Napster: The Copyright Battle Essay -- Fair Use

at once upon a time a website provided free music through peer-to-peer data file sharing. This was a new technology for the public for a several reasons. The determine of home computers had declines dramatically and galore(postnominal) people could now afford one. Beca make role of of the affordability, many people who had never used a computer suddenly engraft themselves enmeshed in the new media. Not only could people do their e-mail, do paperwork, play games and use all the different applications they now could overly share their files with others. Of course, they wanted to share one of our most valued pleasures, our honey of music. The public was not aware that this type of file sharing was misappropriated because it was not clear on the website disclaimer. Most people did not empathise United States secure laws or the concept of Fair Use. It was the golden maturate of the internet and everyone was happy with his or her new toy. In this paper, I exit discuss legal implications of peer-to-peer file sharing. The most famous case was the Napster lawsuits. I was interested because I got a cease and desist letter barrage 2000. I stopped but I never quite unsounded what the difference was between file-sharing and recording music off the radio, which I laterward learned was illegal also. This paper will explore if the current copyright laws provide the protection necessary for intellectual property. If not, does it need to be revise? Can the Fair Use Doctrine and the new technology co-exist in the same world? According to Wikipedia (2011), Napster was an online music peer-to-peer file sharing help created by Shawn Fanning while he was attending Northeastern University in Boston. The service, named after Fannings hairstyle-based nickname, operated between June 1999 and July ... ... such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Section 107 also sets bring out four factors to be considered in determining whe ther or not a particular use is fair1.The purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes 2.The nature of the secure work 3.The amount and substantiality of the portion used in congress to the copyrighted work as a whole 4.The effect of the use upon the potential market for, or value of, the copyrighted work The annotation between fair use and infringement may be ill-defined and not easily defined. There is no specific number of words, lines, or notes that may safely be taken without permission. Acknowledging the source of the copyrighted strong does not substitute for obtaining permission. (Fair Use, 1976)