The Napster and Grokster Cases: Differences and Similarities

Along with the development of a file format (MP3) to store digital audio recordings, came one of the new millennium’s most continuous debates – peer-to-peer piracy – file sharing. Internet companies such as Napster and Grokster became involved in notable legal cases in regards to copyright laws in cyberspace. These two cases are similar in nature, yet decidedly different. In order to understand the differences and similarities, one should have an understanding of each case as well as the court’s ruling.
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).
In 2001, the case of A &M Records, Inc. v. Napster, Inc. was first heard in the United States District Court of Northern California where Napster claimed that the record companies were, in fact, violating their First Amendment rights. The court disagreed with this argument, held, and ruled in favor of the record companies saying that they indeed had a valid argument.
Napster appealed the ruling of the lower court and the case then landed before the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Cir...

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...entertainment industry is saying that intellectual property is just as real as physical property. The digital age faces a true balancing act a digital dilemma if you will- the right to freedom of expression while protecting intellectual property.

References:
Zelezny, J. (2011). Communications Law: Liberties, Restraints, and the Modern Media. Boston, MA: Wadsworth-Cengage Learning.
Baase, S. (2013) A Gift of Fire. 4th Edition. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education, Inc.
Washington University in St. Louis School of Law. (2013, Aug. 28). “Washington University Law Blog”. Case Study: A & M Records v. Napster, Inc. Retrieved from http://onlinelaw.wustl.edu/case-study-am-records-inc-v-napster-inc/
The Oyez Project at IIT Chicago-Kent College of Law. (2014, May 3). MGM Studios v. Grokster. Retrieved from http://www.oyez.org/cases/2000-2009/2004/2004_04_480