The Napster Controversy



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RIAA vs. Napster

In the summer of 1999, a website, www.napster.com, was launched in the US - and the global music industry was changed forever. Napster was a system which enabled musicians and music fans to locate music available in the MP3, and WMA1 music formats.

The website made it possible for its users to freely share their music files through the Internet with other users all over the world. Napster maintained a database of music files held on the computer hard-drives of other registered Napster users. A user, looking for a particular song, sent his request to Napster....

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The software then checked the availability of that song with this database, and if available, sent it to the user who requested the song. The service became extremely popular within a short span of time. The website attracted 1.6 million simultaneous users during the height of its popularity in February 2000...

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