Napster

Napster

No issue in recent American history has produced more controversy than of the origins of the Cold War between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. In particular, historianThe Record Industry Association of America, RIAA, sued Napster founder Shawn Fanning, on April 28 of this year for copyright infringement. The RIAA is the trade group that represents the companies and people making creative works in the record industry. The RIAA works to protect the intellectual property rights worldwide and the first amendment rights of an artist. The RIAA seeks declaratory and injunctive relief, as well as statutory damages for the willful copyright infringement. The technology known as "Mp3" or "P-to-P" permits rapid and efficient conversion of compact discs recordings to computer files, and by passes any bottlenecks or legal problems, by providing its access over the Internet. But to utilize this software, Shawn Fanning had to personally copy the recordings onto Napster's computer servers so as to be able to replay the recording for its subscribers; this was his fatal flaw. Fanning had to purchase some forty-five thousand compact discs, most of which copyrights are owned by record companies and yes the Napster made unauthorized copies of CD's and allowed his website users to listen and download those unauthorized copies thru his software. Although the Napster seems to portray its service as the "functional equivalent" of storing its users' CDs, in actuality it is replaying for the subscriber a converted version of the recording it copied. On its face, this makes out a presumptive case of infringement under the Copyright Act of 1976. In the case the defendant, Napster, argued that such coping is protected by the affirmative defense...

... middle of paper ...

...te a music file that is sonically as identical to the original CD as possible. In such circumstances some light, humanly undetectable differences between the original and the copy does not qualify for exclusion from the coverage of the Copyright Act and Napster's fair use defense is indefensible and was denied as a matter of law. In May of this year while Napster contends, under the rubric of copyright misuse that the RIAA is misusing their dominate market position to selectively prosecute only certain online music technology companies, admissible evidence of records show only that the RIAA has reasonably exercised their rights to determine which infringements to pursue an in which order to pursue them. On May 4, 2000, regarding this matter, the court found that the RIAA was entitled to partial summary judgment holding Napster to have infringed the RIAA's copyright.