Claremont Colleges Scholarship @ Claremont CMC Senior Theses CMC Student Scholarship 2017 The Resounding Impact of Napster, Inc. An Analysis of A & M Records, Inc. v. Napster, Inc. Isabella Kelly Claremont McKenna College Recommended Citation Kelly, Isabella, "The Resounding Impact of Napster, Inc. An Analysis of A & M Records, Inc. v. Napster, Inc." (2017). CMC Senior Theses. 1753. http://scholarship.claremont.edu/cmc_theses/1753 This Open Access Senior Thesis is brought to you by Scholarship@Claremont. It has been accepted for inclusion in this collection by an authorized administrator. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. CLAREMONT MCKENNA COLLEGE The Resounding Impact of Napster, Inc. An Analysis of A & M Records, Inc. v. Napster, Inc. Submitted to Professor Ralph Rossum By Isabella Kelly for Senior Thesis Fall 2017 December 4th, 2017 1 ABSTRACT When Napster was first launched on the Internet in August of 1999 by young programmer, Shawn Fanning, the intension was that the platform would easily link Internet users with the free MP3 downloads they sought out on the web. By the time an injunction against the platform was granted and upheld by a state then federal court, Napster had made a far bigger impact than simply linking music listeners with free downloads. The proceedings of A & M Records, Inc. v. Napster, Inc. through the District Court Northern District of California then the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit acted to test the applicability of copyright protections that had been legislatively heightened throughout the 1990’s and built the framework for specifications for copyright protection on the Internet.