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What led to the legal action?
What led to the legal action?
On the 13th of April, 2000, Metallica, the American heavy metal band, had sued Napster for copyright infringement, unlawful use of digital audio and racketeering on devices for a single year with the case ending in March 2001.
Napster had not obtained permission to be sharing Metallica’s music to their listening audience free of charge or be releasing demos of their music. The demo "I Disappear" was the main accused song found to be released by Napster which was set to be released later with the movie "Mission: Impossible II" but was found playing across multiple radio stations by the drummer of Metallica, Lars Ulrich.
What is napster?
What is napster?
Napster is an application that is primarily focused on sharing digital audio files that is encoded into an MP3 file format. This company had faced legal encounters over copyright infringement against Metallica, which then lead to Dr Dre and other producers suing as well after Metallica’s case.
Members of Napster cannot upload or download MP3 files to and from the app but peer share the audio files through a separate software program called MusicShare.
Arguments from both sides
Arguments from both sides
Metallica wanted to have the choice on if they wanted to distribute their music for free and what was to be released into the public. The lack of control that Napster had was what artists wanted their productions to be published and what not be publish for the Napster users. Their demo of “I Disappear” was released without permission and too early as it was planned to be released with the movie Mission: Impossible II, but had been heard on in public. Metallica’s drummer Lars Ulrich had stated to press that “Napster hijacked our music without asking”.
Napster’s argument was about the money they lost on the app due to the claims, how Metallica was logically trying to take the app as a whole and not wanting to give stuff away for free. They had claimed that Napster was not the original source for this digital sharing to occur due to peer-to-peer sharing MP3 audio files as files were not downloaded from Napster, but from another peers computer on a separate program called MusicShare which had access to Napster’s servers.
Outcomes from the case
Outcomes from the case
The court judge for this case was Marilyn Hall Patel who had discharged a preliminary injunction on Metallica’s behalf to have a resolution on the case.
Within the junction, it had ordered Napster to remove all copyrighted songs from Metallica on the program and place a filter to restrict users from displaying Metallica’s songs on the application.
This had to be done within 72 hours after the injunction was placed or they had to be shut down.
Metallica had sued for $10 million in damages, which led to $100,000 per song that had been downloaded from Napster’s users.
Due to this legal case, other artists and recording companies including, Dr. Dre and Ria, afterwards had filed their own lawsuits for their productions, which had forced Napster to terminate 230,142 Napster accounts.
Ramifications of this case on us today
Ramifications of this case on us today
Downloading media is illegal. This case made a very high profile study of illegal downloading and bruogh it to mainstream attention. Software developers can produce a program where it can dramatically reduce any fraudulent business dealings from occurring online. Software applications which run off peer-to-peer sharing to shre media without prior permission from the copyright owners are strictly illegal as the peers are distributing copies of copyrighted files, which allowed software developers to develop an application that allows the user to legally download the chosen music.
Since then, streaming services, like Spotify, Netflix and Disney+ have changed the way we stream media. When users pay for their music or media individually or a subscription monthly to listen to music of their choice, it would show support towards the artists that they are listening to as they are paying for the artists to produce more of what they are supporting them for.
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