...7 Step Case Analysis Copyright infringement has been a recurrent ethical issue that has revealed its presence in a multitude of industries throughout the realm of business for numerous years now. Of the thousands of products that have been reproduced and distributed without the authorized use of the copyright holder, it can be argued that the downloading of music is one of the most controversial matters pertaining to this era of mass internet usage. One of the most significant examples of such a case can be found in the Napster copyright infringement that occurred early in the twenty-first century. Napster proves to be a unique and worthy example for the reason being that the online file sharing service had been recognized to directly infringe the exclusive rights of artistes by freely distributing their musical projects online. Napster was developed in 1999 by Sean Fanning and Sean Parker, and it served as an independent, internet-based peer-to-peer file sharing service. The service used digital technology that created the opportunity for users to transmit and retain sound recordings. The service quickly gained immense popularity especially among students across the United States, who became the largest proportion of Napster’s subscribers. As Napster’s reputation grew, several recording companies such as A&M via the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) began to contest Napster, in order to regain dominance in the music industry. This...
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...The court also addressed the issue of personal use as it pertains to fair use. A previous court for the case Williams & Wilkins v. United States (1975) decided that under the 1909 Act, copying for personal use could be considered outside the scope of copyright protection. Their reasoning for this was that “it is almost unanimously accepted that a scholar can make a handwritten copy of an entire copyrighted article for his own use.” (Williams, 9th Cir. Cal. 1975) The supreme court found there to be two main flaws to this reasoning stating first that “it is by no means clear that the making of a "hand copy" of an entire work is permissible.” (Sony, 1984, p. 467) and secondly “hand copying or even copying by typewriter is self-limiting. The drudgery...
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...An Analysis of SOPA and its Influence on the Internet, Business and Consumer Engagement Table of Contents Introduction………………………………………………………………………….3 International Approach…………………………………………...…………….8 MegaUpload Case Study…………………………………………...…………… Pros: SOPA…………………………………………...……………………………… Cons: SOPA…………………………………………...……………………………… Ethical Considerations……………………………………………...…………… Conclusion…………………………………………...………………………………. 1 Introduction The mid 1990s were the genesis of the Internet as know and use it today. It’s immersion into every day culture and commerce, revolutionized the way we communicate and acquire information. Today, the Internet is a worldwide platform in which discussion forums, blogs and social networks dictate much of the culture of today’s society. The communication infrastructure of the Internet is one of the fastest growing in history. It’s big boom came in the late 1990s when it is estimated that traffic grew by “100 percent per year, while the mean annual growth in the number of Internet users was thought to be between 20% and 50%.”1 Experts agree that this extraordinary growth is mainly attributed to the lack of a watchdog in a virtually free space that lives in an intangible world, as is the case with the set of communication protocols that we call the Internet. The deficiency of a central administration allows the network to grow free and organically. In addition, the nonpropriety open nature on ...
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...originator of any tangible literary or artistic work exclusive rights. It is granted by federal statute and includes any literary, musical, dramatic, choreographic, pictorial, graphic, sculptural and architectural works. Also, any motion pictures, sound recording and other audiovisual work. The first U.S. copyright law was the Copyright Act of 1790. It was then modified in 1909 and again 1976. Copyrights still being administrated by the Copyright Act of 1976, which states that the term of protection starts from that date created to the life of the author plus fifty years. The terms automatically got extended for any work created after January 1, 1978, giving statutory copyright protection for the life of the author plus seventy years. In the case of more than one author, it is seventy years after the death of the last living author. A copyright is automatic once the work is made, however it can also be registered with the U.S. Copyright Office in Washington, D.C. A copyright infringement is when the expression of the idea or the work form has been copied without the copyright owner’s approval. It is not limited to the entirety of the work, but if a considerable amount of the original is copied, it is copyright infringement. Only the copyright owner has the right to reproduce, distribute copies, display, or perform the work. Individuals, who commit a copyright infringement, if caught, are held accountable for actual or statutory damages or criminal penalties. File-sharing in the...
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...Digital Distribution and the Music Industry in 2001: a Case Study of Napster By Julius Danjuma IS650: Telecommunications Management Summer 2012 Overview: Shawn Fanning created Napster in his dorm room at Northeastern. It was the fastest-growing application in the history of the Internet which changed the world but failed to achieve business success. Napster started out as a free download tool but the goal was to make it into a real business in partnership with the record labels. The goal at Napster was to be the online distribution channel for the record labels, much like iTunes for example. There were several offers made to the labels that would have given them the vast majority of all of the revenue. The numbers were staggering. There were over 50 million users, many of whom were willing to pay $5 per month or $1 per download for digital music. That translates to about $250M a month or $3B per year. Even if Napster kept just 10% of the revenue that would be $300M per year against expenses of less than $10M. At the stock market multiples of the day that would have been a $15B IPO. The economics of the record industry are puzzling and their accounting methods are very creative. At the time CD’s were sold for about $17 at retail. The retailer and distributor took more than half of the price as their mark-up. The manufacturing costs took another couple bucks. The promotional costs of advertising, music video, payola to radio stations, and other PR typically...
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...article will analyze the case study of Napster uses of marketing mix is 7P's (People, Place, Prices, Product, Promotion, Process, and Physical Evident) in order to compete with traditional markets and other online music provider. Product Product is the first element in the 7P's. In the first period, Napster entirely offers technology products and services. The advent of it has solved the pain is music search, download music more easily online in MP3 format. Shawn Fanning- the founder of Napster has created a huge online player and completely free. However, Napster got in big trouble about copyright in the music market. The first 2 years has built a strong brand for Napster with the users. Until 2003, with the start of the new owner, Napster once more time come back in the field of online music. Napster provides to customer the proactive in music. That means the customer have power to control the content and right to access their own account any time they want. Besides that, they also give customer a chance to hear trial before they purchase their product which do not happened with the bigger competitor is Apple. With the flexible and differentiation in developing product, Napster have more competitive advantages than other. Prices After come back, Napster sales the music with $1/song, as same as Apple. However, after that, they bring the other offer to customer whom customers only have to pay $10/ month and they can hear unlimited song call “Napster...
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...Napster & MP3: Redefining The Music Industry Introduction Napster was the first, very innovative music technology application that allowed users to download MP3 from the internet and other peers for free, or at a cost. Napster strongly adapted the word sharing and put it their own terms to avoid any copyright infringement but it ended badly on their part. This disruptive technology was leading the market and had over 60 million users by 2001. Although very similar technologies were soon after developed, Napster was still on top and lead the market. Many users knew exactly what they wanted but getting it seemed to be the difficult part once Napster and the RIAA went into a legal battle. More commonly, the industry has been shaped from Napster and the base product that has been derived. Napster may have been a failure to the industry but it shaped the industry for the future from 2001 until present and for years to come. 1. What is Napster’s business model? Being as though Napster was the first to market with their music search engine for MP3 files, they successfully managed to set up an online community where users could download these files. Napster had its market segments and was targeting the college and high school demographic, as described in the case study. The main objective was to give users the opportunity to listen to the songs before they wanted to go ahead and purchase them. During the dot.com boom, when Napster was created, it seemed as though the developers...
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...Nonetheless, the explosion of Napster in the late 90’s was an exciting time for music enthusiasts since it opened a new technology forum to access music. While the initial firestorm about Napster was related to copyright infringement, a deeper dilemma was unfolding along with this new technology. Napster’s story demonstrates what can happen when an established, powerful industry faces a threat from a new technology that offers more services for a lower cost. Furthermore, it depicts the struggle of burgeoning technologies with established institutions’ copyrights, patents, and intellectual property. Our society continues to explore how to balance the rights of intellectual property while not dampening the emergence of needed disruptive technology. Innovation is the fuel that stokes our economic fire. Yet, with a perceived threat of lawsuits or the attacks of patent trolls, start-ups and venture capitalists may be deterred from investing in areas that are deemed too risky. In the aftermath of Napster, venture capitalists were much less likely to invest in digital music as a result of the decision. In the late 1990’s, the music industry was less than thrilled about Napster. The music industry levied a war against the youngster-led company. The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) sued Napster, and its financial supporters, in federal court. They claimed that Napster users engaged in the reproduction and distribution of copyrighted works. Napster was found guilty based...
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...Introduction: Intellectual Property and The Copyright Industries in the Digital Age. Intellectual Property is the expression of an idea in the form of a material. Any product that is distinguished with its unique value becomes entitled to a protection by law. There are three different types of intellectual protection; patents for inventions, trademarks for names, logos, devices and etc. that are used in trading and lastly copyrights to protect copyright owner’s work from infringement securing exclusive rights to reproduce, to distribute and to obtain commercial profit. However there are four stages that each work has to proceed to qualify for the copyright protection; 1. According to the section 1(1) of Copyright Designs and Patents Act (CDPA) 1988, the product must fall in one of these work categories: - Primary Works: Literary Works, Dramatic Works, Musical Works and Artistic Works - Secondary or Derivative Works: Sound Recordings, Films, Broadcasts and Published Editions. 2. The expression of the idea in other words the creation must be in a recorded form. This only applies to the works of literature, drama and music. 3. Works must be “original”. Originality is measured by skill, effort, talent and labour put in to the product during the creative process. 4. The author and the work must show a sufficient connection to the UK to gain protection under UK law. All of the businesses that exploit a commercial...
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...consumers of media. In contrast to this, many people of the movie and music industries believe that their creative works are protected property and that file sharing takes away from the benefits that they receive from those works. By having the consumer purchase the media, it gives the creator both money to create more work and the added affirmation to generate more creations. This situation has arisen due to several factors; these factors include technological advances that provide the ability for free sharing of media, the opinions of several creators driving the arguments against sharing, and the wide popularity of the internet. Napster was one of the first widely used free-sharing networks. In June 1999, Shawn Fanning released his creation that provided free music for download to any anonymous user that chose to obtain the Napster program. Napster soon exploded in popularity, with millions of users downloading the service and obtaining hundreds to thousands of songs each day. Eventually, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) filed a lawsuit against the service and the Ninth...
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...Saunders, Lewis amd Thornhill: Research Methods for Business Students, 5th edition, Additional Case Studies Case 4a Marketing music products alongside emerging digital music channels Esmée had been working in the music industry as a marketing director for a small and successful independent record label for over fifteen years before deciding to study at university. She had witnessed many changes in the music industry over her career, the most significant of which was the transition from selling cassettes, vinyl records and CDs at retail to selling digital music online. She had observed that the music industry had not taken much notice of the potential for marketing and distributing digital music online until Shawn Fanning developed his peer-to-peer (P2P) file trading application, Napster, in 1999. While the music industry focused on shutting the service down, Napster became even more popular with music fans and consumers who were interested in discovering and sharing new music and creating custom compilations or playlists without having to buy entire albums. Early on, Esmée had decided that she needed to understand why Napster was so popular and consumers so enthusiastic about sharing music online. She decided to download the Napster application and was surprised to find older songs that were no longer available at retail, previously unreleased recordings, alternative studio versions and bootleg recordings made at live concerts. While searching for and downloading...
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...person’s view on computer ethics may differ from another person’s view, one basic idea should always be kept in mind when making ethical decisions, “Do unto others as you would have done to you.” If everyone obeyed this “golden rule” we would not have nearly as many issues with computer ethics. To better understand some of the computer ethics issues surrounding us today, I will explore the ethical issues dealing with software and social networking sites that have plagued the cyber world in recent years. Software Issues Ethical use of software is overlooked by many. Purchasing software does not mean that one owns the software and can use it anyway they want. You do not own the software. The only thing purchased in this case is a license to use the software. Upon using the purchased software, the purchaser accepts the terms and conditions that apply. By accepting the terms of the copyrighted material, one is agreeing not to use the software for anything other then the intended use and not to make and distribute copies to others who have not paid for the license. The only exception for making copies of software is for backup purposes. This type of exception is known as a “fair use” provision (Hames, 2010). Under this provision one can make a backup copy for their personal use only and cannot loan or give the disk to a friend or colleague (Hames, 2010). A lot of people view software as just computer programs, but software can also be CDs and DVDs. ...
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...ITM 434 Module I: Case Assignment If it is ok for a starving man to steal food if he has no money, why can’t a person download free music if he or she feels the price is too high? Peer to peer downloading and file sharing is one of the most popular uses of the internet within today’s generation. The downloading and sharing of files takes place in networks such as Limewire, Kazaa, or Edonkey which provide individuals the opportunity to search and download from others on an unlimited basis. One of the important features that have lead to the success and popularity of this medium of getting music is the variety of music itself. Since there are so many people sharing and downloading music, the variety of music is greater, giving the user a various selection of music files to choose from. Another aspect of the sharing and downloading of music over the internet that has made it very popular is that it can perceived as a win-win situation for both parties involved. The record companies are trying to put a stop to music downloading, they feel it is stealing copyrighted music they produced, even going as far as taking legal action on people who have downloaded their music. Is this just greed from the record companies? Accord to Allen Steven of the Los Angeles Times, album sales are not the top grossing income for artists and artists only receive one percent of record sales (08/21/00). The rest goes straight to the record companies. Record companies are making millions on record...
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...School Scholarship Repository. http://scholarship.law.wm.edu/wmlr A PATTERN-ORIENTED APPROACH TO FAIR USE MICHAEL J. MADISON* ABSTRACT More than 150 years into development of the doctrineof "fairuse" in American copyright law, there is no end to legislative,judicial, and academic efforts to rationalizethe doctrine. Its codification in the 1976 CopyrightAct appearsto have contributedto its fragmentation, rather than to its coherence. As did much of copyright law, fair use originated as a judicially unacknowledged effort via the law to validate certain favored practicesand patterns.In the main, it has continued to be applied as such, though too often courts mask their implicit validation of these patterns in the now-conventional "caseby-case" application of the statutoryfair use "factors"to the defendant's use of the copyrighted work in question. A more explicit acknowledgment of the role of these patterns in fair use analysis would be consistent with fair use, copyright policy, and tradition. Importantly, such an acknowledgment would help to bridge the often difficult conceptual gap between fair use claims asserted by individual defendants and the social and cultural implications of accepting or rejecting those claims. In immediate terms, the approach should lead to a more consistent and predictable fair use jurisprudence.When viewed in light of recent research by cognitive psychologists and other social scientists on patternsand creativity, in broader terms, the approach should...
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...Rethinking the Networked Economy: The True Forces Driving the Digital Marketplace. By Stan Liebowitz Professor of Economics University of Texas at Dallas 2/3/2002 Chapter 1 Introduction .............................................................................................. 1 A. What you will find in later chapters............................................................ 3 Chapter 2: Basic Economics of the Internet.............................................................. 9 A. How the Internet creates value.................................................................... 9 B. Special Economics of the Internet, or maybe not so special..................... 13 i. Network effects......................................................................................... 13 ii. Economies of Scale................................................................................... 15 iii. Winner take all.......................................................................................... 17 C. How the Internet Alters the likelihood of Winner-take-all....................... 20 Chapter 3: Racing to be first: Faddish and Foolish ................................................. 25 A. From Winner-take-all to First-Mover-Wins ............................................. 26 B. The Concept of Lock-In............................................................................ 32 i. Strong Lock-In ...................................................................
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