Copyright and the Internet: The case of Napster

Abstract

In the postindustrial world, information is not only a revolutionary phenomenon but also a valuable commodity of exchange, thereby protected by intellectual property rights, copyrights and patents. The interactive nature of the Internet, however, has complicated the notion of intellectual property leading to the debates of whether or not the Internet should be regulated on such basis. This article aims to understand the turn-of-the-21st-century tension between the record industry and the innovative technology of Napster, regarding the question of validity of the legal concept of copyright in an age of Information Revolution. In this paper, the record industry’s attack on Napster due to its development of “peer-2-peer sharing” service, as one of the earliest sample cases concerning the criminalization of the Cyberspace in relation to the issue of copyright will be examined. To achieve this, following an outline of different approaches to the concepts of information society and information revolution, I will address the fundamental question of whether the notion of intellectual property promotes or controls innovation by focusing on the lawsuit of Napster, Inc. vs. A&M Records, Inc.