On the Edge

Napster’s Lost Revolution

When 18-year-old Shawn “Napster” Fanning, then a freshman at Northeastern University, founded Napster, Inc. in 1999, he started a property revolution. In college, Fanning developed software and a website through which users could connect to each other and then download for free the copyrighted music they had to pay for in stores. Many students felt the music they downloaded belonged to everyone and that copying was okay because it did not affect the original. Two music industry groups sued Napster, however, claiming that through its web- site Napster was helping others steal their property and that if music property rights were not respected, musicians would have no incentive to produce music. On February 12, 2001, the courts ruled that Napster’s website actively contributed to copyright infringement and in 2002, the company was forced to block users from downloading copyrighted music. But Napster had paved the way for the development of decentralized peer-to-peer file-sharing software that let users connect to each other and download music files directly from each other; some entrepreneurs that have carried out this mis- sion are Grokster, StreamCast, Freenet, Gnutella, eDonkey, Kazaa, Poisoned, Morpheus, BitTorrent, and LimeWire. Several music companies sued Grokster and StreamCast. In 2004, a federal district court ruled that because Grokster and StreamCast programs let users connect directly to each other without going through their website, neither Grokster nor StreamCast could control what users did with their program. The music companies now turned to suing individual down- loaders. One victim remarked, “It scares me. You have no power against these people.” Moreover, the music companies appealed the Grokster/ StreamCast decision to the U.S. Supreme Court. On June 23, 2005, the Supreme Court ruled that both Grokster and StreamCast had created their peer-to-peer software with the “intent” of “inducing” consumers to download copyrighted materials and so violated the laws protecting copyrights. In 2007, StreamCast was ordered to distribute new software that blocked users from downloading copyrighted material. Nevertheless, people continued to download copyrighted materials by turning to other providers of peer-to-peer soft- ware such as BitTorrent, Gnutella, and LimeWire. But record companies sued LimeWire in 2006, and on May 12, 2010, a Manhattan District Court ruled LimeWire had committed copyright infringement and induced others to do so as well. BitTorrent, anxious to change its business model, announced on February 25, 2007, that it would sell legal video material on its website. But on November 7, 2008, BitTorrent fired half its employees, and said it would now concentrate on distrib- uting video games. The company to this day (2016) contin- ues to distribute its BitTorrent client software from its site at Bitorrent.com. PirateBay, a file-sharing website in Sweden, also continued to hold out, although on April 17, 2009, its founders were sentenced to prison for a year and fined $3.6 million for assisting in illegal copying. Other members of the PirateBay community, however, stepped in and contin- ued to operate the site. In spite of being hassled by periodic police raids, thepiratebay.org is still operating today.

1. Even if what Napster, Grokster, StreamCast, LimeWire, and PirateBay did was illegal, was it unethical? Explain.

2. Should we treat digitized entertainment like online music, movies, or games in the way that Locke said property should be looked at, or like Aquinas said property should be looked at, or like the collectively owned property that many socialists advocate? How does the kind of free downloading that Napster, Grokster, StreamCast, LimeWire, and BitTorrent made possible fit with each of these three views on property?