Dr. Dre vs. Napster

“Cause over and above all, it’s all just another day.” Spoken like a true musician, these optimistic lyrics sung by Dr. Dre summarize the controversy between the notorious rapper and the late Napster. In his lawsuit brought against Napster, Dr. Dre victoriously fought for the right of his songs. Not only did he win, but he paved the way for all other recording artists battling with copyright infringement and illegal downloading.

Dr. Dre is a famous artist and producer who can bring the West Coast flair to his hip hop music. Throughout his career thus far, he has sold over 40 million records and has been awarded a variety of Grammy nominations. Dre has also been honored as the Producer of the Year in 2001. It is no wonder that when faced with copyright infringement, he fights for his music.

According to Strauss and Frost, “copyright appears to be established as the primary means of protecting most expression on the internet” (2009). With the uproar of technology and the rise of the internet, online legal action has had to make the necessary adjustments. The copyright law was written “under American law, it is derived from the Constitution as a protection established for the benefit of the public” (Strauss and Frost 2009).

The Copyright Act of 1976 gives exclusive rights and protection to authors who have created “original works of authorship.” These works include literary, dramatic, musical, artistic, and other intellectual pieces. Under this act, the creator has exclusive rights in reproduction, to prepare derivatives of the work, to perform the work publicly, and in the distribution process. Beyond these rights, it is “illegal for anyone to violate any of the rights provided by the copyright law to the owner of copyright” (Copyright Basics 2009).

Relevant to Dr. Dre, his musical works were being put on Napster and download in surplus by Napster users. This process was ultimately violating copyright issues resulting in copyright infringement. Napster was distributing copies of Dr. Dre’s work to the public in an illegal manner. Documents show that Dr. Dre presented a conclusive list of over a hundred thousand usernames that had downloaded his musical content form the Napster program. He brought the list forward to Napster and asked Shawn Fanning to immediately block them from using his illegal program. He argued that their accounts should be expired due to copyright infringement. Dre took another step and sent a letter to Napster CEO Eileen Richardson. He demanded all of his tracks be removed or else he would press charges.

Dr. Dre’s attorney, Howard King, stated that this controversy had nothing to record sales but solely revolved around piracy. After these events, and the noncompliance of Napster, Dre filed a lawsuit on April 25, 2000 in the California U.S. District Court. He was suing Napster for both unlawful use of a digital audio interface device as well as copyright infringement. Present on Napster, “more than 250 Dre tracks are listed on the site’s directory. The lawsuit seeks $100,000 per infringement and preliminary and permanent injunctions” (Fitzpatrick 2000). Dr. Dre wasn’t going to fall victim to copyright infringement without setting the record straight.

Under the Copyright Act, Dr. Dre’s music is protected “from the moment of its creation and is ordinarily given a term enduring for the author’s life plus an additional 70 years after the author’s death” (Copyright Basics 2009). Based on these restraints, the copyrighted material becomes property of the author following the conclusion of the work. Because Dr. Dre’s is still alive, his songs, CDs, and lyrics are still thoroughly protected.

One situation in which the copyrighted work can be used is defined as fair use. Under this component, fair use “use consists of the ability to copy without cost reasonably portions of protected material for purposes relating to such public activities as education, news reporting, and editorial comment” (Strauss and Frost 2009). These stipulations include criticism, comment, scholarship and research as well. To decide if fair use applies, the courts can discuss the reason for use (commercial vs. non-profit), the environment of the copyrighted material (factual vs. fiction), the amount of use (portion vs. whole), and how it essentially effects possible profits (neutral vs. lost revenue).

In 1999, Napster, an online music downloading and sharing service was created. This new program spawned from the genius of Shawn Fanning. Using the great technology of the internet, he developed a website that allowed people to copy and share music files with others present on the web. The Napster model “popularized peer-to-peer technology…and tried to turn it into a profit-making business” (Statement 2009). Gaining downloads and users at a rapid speed, Fanning failed to realize the legal and ethical aspects of the internet, “it quickly became clear that Napster was being used extensively for the purpose of copying and distributing an unprecedented number of copyrighted works, primarily sound recordings of musical works” (Statement 2009). Dr. Dre among many other artists had something to say about their rights being abused. Metallica started the revolution and sued Napster for violating their copyrighted material. In a statement before the United States Senate involving peer-to-peer networks, Marybeth Peters states, “the law is unambiguous. Using peer-to-peer networks to copy or distribute copyrighted works without permission is infringement and copyright owners have every right to invoke the power of the courts to combat such activity. Every court that has addressed the issue has agreed that the activity is infringement” (Statement 2009). The music artists did just that. Dr. Dre, Metallica, and others took their cases straight to court.

Between the Ninth Circuit and the District Court, they both concluded that Napster was responsible for two counts of secondary liability, contributory liability and vicarious liability. Contributory liability occurs when someone knows about the infringement activity and is involved in or contributes to the material. Vicarious liability occurs when someone oversees the infringement action and has a potential to earn a profit off of it. After investigation, Napster was considered to be both a contributory infringer as well as a vicarious infringer.

On Thursday July 12, 2001, Napster finally settled all of the legal arguments with both Dr. Dre and Metallica as well. In a statement put out by founder Shawn Fanning, he stated that “‘it’s time to end the court fight and shake hands’” (Napster Settles Suit 2001). Representatives from both parties refused to identify the settlement that had been reached whether a financial reward or not. Napster later apologized to the musicians and Dr. Dre saying we “‘regret that we were not more sensitive’ to the rap artists desire to control how his music is distributed” (Clark and Gomes 2001). The infringement case between Napster, Metallica, and Dr. Dre has been said to be “digital music’s highest-profile legal dispute” (Learmonth 2001) and it has finally come to an end.

Dr. Dre holds no grudge with Napster and those affiliated, “I work hard making music that’s how I earn a living. Now that Napster’s agreed to respect that, I don’t have any beef with them” (Thomas 2001). He has even promised that if the music service revamps the program he would be willing to supply his musical content from time to time. In the great words of Dr. Dre, seemingly reflecting his relationship with Napster, “I’m out of sight now I’m out of their dang reach.”

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