Napster Essay, Research Paper

A young man named Shaun Fanning who attended high school in Harwich, Massachusetts had two loves, sports and computers. As he became more interested in computers, he decided to stop playing sports and turn his attention toward working with computers. He focused on two aspects of computers, programming and the Internet. His interest with computers grew from a hobby into an obsession throughout high school.

In his freshman year at Northeast University, he attempted to enter computer courses higher than entry level. He was not allowed to enter these courses so in his spare time, he began writing a program based on the Windows operating system. He started spending a lot of time in chat rooms with professional, experienced programmers who knew the trade.

Shaun’s roommate had a passion for MP3’s, which are computer audio files. He loved using the files but hated the time and trouble it took to find them. Shaun decided he would write the Beta, which is a primary program, for what he called Napster. He had a vision of all users being connected to one central computer and a song list that would be constantly updated. After writing a small version, he gave it to his friends and family to try. Everyone was excited about the results of his brainchild, but this joy would soon turn into a battle for freedom because Napster was freely distributing copyrighted songs.

On May 8, 2000, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) sued the creators of Napster for music piracy. It has become more of a battle for personal rights than copyrights. It has moved to the Supreme Court and has the media and public waiting for the latest court decisions. They are suing Napster for giving people the ability

to download music, even though Napster argues that they are not responsible because they do not supply the songs.

Napster can be downloaded and installed without a charge. After a user sets up the program, it becomes an online music community. The user can select songs they want other users to be able to download from their computer library, then they may download songs from other users’ personal computer library. According to Napster, 800,000 users are logged onto the server at any given time. A wide variety of musical genres are available for users of every nation, style and age.

The Fifth Amendment states, in part, that no one shall be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law. Shaun Fanning created Napster with his own creative genius and no intent to infringe on artists’ rights. Technically, our government has the right to shut down Napster and its productions because it serves as a base for music piracy. However, the statement that, “no one shall be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law,” backs up Napsters sides of the argument as well. The RIAA is trying to take away Shaun’s full rights to Napster. Federal law does state that whole copies of music cannot be distributed without paying royalties to the owner, but Napster comes back with their universal argument of not trading the music, but simply providing a platform for the trading to be done on. Napster is benefiting many more people than it is causing an insignificant, inconvenience to. Napster argues that such technicalities should not be carried out exactly, because of their benefit to society. The RIAA claims that artists have expressed anger for not receiving any compensation, or even so much as a request for permission to create this platform.

The only people being affected by Napster negatively are the artists. Some of the more out spoken artists are Eminem and Metallica. Their attacks on Napster show that they do not have as much interest in pleasing the public as they do in personal profit.

The reason the case has remained in court so long is the huge number of people who support the program. No one wants to destroy something that offers an easy and fun way to find the music you want. Some of the justices who are deciding the outcome of the case have shown favor with Napster.

The laws of our constitution will most likely be altered in the near future to prevent electronic crime and piracy. When the program was created; these laws were not in effect, therefore future laws will undoubtedly be made for this exact dispute. Laws will be forced to be revised to fit the problems of today’s technology that our forefathers could have never anticipated.

I have used Napster and found it to be a fun alternative to searching with traditional search engines on the Internet, such as Yahoo! and Dogpile. I agree that Napster is a public service because of the hard work Shaun has put into this, without profit, and unintentional success. Shaun planned to create a small network between some friends and family so they could share their music. The over night hit soon found its way into the homes and offices of millions of users. He should not be punished for something he did not intentionally create and now it is too late for him to prevent people from using Napster. His creative gift should not be restricted because of success.

Napster will probably be in and out of courtrooms for the rest of its existence. As long as there are artists not being paid everything owed to them and as long as there are people who simply want to find a fun relaxing way to use our twenty first century technology, there will be arguments about how legal it really is. More programs with many different purposes will probably be produced by people with the same genius as Shaun and even if Napster does get closed, I’m sure someone else will create a program to take its place. Napster has taken the search out of getting great music for everyone and has taken it a step forward by offering at no charge to the consumer. Hopefully, Napster will become a computer company and expand out of just MP3’s to all different branches of computer software and hardware. They are truly a model for what tomorrow’s computer companies will look like, but it is already amongst us today.

Bibliography

Fanning, Shaun

http://newsletter.napster.com/

http://www.napster.com/help/win/faq/index.html#company

http://www.napster.com/help/win/faq/

Heilemann, John. “Boies, The Wired Interview.”

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/8.10/boies.html