Copyright violation is the unauthorized printing, selling, and/or exhibiting of written material, musical compositions, art works, photographs, movies, TV programs, and other creations placed in a tangible, preserved medium of expression. Users of Napster are clearly violating this. Copying songs typically constitutes copyright infringements, although there are some exceptions that will be discussed later in this paper. A Copyright owner has the exclusive right under the law to reproduce and distribute the copy

First, Transmissions must occur at the direction of a person other than the service provider. This is true for Napster MusicWare and the server. Search engine only works when host user makes their computer available to others. Further, transmission request comes from the users who is seeking the files. So, MusicWare acts just like a typical search engine, like Yahoo, and Napster can be protected under this.

Second, copy of the material cannot be stored in the service provider¯s system or network. This also applies to Napster. Napster just maintains the databases of names and location of music files once host users make them available. Computers of users store the copyrighted materials.

Fourth, the Service provider cannot have knowledge that its system or network is being used to violate copyright. This applies to Napster system only if °fair use± of copyrighted material is being executed. Regardless, Napster acknowledged that its users are demonstrating copyright violations, whether they fall under °fair use± or not. Napster also had ability to block the transmissions of files that were violating copyright violations.

Character of Use asks where such use is for commercial nature, nonprofit, or personal nature. Also, commentary and °transformative± use of the work is considered a fair use. As for Napster case, °transformative± use of the work does not apply. From the process of converting from CD quality audio files to digital MP3 files, audio quality of original work is diminished, resulting °near-CD± audio quality. However, the original content of the music is not modified in any means. Sharing of the files using Napster software does not fall under personal use either. The way Napster software work is that once user logs in, Napster database reads and maintains name and location of the music file that host user has elected to make available. Then user locates the songs by using Napster search engine. Once match is found, user can now download the MP3 files from the host user. So, it can be said that the host user sends the digital file to anonymous receiver, which does not make it a personal distribution. Furthermore, it is true that sales of copyrighted materials, manufactured CD, may have been reduced at some degree. One can successfully argue that financially-dependent young audiences, like teenagers, are more attracted to free MP3 files than purchasing the CD, thereby reducing the revenue of audio industry. However, one can also argue that CD sales among mature audiences may not be affected much, since audio quality may be more important, as well as original CD jacket, than the diminis

Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page double spaced)