Napster and Its Effects Obtaining music has not always been as easy as it is today. In order to purchase music, a person would have to go to a physical location and pay a retailer. Searching for just the right album or collection meant spending sometimes hours going through racks of records, cassettes, or cd’s. In the past, sharing music with a peer or friend meant loaning a physical copy of the music. Also the storage of the music took up a lot of space that could have been used for something else. Do not forget about how much care and cleaning went into maintaining it. However, that was all about to change. The most important parts of Napster are its history effects on sharing music around the world, and impact on the music industry.
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Allowing “peers”, whether they knew each other or not and regardless of where in the world they were located, to share music files was the fundamental reason for creating Napster. Decentralization or decentralization is the process of redistributing or dispersing functions, powers, people or things away from a central location or authority. Also according to the same article previously mentioned titled “Napster: Then and Now” The Recording Industry Association of America has filed suit against Napster. Napster is not being accused of violating copyright itself but of contributing to and facilitating other people's infringement. Napster argued that since the files are transferred from user to user and the original files aren't ever in their possession, that they are not acting illegally. After Napster, intellectual property rights have been weakened substantially. Intellectual property rights refers to the general term for the assignment of property rights through patents, copyrights and trademarks. These property rights allow the holder to exercise a monopoly on the use of the item for a specified …show more content…
They also did not have any advertisements on their website to gain revenue from. The result of the lawsuit filed against Napster was, it went bankrupt from the lack of finances.
When Napster got shut down all most everyone basically got up, packed their stuff and switched to similar companies to Napster. Some of Napster’s successors included Gnutella, Kazaa, Morpheus, and E-Donkey. After napster shut down it was bought by Rhapsody on December 1, 2011, and a paid version followed. Rhapsody is also on the many music file sharing program.
One of the biggest effects that Napster has had on the music industry was that they allowed the online sharing of music and they also reinforced the need for copyright laws. Napster as a whole has made it easier for people to get the music that people enjoy listening to fast and have it take up less space. Finally, the companies that have sprang up because of this has changed the music industry forever, for the better and for the
Listening …show more content…
Allowing “peers”, whether they knew each other or not and regardless of where in the world they were located, to share music files was the fundamental reason for creating Napster. Decentralization or decentralization is the process of redistributing or dispersing functions, powers, people or things away from a central location or authority. Also according to the same article previously mentioned titled “Napster: Then and Now” The Recording Industry Association of America has filed suit against Napster. Napster is not being accused of violating copyright itself but of contributing to and facilitating other people's infringement. Napster argued that since the files are transferred from user to user and the original files aren't ever in their possession, that they are not acting illegally. After Napster, intellectual property rights have been weakened substantially. Intellectual property rights refers to the general term for the assignment of property rights through patents, copyrights and trademarks. These property rights allow the holder to exercise a monopoly on the use of the item for a specified …show more content…
They also did not have any advertisements on their website to gain revenue from. The result of the lawsuit filed against Napster was, it went bankrupt from the lack of finances.
When Napster got shut down all most everyone basically got up, packed their stuff and switched to similar companies to Napster. Some of Napster’s successors included Gnutella, Kazaa, Morpheus, and E-Donkey. After napster shut down it was bought by Rhapsody on December 1, 2011, and a paid version followed. Rhapsody is also on the many music file sharing program.
One of the biggest effects that Napster has had on the music industry was that they allowed the online sharing of music and they also reinforced the need for copyright laws. Napster as a whole has made it easier for people to get the music that people enjoy listening to fast and have it take up less space. Finally, the companies that have sprang up because of this has changed the music industry forever, for the better and for the