ly from website to website for songs. Fanning, having this in mind, and his programming skills at hand, he wrote a program that he entitled Napster. He used the idea of all users being connected to one central computer server, and having access to each others music files that users wished to share (MTV News, 2000, 1). Spoken in a more technical manner Napster makes its application software freely available for download by consumers from its website. This software allows users to connect their PCs to and participate in the Napster peer-to-peer file indexing system. Users are not required to share any files with others, either as a condition of using the Napster system or in order to obtain files from other users (Reuters, 1999). In short, Napster is a facilitator that allows its users to trade music files. Fanning created it because other music-trading sites were in his view, unreliable. The idea of program sharing MP3s and giving people the ability to make customized compilation CDs (also known as burning a CD) of their favorite artists. Songs may sound brilliant to the users of Napster, but to the musicians whom creatively write the music, this is in their view, is a form of stealing. They have not only spent hours producing and writing music, but music is something that is published and copy-written. The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) is currently representing the band Metallica, rapper Dr. Dre, and five other major record labels, which are all plaintiffs in a copyright infringement and piracy lawsuit against Napster (Reuters, 1999). When the Napster software is downloaded on a computer hard drive, Napter serves as an online music community, where you can conduct a search of the other users songs (MP3 files) that are currently online. According to Fanning, There are consistently eight hundred thousand people using the Napster service, limited only by their resources (MTV News, 2001, 1). This statement is the exact ar...
