service with impunity under certain conditions. However, Napster failed to prove to the court that it fell under the classification of a service provider under the Act.
The District Court ordered Napster to monitor the activities of its network and to block access to infringing material when notified of the materials location. Napster was unable to do this and consequently shut down its service in July 2001. Due to the outcome of the case Napster eventually declared bankruptcy in 2002 and sold it’s assets despite having already been offline since the previous year. The Napster trademark was sold to Roxio and a new subscription service using the name was launched in October 2003.
Douglas, G.(2004)"Copyright and Peer-to-Peer Music File Sharing: The Napster Case and the Argument Against Legislative Reform" in Murodch University Electronic Journal of Law. Vol. 11 No. 1 March 2004.
Frith, S., and Marshall, L.(eds)(2004)Music and Copyright. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
Heim-Smith, M.(2004)"Peer-to-Peer File Sharing Since Napster". Georgia State University College of Law: Law and the Internet accessed 3 October 2004. URL: [1]
--Lara Cresser 17:18, 10 Oct 2005 (EST)
Filesharing - Legal Aspects - Napster
Filesharing - Napster - History
Filesharing - MP3 - Copyright Law
Peer-to-Peer - Filesharing Networks
--Lara Cresser 17:18, 10 Oct 2005 (EST)
