Tag Archives: Copyrights Laws

During the last couple years of the 1990s, a new computer program became available for download for free. This new program was called Napster. It was one of a kind and quickly became popular. The purpose of the program was to provide users with free music. The concept was that users would upload music onto the program and then share their music. Other users could then download your music and vise versa. Eventually, millions of users were able to all share their music collection with each other. The music was in mp3 format which is simple to download and play from almost any media players. It was not long until professional musicians became aware of this program and started asking questions regarding federal copyright law. According to federal copyright laws, one cannot make copies of a band’s CD and sell it without the band’s permission. Napster was promoting free music trading which in any other format, would break federal copyright law. However, trading music on the internet was a new concept in 2000 when the first legal challenge came about, so not everyone was sure whether or not Napster broke any federal copyright laws. • In 2000, heavy metal band … Continue reading