Help Of Napster And Other Sites example essay topic

Death of Napster Napster has been around for a while and nobody really has said anything until they found out what it does. Napster has been involved in a legal battle with Music Companies and artist about copyrighted material. The problem is that Napster is inciting others to break copyright laws by providing the members a place to find the music, go to someone's computer, and takes the music that off the other computer. Then the people have it listen to it, and burn CD's and then sell them. It gets tricky who is selling the music and who is not. Napster should not be shut down because Napster is not charging a membership fee, the money to make a record in not near as much as a movie, it has not hurt but helped with new artist to be discovered.

Napster is like the VCR was to the movie industry people that it would hurt but later has done nothing but helped. Membership fee is some of the big problem surrounding this case. The Music Industry wants to be paid for the music that millions are down loading everyday. Though who would get the money and how much to each music company. With no way to keep track of which songs are downloaded and how many times, so the distribution of money to the artist is unclear and probably not going to happen. The other things about charging a membership fee is how much and how to get the already millions to pay that money for using Napster.

There have been ideas brought forward but nothing has yet been done. Will there be anything done to control Napster and its other copycat sites no one knows. If the RIAA has their way there will be something done to stop all the web sites that help the down loading of MP 3 files (Dwyer, Paula 1). The starting of a record is not as expensive, as a movie. For many movies the production cost is well over a million if not some like Lord Of The Rings around 675 million dollars ("Lord Of The Rings"1). Compared to that, the production of a CD is much cheaper and most of the time it is under a million dollars.

It is all the extras that cost so much for CD's like radio play, advertisement, and tours. In the movie industry a massive amount of money is also spent on advertisement. Whether the movie or music industry spends more is not always clear because it depends on the movie and the artist involved. The advertising is an important part of exposure for possible success. New artists are trying to be discovered everyday and with the help of Napster and other sites, they are helping themselves out. By having their music on the net, millions of users can listen to and download their music.

This helps them get exposure and maybe even get discovered by a big record executive. For other bands that can't get a record deal from the record companies, this is a way of fighting back against the big companies and making it work. These are the artists that have no problem with this technology and embrace it with open arms. Many artists don't have copyright to their music because they don't have a record deal and the self-produced record they decide not to copyright their songs. Many of these artists use Napster themselves to down load music and put there music on the web. When VCR's came out it was though to be the end to the movie business.

In 1980's the MPAA filed a lawsuit against Sony Betamax. The VCR was hated by Hollywood it was though that it would take away from their profit. Making the movie business useless to the actors and writers. It was as if the VCR was going to hurt the movie business but in the long run all it did was helped create more profit. (Costello, Sam 1) Napster is in the same situation as the VCR was in but over new technology. The Home Audio Recording Act says that consumers have the right to create and transfer digital music for personal use.

Though it also says that the computer is not a digital recording device ("Stop Napster" 1). The creator of Napster Shawn Fanning had no idea that it would be so successful so fast. Since April of 1999 there are 62 million users of Napster (Samuelson, Roberts 1). It was something that took off so fast and grew so large that music people it will hurt them just like movie industry though the VCR would hurt them. In the last couple of years the music industry has experienced growth in sale not loss. So why are they complaining because it is all of the revenue lost to the technological advance that know how to and use Napster to download songs.

Napster and its technology has been one of the thorns in the music industry. Keeping the technology around will never hurt. It has and will be good to have around in the future. Charging a membership fee is maybe the way to go, but yet there is still a question of who get the money and how much. All the music industry want to do is have control over how the music of the world is distributed and sold. The RIAA is like a monopoly they want more money and rob the people of many forms of music.

This music normally would never be heard with out the technology of Napster and others like it.