a) On what grounds does the RIAA sue those who took advantage of the Napster era? I assume there is the specific charge here beyond just “copyright violation”? A certain Section and Subsection of the USC is referenced, yes? And, (b), in anticipation of the factual answer to (a), if I buy a CD (or book), can I not give, trade, or sell it to someone else? Last, if the answer to (b) is yes I can, then the only person who violated anything was Mr. Napster himself, true?
I guess I am confused why the RIAA is still out there suing individuals who simply took something they were offered. (And yet, look how openly music and books are resold online and at yard sales.) It is Napster who should pay the royalties, not the end-user. Why don’t the courts see it like this?
Basically, when you give, trade, or sell a CD or book, no copy is being made. When you download a copyrighted file from any service, a copy is made. In your yard sale scenario, if the seller had made a copy of the CD and sold either the copy, or the original while retaining possession of the copy, then the seller would be infringing on the copyright.
The RIAA does not sue. The RIAA coordinates the investigation of copyright infringements. The individual record companies who are members of the RIAA sue.
A typical record company copyright infringement case: Sony v. Arellanes, in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas.
The users did not download the copies from Napster, they downloaded them from other users. The way peer to peer sharing works is that User A has a file, User B downloads it from User A, and then (with most software) User B’s computer will automatically share it back out for User C, D & E to download (who in turn share it out…). Thus, all of the users are then distributing copies of the file.
Napster got in trouble because they provided a central database of who had what file. They got shutdown for “facilitation of transfer of copyrighted material” (See Napster).
It is also my understanding that people who only download files and do not share them back out are not being prosecuted. It is only the people who share out files for upload (which most of the P2P applications do automatically, so the users might not even realize they are sharing out files) who get into trouble. (See Wikipedia again).
