Napster's Impact On The Music Industry

After the internet began to grow and spread all across the world, it began to impact almost every medium, most particularly the music industry. Music will be something that takes a part in everyones lives, and since the introduction of the tape recorder, music has become something that we could share and discuss with others. After the development of MP3 format in 1992, which compressed digital recordings into smaller, files, the internet essentially became a community in which people could share music. The creation of this ‘community’ can be seen prominently in the early 2000’s, because of the growth of free file-sharing services like Napster. Music files became available to be illegally downloaded through the Internet, making it easy to download

One of the most interesting arguments that supported Napster, was that it actually helped many artist, for example the band Radiohead - who had never previously reached near the Top 20 in the US, released their album Kid A, which was available on Napster for 3 months prior to its actual release. When it was officially released, the album reached at the top of the Billboard Top 200, and greatly helped the band show their work off as a huge success. However, the industry realized the large threat that Napster was, well-known artists Metallica and Dr.Dre both filed lawsuits, and disclosed the usernames of thousands of users to federal courts (nerdist), however both lawsuits were eventually settled, but that did not mean that Napster would be left alone. In 2000, the Recording Industry Association of America also sued Napster under the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act for “contributory and vicarious copyright infringement”. Further, in 2001 the US Supreme Court ruled that free music downloading (from programs like Napster) was illegal and violated the musicians and labels