Steve Gordon Talks About Napster Lawsuit

In an interview with Steve Gordon, a former Sony lawyer, he explains how Napster negatively affected our society when it was first introduced. He states that, at the time, Sony offered songs for listening purposes only (that means you can only listen to it on your desktop) for a small fee per song. At a conference in New York, they were introduced to a program called Napster, which offered songs for free and you were able to do whatever you wanted with a song (burn it to a CD, put it on your mp3 player, etc.). Instead of negotiating with Napster creator Shawn Fanning, Sony decided to sue Fanning for all of the illegal flaws Napster had.

Although music piracy can have its negative effects on artists in the music business, it also aids in the breakthrough of undiscovered bands. This is what really attracted Napster supporters, and mainly the bands that supported this software. Some bands find it hard to get their name out in the world because companies will not sign them, bars and concert halls will not hire them, or the band is from a small town which has no significance to the rest of the world. With a database for freely sharing music, an undiscovered band is able to post their music at no charge for other listeners to come across. This way, an undiscovered band from a small town can get their name out to the public which attracts the attention of managers looking to sign bands as well as managers of bars and concert halls for performances.
How did people respond to Napster's lawsuit?

The public had mixed opinions about Napster being sued by Sony. Peter Fox, the kid with the backpack above, supported Napster file-sharing networks allowing free downloads whereas this blogger responded that they agreed with Sony suing napster, but they thought the money should only go to artists instead of the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America). Why they think money should go to only artists facinates me. The companies representing the artists are the ones suing Napster. Therefore, they need to take a percentage of the money earned from the lawsuit in order to use it as a remedy to repair the losses they suffered from Napster allowing free file-sharing of their copyrighted songs. Then the recording industries will distribute what is left to the artists. Everyone needs to make a profit somehow, even the companies that help artists get discovered.

I'm aware that using a database for file-sharing helps artists and traveling musicians get discovered easier than by selling CDs, but the music being downloaded is frequently downloaded in excess. As the artist gets discovered and becomes famous, their music is going to be posted more and more frequently on illegal file-sharing databases. Soon enough it will get out of hand and there is nothing the artist can do about it. I do believe that Sony did the right thing by suing Napster.

This video explains the rise and fall of Napster: