Napster com and the Recording Industry Evaluating E Business EthicsA Case Study
... That has been the issue of debate regarding Napster.com for almost two years now. In the spring of 1999 Shawn Fanning, a freshman at Northeastern University, founded Napster. Napster is a service that allows users to trade music encoded in MP3 format through the Internet. ... The debate began later in 1999 when the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) filed a lawsuit against Napster for encouraging the illegal copying and distribution of copyrighted music. ... District Judge Marilyn Hall Patel issued an injunction against Napster. She ordered Napster to prohibit the sharing of copyrighted songs on its site while the recording industry’s lawsuit continued. The day after the court order, traffic on Napster’s website increased by 71%: users wanted to download as many songs as possible before the service shut down. Two days later, Napster appealed Judge Patel’s ruling and was granted permission to continue its service until the case went to trial (Lefevre). By October of 2000, Bertelsmann AG announced it would form a partnership with Napster and develop a fee-based music downloading system. ... Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Napster was completely aware that it’s users were violating copyright laws but allowed the service to continue until Judge Patel re-drafted her court injunction. Shortly, thereafter, the Napster service was shutdown. It is expected to reopen for business sometime in 2002 as a fee for service site. Is Napster.com doing anything that is illegal or unethical? ... Circuit Court of Appeals, Napster infringed on the copyright holders’ rights to control the reproduction and distribution of their music. The Court ruled that Napster was aware people were violating copyright laws by using its file-sharing service. Officials from Napster insist that they were not in violation of any laws because they did not keep any of the copyrighted songs on their servers. The RIAA contends that although this was the case, Napster is still responsible and thus liable for providing a mechanism for people to trade copyrighted material (Cohen). According to Cary Sherman, senior executive vice president and general manager of the RIAA: “We love the idea of using technology to build artist communities but that’s not what Napster is all about.