Copyright Laws: Grokster V. Napster
Advancements in today's technology have allowed users to access and use computer programs, movies, music and other multimedia for which they have not purchased. Technological advancements are coming along at such a quick pace that the enforcement of copyright laws cannot keep pace. Music piracy exploded in the late 1990's and caused groups such as the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) to crack down on companies such as Napster that provided that provided free music downloads. The number of lawsuits against individuals who illegally download music has escalated to the point that people are now switching to legal internet sites that sell music downloads. The ethicality of this issue has touched many people throughout the world
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while the legality of file sharing is a widely debated topic in the courts and music industry. There are various laws that govern copyright practice. These laws are in place to protect the rights of artists while preserving the public's right to benefit from the works of those same artists. The foundation for copyright law in the U.S. is based on the Copyright Act of 1976, a federal statute that went into effect on January 1, 1978. This law protects copyright owners from the unauthorized reproduction, adaptation, performance, display or distribution of their copyright protected works. Anyone who violates any of the exclusive rights of a copyright owner is an infringer. A copyright owner can recover actual or, in some cases, statutory damages from an infringer. Other federal laws protecting against copyright infringement include the Federal Anti-Bootleg Statute, Fair Use Doctrine, and The Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act.
The Federal Anti-Bootleg Statute specifically protects against the unauthorized activities such as the distribution of sound recordings and recordings of live performances. The Fair Use Doctrine allows citizens to cite copyrighted materials for uses such as teaching and research. The Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act extends the U.S. copyright from life plus 50 years to life plus 70 years. Individual states also have laws protecting against copyright infringement and piracy, but they mirror the federal laws. There are also a number of international copyright laws. These include The Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works, the Rome Convention, the Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (The TRIPS Agreement), The World Intellectual Property Organization Copyright Treaty (WCT) and the WIPO Performances and Phonograms Treaty (WPPT). These international laws do not form an international copyright law but most countries have agreed upon the most basic terms of copyright protection. These laws set the minimum standard of copyright protection worldwide. They also make it easier to fight the piracy of American products in other countries. There are several laws that deal specifically with digital music. One such law is The Audio Home Recording Act of 1992 (AHRA). This law more or less protects the makers of devices, such as audio cassette players and minidisk players, used to make digital music recordings. The producers of these products must register with the copyright office, pay a royalty on each device they sell, and include software on each device that restricts the ability to make copies of copies. The manufacturers of these devices are then protected against infringement when consumers use the product illegally. Another law dealing with digital music is The Digital Performance Right in Sound Recordings Act of 1995. This law gives owners of copyrighted material the right to authorize public performances of their work. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) originated in the 1996 World Intellectual Property Organization's Diplomatic conference in Geneva. This law helps to meet standards set forth in the treaties mentioned in the various international laws. The DMCA prohibits the manufacture and distribution of devices designed for the sole purpose of undermining technology used to protect copyrighted works. This law also places responsibilities on internet service providers (ISPs). When an ISP becomes aware that it is posting or transmitting infringing content, it must remove the copyrighted works or face legal punishments. The No Electronic Theft Law (NET Act) states that sound recording infringements (including those by digital means) can be criminally prosecuted even where no monetary profit or commercial gain is derived from the infringing activity. The NET Act specifically mentions the illegality of receiving copyrighted works as in MP3 trading. Violators can face up to five years in prison and/or $250,000 in fines and also face civil charges (RIAA, 2003). Downloading music from the internet is very popular today. Before pay-based websites such as iTunes and Apple Music, downloading music from the internet was made possible by companies such as Napster. Napster maintained an index of members' music and allowed members to download music files for free. After Napster was sued by the RIAA and the courts forced the company to shut down its free music sharing business, services such as Morpheus, Limewire, and Kazaa allowed users to download free software enabling them to connect with other users using peer-to-peer computing. This software connects users together over the internet. Users upload their music library into a shared file allowing other users to copy those music files on their computers. Peer-to-peer networks quickly gained popularity and soon millions of users were sharing songs. Nearly any song imaginable can be found on these networks.
With the possible threat of lawsuits hanging over file-traders, many are looking for ways to download and share music without getting caught. The Russian website, Allofmp3.com, may be what music downloaders are looking for. This company claims to have ownership of Russian music distribution rights. At five cents per song, users can download any song without uploading songs to share. Most of the personal lawsuits are against uploaders and not downloaders. If the RIAA would decide to start going after downloaders they would need to convince the Russian authorities to crack down on music sharing companies (Mulhauser, 2005). Recently, the U. S. Senate and the House passed a resolution that threatens to not let Russia join the World Trade Organization (RIAA, 2005). One would think that Russia just might cooperate in this situation. In December 1999, the RIAA sued Napster for violating copyright laws.
The courts ordered Napster to stop allowing users to download copyrighted material. Napster subsequently shut down its service and filed bankruptcy, giving rise to peer-to-peer computing. The major recording companies filed a lawsuit against two companies offering peer-to-peer software in their pursuit to stop music sharing. In April 2003, the U.S. District Court in Los Angeles ruled in favor of Grokster Ltd and Streamcast Networks, Inc. because they did not have the ability to control or monitor how the users of their product were exchanging files (Vance, 2003). This ruling has since been overturned by the US Supreme Court. The parties settled the lawsuit and both services agreed to stop offering the free file sharing software (RIAA, …show more content…
2005).
The RIAA turned to filing lawsuits against individual users of peer-to-peer networks on university campuses. The RIAA sent letters to colleges warning them to stop students who illegally download music. According to an article written by John Borland for CNet news, universities have seen half or more of their network bandwidth used by people uploading and downloading songs, software and movies over the past few years. He also pointed out that schools have attempted to crack down on the practice of file swapping in various ways, ranging from blocking network traffic associated with Napster or Kazaa to confiscating computers used to trade files (Borland, 2003). Upon successfully settling with four university students, the RIAA turned to other individual users of file sharing software.
By using software to track the IP addresses of individuals who illegally download music, the RIAA then issues subpoenas to the ISP to provide the names for each IP address. This practice raises consumer privacy concerns for the ISPs. Should they be forced to provide private customer data to the courts? In an attempt to speed up the process, the RIAA is now filing "John Doe" lawsuits and then subpoenaing the names of the file-sharers. In October 2004, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear appeals by the RIAA on subpoenaing telephone companies to give up the names of customers who illegally trade files (Krazit, 2004). The RIAA has spent millions of dollars filing lawsuits and now expects the ISPs to start helping them out. According to Johna Till Johnson of Network World, "the RIAA has asked the regional Bell operating companies, including Verizon and SBC, to monitor customers' usage of their DSL services and report downloads of copyrighted material. To their everlasting credit, the telcos have refused to comply and are fighting the RIAA in federal court" (Johnson, 2003, p. 1). The RIAA has successfully sued thousands of file traders over the last several years. According to the RIAA website, 750 new "John Doe" lawsuits were filed on January 31, 2006 and 112 named lawsuits were filed earlier in the month against file traders (RIAA, 2006). These lawsuits could possibly go on for many years. More and more households around the world are gaining access to the internet. It will be next to impossible to stop file trading as long as the peer-to-peer networks allow file sharing. Movie sharing on the internet is becoming just as widespread as music sharing. The courts are already swamped with lawsuits. Thus, the RIAA may need to find quicker ways to at least slow the rate of file trading on the internet.
In October 2005, the RIAA filed another round of lawsuits against copyright infringers on school campuses. According to the RIAA, "Today's litigation marks the fourth time the music industry has taken action to combat theft on Internet2's specialized, high-speed university computer network, for a total of 635 lawsuits at 39 campuses this year" (RIAA, 2005, p. 1). The music industry has won a big battle in its fight against peer-to-peer networks. In November 2005, Grokster and MGM settled a 3-year old lawsuit. This settlement includes an injunction which calls for Grokster to ceasing immediately distribution of the Grokster client application and ceasing to operate the Grokster system and software (RIAA, 2005). This milestone for the music industry may put them one step closer to shutting down other existing companies offering file-sharing software. The RIAA and music companies are designing ways to combat file swappers. A couple of these methods, if passed into Federal and State laws, are "freeze" and "silence". "Freeze" would lock up the user's computer, and "silence" would scan a computer's hard drive and search for pirated music downloads and would make an effort to delete those files (Connor, 2004). Attempts made to prevent file sharing have been thwarted in the past. Companies have tried putting watermarks on their compact disks that lock the recordings. Sony tried to encrypt data at the perimeter of the CD which instructed the computer's hard drive not to look for audio tracks. However, blocking this technology could be done by drawing a line around the edge of the CD with a black marker (Bergstein, 2005). Sony also tried installing a program called XCP onto their disks. This program self-installed onto the computer when the disk was inserted and made it difficult to transfer songs in formats used by iPods. This program was riddled with numerous problems. If users tried to remove the XCP program, their CD drive would be crippled. It also opened the computer to virus writers. Sony recalled the CDs and allowed customers access to download the songs (Bergstein, 2005). The music industry unveiled a new music format that they claim to be "piracy proof". This new format is called the "record" and it is a black 12-inch diameter vinyl disc that must be played on a specifically designed turntable. This product has been tested and after several days the testers were unable to crack the code or access any of the music files on the discs. (, 2002) There will probably be many new attempts at preventing file sharing using different programs installed on music CDs, but will they affect the ease of use by consumers? Consumers have the right to make backup copies of their CDs. New methods used to prevent the copying of CDs may have a negative affect on the sales of the CDs. The RIAA, music producers, and music artists are crying foul because they are losing millions of dollars every year to music piracy.
CD sales were said to have dropped anywhere from 5% to 10% in 2001 and 2002. Critics of the recording industry all have something to say. Some critics claim that sales fell only slightly given the falling economy during that time period. They also claim that those who use free file sharing software are more likely to spend more on music than other music purchasers. Other critics point out statistics such as falling industry releases and higher than average CD price increases compared to other consumer prices (Laudon & Laudon, 2006). The music industry's efforts to switch illegal music downloaders to legal sites seem to be working. A recent press release by the RIAA claims that at mid-year 2005, CD releases were down 6.5%. The RIAA blames most of this decline on music piracy. The statistics in this press release lead me to believe that more of this decline may be contributable to legal online music sales and downloads. The first six months of 2005 compared to the same period in 2004 shows a 154% increase in legal digital sales of singles. According to an analysis by the NPD group, 29% of music obtained by listeners in 2004 was burned CDs. The growth of online music sales speaks for itself though. According to a June 2005 survey by Public Opinion Strategies, twice as many adults ages 18 to 54 paid to download music in 2005 than in
2004. The same survey revealed that the number of adults who have paid to download music is now higher than the number of adults who have illegally downloaded music from a peer-to-peer network (RIAA, 2005). These statistics seem to be improving as a whole for the music industry. Future anti-piracy techniques and software combined with the looming threats of lawsuits on individual file sharers may eventually return music sale profits to normal levels. Until then, the RIAA and music companies will continue to spend millions of dollars every year fighting music piracy.
The practice of file sharing on the internet raises many ethical concerns. Perhaps the most common concern deals with the ethical "no free lunch" rule. This ethical theory states that one should assume that virtually all tangible and intangible objects are owned by someone else unless there is a specific declaration otherwise. If something someone else has created is useful to you, it has value, and you should assume the creator wants compensation for this work (Laudon & Laudon, 2006) If I want to download a song for my personal enjoyment, should I have to pay for it? Before the days of peer-to-peer file sharing the answer would have been yes. If I can download music off the internet, am I at fault or is the company supplying the software at fault? In this age of technology, music and other media files can easily be distributed over the internet. This raises the question; is the practice of protecting against file sharing really worth it? The owners of these copyrighted songs are legally entitled to profit from the distribution of their product. Who is going to reimburse them for this illegal distribution of their product? On the other hand, what about the means that the RIAA is using to locate and prosecute infringers? Certainly one can argue that the act of subpoenaing ISPs for customer information raises ethical issues as well. So, where do we draw the line? With the advancements in technology, that is a question that will have to be addressed in the courts for years to come.
while the legality of file sharing is a widely debated topic in the courts and music industry. There are various laws that govern copyright practice. These laws are in place to protect the rights of artists while preserving the public's right to benefit from the works of those same artists. The foundation for copyright law in the U.S. is based on the Copyright Act of 1976, a federal statute that went into effect on January 1, 1978. This law protects copyright owners from the unauthorized reproduction, adaptation, performance, display or distribution of their copyright protected works. Anyone who violates any of the exclusive rights of a copyright owner is an infringer. A copyright owner can recover actual or, in some cases, statutory damages from an infringer. Other federal laws protecting against copyright infringement include the Federal Anti-Bootleg Statute, Fair Use Doctrine, and The Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act.
The Federal Anti-Bootleg Statute specifically protects against the unauthorized activities such as the distribution of sound recordings and recordings of live performances. The Fair Use Doctrine allows citizens to cite copyrighted materials for uses such as teaching and research. The Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act extends the U.S. copyright from life plus 50 years to life plus 70 years. Individual states also have laws protecting against copyright infringement and piracy, but they mirror the federal laws. There are also a number of international copyright laws. These include The Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works, the Rome Convention, the Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (The TRIPS Agreement), The World Intellectual Property Organization Copyright Treaty (WCT) and the WIPO Performances and Phonograms Treaty (WPPT). These international laws do not form an international copyright law but most countries have agreed upon the most basic terms of copyright protection. These laws set the minimum standard of copyright protection worldwide. They also make it easier to fight the piracy of American products in other countries. There are several laws that deal specifically with digital music. One such law is The Audio Home Recording Act of 1992 (AHRA). This law more or less protects the makers of devices, such as audio cassette players and minidisk players, used to make digital music recordings. The producers of these products must register with the copyright office, pay a royalty on each device they sell, and include software on each device that restricts the ability to make copies of copies. The manufacturers of these devices are then protected against infringement when consumers use the product illegally. Another law dealing with digital music is The Digital Performance Right in Sound Recordings Act of 1995. This law gives owners of copyrighted material the right to authorize public performances of their work. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) originated in the 1996 World Intellectual Property Organization's Diplomatic conference in Geneva. This law helps to meet standards set forth in the treaties mentioned in the various international laws. The DMCA prohibits the manufacture and distribution of devices designed for the sole purpose of undermining technology used to protect copyrighted works. This law also places responsibilities on internet service providers (ISPs). When an ISP becomes aware that it is posting or transmitting infringing content, it must remove the copyrighted works or face legal punishments. The No Electronic Theft Law (NET Act) states that sound recording infringements (including those by digital means) can be criminally prosecuted even where no monetary profit or commercial gain is derived from the infringing activity. The NET Act specifically mentions the illegality of receiving copyrighted works as in MP3 trading. Violators can face up to five years in prison and/or $250,000 in fines and also face civil charges (RIAA, 2003). Downloading music from the internet is very popular today. Before pay-based websites such as iTunes and Apple Music, downloading music from the internet was made possible by companies such as Napster. Napster maintained an index of members' music and allowed members to download music files for free. After Napster was sued by the RIAA and the courts forced the company to shut down its free music sharing business, services such as Morpheus, Limewire, and Kazaa allowed users to download free software enabling them to connect with other users using peer-to-peer computing. This software connects users together over the internet. Users upload their music library into a shared file allowing other users to copy those music files on their computers. Peer-to-peer networks quickly gained popularity and soon millions of users were sharing songs. Nearly any song imaginable can be found on these networks.
With the possible threat of lawsuits hanging over file-traders, many are looking for ways to download and share music without getting caught. The Russian website, Allofmp3.com, may be what music downloaders are looking for. This company claims to have ownership of Russian music distribution rights. At five cents per song, users can download any song without uploading songs to share. Most of the personal lawsuits are against uploaders and not downloaders. If the RIAA would decide to start going after downloaders they would need to convince the Russian authorities to crack down on music sharing companies (Mulhauser, 2005). Recently, the U. S. Senate and the House passed a resolution that threatens to not let Russia join the World Trade Organization (RIAA, 2005). One would think that Russia just might cooperate in this situation. In December 1999, the RIAA sued Napster for violating copyright laws.
The courts ordered Napster to stop allowing users to download copyrighted material. Napster subsequently shut down its service and filed bankruptcy, giving rise to peer-to-peer computing. The major recording companies filed a lawsuit against two companies offering peer-to-peer software in their pursuit to stop music sharing. In April 2003, the U.S. District Court in Los Angeles ruled in favor of Grokster Ltd and Streamcast Networks, Inc. because they did not have the ability to control or monitor how the users of their product were exchanging files (Vance, 2003). This ruling has since been overturned by the US Supreme Court. The parties settled the lawsuit and both services agreed to stop offering the free file sharing software (RIAA, …show more content…
2005).
The RIAA turned to filing lawsuits against individual users of peer-to-peer networks on university campuses. The RIAA sent letters to colleges warning them to stop students who illegally download music. According to an article written by John Borland for CNet news, universities have seen half or more of their network bandwidth used by people uploading and downloading songs, software and movies over the past few years. He also pointed out that schools have attempted to crack down on the practice of file swapping in various ways, ranging from blocking network traffic associated with Napster or Kazaa to confiscating computers used to trade files (Borland, 2003). Upon successfully settling with four university students, the RIAA turned to other individual users of file sharing software.
By using software to track the IP addresses of individuals who illegally download music, the RIAA then issues subpoenas to the ISP to provide the names for each IP address. This practice raises consumer privacy concerns for the ISPs. Should they be forced to provide private customer data to the courts? In an attempt to speed up the process, the RIAA is now filing "John Doe" lawsuits and then subpoenaing the names of the file-sharers. In October 2004, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear appeals by the RIAA on subpoenaing telephone companies to give up the names of customers who illegally trade files (Krazit, 2004). The RIAA has spent millions of dollars filing lawsuits and now expects the ISPs to start helping them out. According to Johna Till Johnson of Network World, "the RIAA has asked the regional Bell operating companies, including Verizon and SBC, to monitor customers' usage of their DSL services and report downloads of copyrighted material. To their everlasting credit, the telcos have refused to comply and are fighting the RIAA in federal court" (Johnson, 2003, p. 1). The RIAA has successfully sued thousands of file traders over the last several years. According to the RIAA website, 750 new "John Doe" lawsuits were filed on January 31, 2006 and 112 named lawsuits were filed earlier in the month against file traders (RIAA, 2006). These lawsuits could possibly go on for many years. More and more households around the world are gaining access to the internet. It will be next to impossible to stop file trading as long as the peer-to-peer networks allow file sharing. Movie sharing on the internet is becoming just as widespread as music sharing. The courts are already swamped with lawsuits. Thus, the RIAA may need to find quicker ways to at least slow the rate of file trading on the internet.
In October 2005, the RIAA filed another round of lawsuits against copyright infringers on school campuses. According to the RIAA, "Today's litigation marks the fourth time the music industry has taken action to combat theft on Internet2's specialized, high-speed university computer network, for a total of 635 lawsuits at 39 campuses this year" (RIAA, 2005, p. 1). The music industry has won a big battle in its fight against peer-to-peer networks. In November 2005, Grokster and MGM settled a 3-year old lawsuit. This settlement includes an injunction which calls for Grokster to ceasing immediately distribution of the Grokster client application and ceasing to operate the Grokster system and software (RIAA, 2005). This milestone for the music industry may put them one step closer to shutting down other existing companies offering file-sharing software. The RIAA and music companies are designing ways to combat file swappers. A couple of these methods, if passed into Federal and State laws, are "freeze" and "silence". "Freeze" would lock up the user's computer, and "silence" would scan a computer's hard drive and search for pirated music downloads and would make an effort to delete those files (Connor, 2004). Attempts made to prevent file sharing have been thwarted in the past. Companies have tried putting watermarks on their compact disks that lock the recordings. Sony tried to encrypt data at the perimeter of the CD which instructed the computer's hard drive not to look for audio tracks. However, blocking this technology could be done by drawing a line around the edge of the CD with a black marker (Bergstein, 2005). Sony also tried installing a program called XCP onto their disks. This program self-installed onto the computer when the disk was inserted and made it difficult to transfer songs in formats used by iPods. This program was riddled with numerous problems. If users tried to remove the XCP program, their CD drive would be crippled. It also opened the computer to virus writers. Sony recalled the CDs and allowed customers access to download the songs (Bergstein, 2005). The music industry unveiled a new music format that they claim to be "piracy proof". This new format is called the "record" and it is a black 12-inch diameter vinyl disc that must be played on a specifically designed turntable. This product has been tested and after several days the testers were unable to crack the code or access any of the music files on the discs. (, 2002) There will probably be many new attempts at preventing file sharing using different programs installed on music CDs, but will they affect the ease of use by consumers? Consumers have the right to make backup copies of their CDs. New methods used to prevent the copying of CDs may have a negative affect on the sales of the CDs. The RIAA, music producers, and music artists are crying foul because they are losing millions of dollars every year to music piracy.
CD sales were said to have dropped anywhere from 5% to 10% in 2001 and 2002. Critics of the recording industry all have something to say. Some critics claim that sales fell only slightly given the falling economy during that time period. They also claim that those who use free file sharing software are more likely to spend more on music than other music purchasers. Other critics point out statistics such as falling industry releases and higher than average CD price increases compared to other consumer prices (Laudon & Laudon, 2006). The music industry's efforts to switch illegal music downloaders to legal sites seem to be working. A recent press release by the RIAA claims that at mid-year 2005, CD releases were down 6.5%. The RIAA blames most of this decline on music piracy. The statistics in this press release lead me to believe that more of this decline may be contributable to legal online music sales and downloads. The first six months of 2005 compared to the same period in 2004 shows a 154% increase in legal digital sales of singles. According to an analysis by the NPD group, 29% of music obtained by listeners in 2004 was burned CDs. The growth of online music sales speaks for itself though. According to a June 2005 survey by Public Opinion Strategies, twice as many adults ages 18 to 54 paid to download music in 2005 than in
2004. The same survey revealed that the number of adults who have paid to download music is now higher than the number of adults who have illegally downloaded music from a peer-to-peer network (RIAA, 2005). These statistics seem to be improving as a whole for the music industry. Future anti-piracy techniques and software combined with the looming threats of lawsuits on individual file sharers may eventually return music sale profits to normal levels. Until then, the RIAA and music companies will continue to spend millions of dollars every year fighting music piracy.
The practice of file sharing on the internet raises many ethical concerns. Perhaps the most common concern deals with the ethical "no free lunch" rule. This ethical theory states that one should assume that virtually all tangible and intangible objects are owned by someone else unless there is a specific declaration otherwise. If something someone else has created is useful to you, it has value, and you should assume the creator wants compensation for this work (Laudon & Laudon, 2006) If I want to download a song for my personal enjoyment, should I have to pay for it? Before the days of peer-to-peer file sharing the answer would have been yes. If I can download music off the internet, am I at fault or is the company supplying the software at fault? In this age of technology, music and other media files can easily be distributed over the internet. This raises the question; is the practice of protecting against file sharing really worth it? The owners of these copyrighted songs are legally entitled to profit from the distribution of their product. Who is going to reimburse them for this illegal distribution of their product? On the other hand, what about the means that the RIAA is using to locate and prosecute infringers? Certainly one can argue that the act of subpoenaing ISPs for customer information raises ethical issues as well. So, where do we draw the line? With the advancements in technology, that is a question that will have to be addressed in the courts for years to come.