The Internet in the past decade has exploded into a whole new world of commerce, entertainment, and knowledge. No one could have dreamed the potential of the superhighway. More importantly, no one could have dreamed the controversy that would follow this esteemed universe of business, information, and entertainment. .
Copyrights are taken very seriously in, not only the United States of America, but also the world as a whole. Copyright infringement is a delicate subject, in which many businesses and people walk a fine line between breaking the law, and exercising their rights as citizens.
In the following essay you will read about the Napster controversy, as well as Mp3.com's involvement in copyright infringement. You will read about what happened to a single man, Jeffery Levy for posting copyrighted material on the Internet. Finally you will learn some of the steps major corporations such as Time Warner are doing to help stop copyright infringements of Mp3s.
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Napster.
In mid 1999, the dreamer Shawn Fanning created which may well have been the biggest Internet controversy of the turn of the century, The Napster Community. It took a mere few months to create this stunning new technology, coupling a music search function with a file sharing system, along with instant messaging to facilitate communication.1 Napster was created for one reason, to allow computer users to swap music mp3 files with one another directly, without having to go through a centralized file server or middleman. .
This new program was a rapidly growing phenomenon, allowing millions of users to accumulate thousands of copyrighted mp3 songs on their hard drive. In turn they are able to share or even exploit these songs with others. This raised major issues with companies such as AOL Time Warner, along with other members of the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). The RIAA accused Napster of encouraging illegal copying and distribution of copyrighted music on a massive scale.