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What was the issue? In 2000 heavy metal band Metallica was worried that their income was getting lower and there music was being pirated. They then found a demo of there’s leaked online and found the source to it on a website called Napster, which allowed users to share and download music. Metallica hired online consulting firm NetPD to monitor the Napster service for a weekend and found several laws violated. A lawsuit was then filed against the website for sharing the band's copyright-protected material for free without any band member's consent.

What was the result of the court case? A 60,000 page document was delivered to Napster's office as Metallica requested the users be banned from the service. In court, it was discovered that Napster broke several laws with copyright infringement being one of them. A settlement was reached between Metallica and Napster when BMG offered to purchase the rights to Napster for $94 million but Napster agreed to block users who shared music without consent of artists. Napster stayed, but when downloading music there’s a fee is included.

Do you agree with the outcome of the court case? I agree with the outcome of the court case. I believe artists deserve all their hard earned money and it shouldn’t be taken from users online. But on the other hand there will always be someway to find pirated music online. It’s pretty much impossible to stop all the music that gets shared online. Napster may have got out of hand violating several laws causing Metallica to lose a lot of money. So what I’m saying is that there are more songs getting shared on sites and when you pay for songs money adds up which is better for the artists income.

How did Napster and this case effect the music industry today? Napster and this case affects the industry today because now artists have to work harder to make up for these sites. More sharing sites are developing which makes it harder for artists to produce an equal amount of money. This means artists have to produce more merchandise such as apparel and they have to tour more to make more money. Music has changed since almost all of it can be found online.