Napster – Intellectual Property Disputes (3 questions)

Napster
In one of the Internet’s the most well-known intellectual property cases, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) sued Napster, a file-sharing site. Founded in 1999, Napster allowed users to share music files and thousands of people began downloading songs for free rather than buying CDs.
However, Napster did not own the rights to the music that people were uploading to its servers, where the music was stored and ultimately shared. The rights were owned by the recording artists and recording studios. The RIAA sued Napster and won, causing Napster to close its doors—or its servers, as the case may be. Napster now operates as a fee-based music download site and pays licensing fees for the music it sells.

 

2 Paragraphs answering the following questions.

1. What type of dispute was present (Copyright, patent) and why? (use the legal requirements for that type if dispute and apply it to the facts)

2. How could the plaintiff in each have protected themselves better?

3. Do you agree with the result in the case?  Why or why not?

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