Napster

All it took was a laptop, some solitude, and about 60 hours without sleep for 21 year old Shawn Fanning to become a one man info rave. His work, the file-sharing application called Napster, created during the summer of 1999 at his uncle’s office in Hull, Massachussetts, has instantly turned him into an icon of information liberation.

Because Shawn’s Napster, which was released in September 1999 on the website co-founded with 21 year old Sean Parker, lets everyone trade music and other files over the Net with ease and for free. Enraged media companies and artists have alleged that the application trespasses on their copyrighted material, leading to a massive legal battle from the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA).

Shawn turned out to be right. Napster is the fastest growing website in history. According to Media Metrix, an online tracking service, the number of unique users of Napster rose from just over one million in February to around 6.7

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Like Rome was built in different layers. They are also using their legal right to go to court to determine whether or not the Napster system is engaging in the act of copyright infringement. Metallica has the resources to fight for what’s right on behalf of many artists who may not be in a similar position to fight a company like Napster, or any other corporation who are trying to undermine their art and their well-being. Rather than allowing the record company or any other corporation to own their recordings and compositions, they chose to fight for control of their music. Among Napster's revolutionary qualities is that it allows computer users to exchange files directly, avoiding server bottlenecks and, Shawn once hoped, legal problems. He didn't even understand the legal issues involved.

Metallica took the issue into their own hands and decided to sue Napster but first things first. That's a trait picked up from his jock years, when he excelled at basketball and baseball. In the spring of 2000, Napster’s second-round funding brought in about $15 million. “We respect the court’s decision, but we believe that Napster users are not copyright infringers,” Napster chief executive Hank Barry said at a news conference following the court’s ruling.

Shawn, to put it another way, is coachable. The court of appeals found that the injunction is not only warranted, but required. Only Napster's index and directory reside on a central server; the files are actually transferred via various Windows protocols directly from user to user. The new network will be built on top of the old network.

Common topics in this essay:
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Approximate Word count = 1772
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page double spaced)

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