The downloading of music has been given considerable attention by the media recently because of the lawsuit against Napster, a company providing a means for music fans to share MP3s over the Internet without paying royalties to the copyright owners. Napster is a file-sharing program used on the Internet which allows computer users to connect through a central entity so that they can swap music files, primarily in the MP3 format. The Napster company began as only a facilitator for this process of swapping by enabling people to register and link to one another, and Napster says that it is not responsible for what people swap. The music industry disagrees and sees Napster as making it possible for people to evade copyright laws by redistributing music files without paying royalties. However, the downloading of music is only one aspect of the changed environment that the spread of the personal computer and the development of the Internet have brought about, and there are many areas of intellectual property that may have to be rethought in a world where copyrighted material can be transmitted around the world electronically in a matter of seconds. Many copyright owners such as the large music publishing companies have taken the position that such downloading is simply a crime and must be stopped, while some artists have taken the position that what is happening is a major shift in the economics of publishing so that the artist can have more control over his or her works and may no longer need the big companies for economic support and other services. In truth, the downloading of such material is pervasive today and virtually unstoppable, so ways have to be found to work with this reality.
The music industry is dominated by five major companies today--the Bertelsmann group (BMG), Universal Music Group, EMI, Warner, and Sony (Rohde and Ferranti). Columbia Records remains a major player as well. The industry is also filled out wi...