Case 4.1The Napster Case : Case 4.1The Napster Case Thomas Brannen
June 27, 2008
Theme Song : Theme Song I’m fighting for freedom
Trade Laws? We don’t need ‘em
Especially when living
In the Information Age
What is Napster : What is Napster Online Music file sharing service
Created by Shawn Fanning
The first widely used peer to peer sharing service
Allowed music fans to share MP3 songs with each other
Lead to accusations of massive copyright violations
How it was justified : How it was justified Users stated decreased quality of albums
Enabled users to download just one song
Users could obtain difficult to obtain song
Older songs
Unreleased recordings
Bootleg recordings
How it was justified Cont. : How it was justified Cont. Some felt it was OK to download songs which they had on cassette tapes of LP
Many users simply enjoyed downloading music for free
Who used the Service : Who used the Service College students were main users
Up to 80% of network traffic consisted of song transfers
Many colleges blocked the use for this reason
Legal Issues : Legal Issues In 2000, A&M records and several other companies sued Napster
For contributory and vicarious copyright infringement
Claims Against Napster : Claims Against Napster That its users were directly infringing the plaintiff's copyright
That Napster was liable for contributory infringement of the plaintiff's copyright
That Napster was liable for vicarious infringement of the plaintiff's copyright.
Napster’s Defense : Napster’s Defense Napster invoked the protection of the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act
Provides safe harbor against liability for copyright infringement for intermediaries or search engines.
Napster claimed that it was merely a search engine and should be covered under this
Napster’s Defense Cont. : Napster’s Defense Cont. Napster argued that a significant percentage of the system’s use involved legally acceptable copying of music files
Claiming many songs were not copyrighted
Claimed users were simply sampling music before making a decision on whether to buy
Napster compared its service to that of a VCR
Court Decision : Court Decision The court found Napster guilty on all three claims
Napster lost the case in the District Court and appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
Here it was found that Napster was capable of commercially significant non-infringing uses
It still affirmed the District Court’s Decision
Outcome : Outcome Had to monitor their network for infringing material.
Paid a $26 million settlement for unauthorized uses of music
Paid a $10 million settlement as an advance against future licensing royalties.
Napster declared bankruptcy in 2002