NAPSTER CASE STUDY

Napster case study

Napster case study

Q1 Identify the elements of Napster case study that are indicative of e-commerce era I and e-commerce era II.

The Napster website has been able to attract large number of internet users who are allowed unlimited downloading of their favorite music albums in the forms of MP3 files. Earlier the music enthusiasts had to depend on the CDs marketed by the larger music companies. The artists also had to depend on the support given by the big five music companies for the publicity to their artistic works. The Napster software solved the problems of the music enthusiasts and the artists. However, the free downloading of the MP3 files affected the interest of the big five music companies as they claimed that their copy rights were being violated by the Napster website.

The rapid growth of Napster -1 created many problems. Customer acceptance was not one. The response to peoples desire to swap files in the still new Internet medium created a furor of industry, legal, intellectual property and copyright backlash that forced its closure. Even prior to closing, "litigation propelled file trading to further astronomical heights. Open-source developers.... set about developing alternatives to Napster in case the record industry successfully shut down the rogue service" (Dowd, 2001, 45). This created new entrants in their market.

Today, Napster is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Roxio. It has a new business model as discussed under "innovation". And, it is still involved in the evolution of digital technology and associated business models. Whether the "bundled services" model will play out, if file sharing control will be usurped by governments, whether DRM and lock-down computing will prevail are all externally generated issues the new Napster must manage and influence

Q2 Into which category the Napster fall.

  Napster is a computer software application that enables it's users to share compressed music files called mp3's freely over the internet. This practice has been deemed illegal by numerous industry leading corporations, claiming Napster is abetting the free exchange of copyrighted songs over the internet.   I believe that Napster has nothing to gain and everything to lose if they continue to support piracy. Its clear to me that Napster needs a more business orientated approach to the situation. The first major step has been reached with the partnership with Bertelsmann (formally against Napster) to supply Napster with a large sum of capital to begin work on the "Napster network". Turning an enemy into a partner will surely aid in Napsters chance of survival. Let the "Napster network" begin. (Dowd, 2001, P47)

The Pre-Business Day's   Shawn Fanning attended northeastern college in Boston hoping to major in computer science. He was living in Kennedy hall, which is the honors hall on campus for freshman and was taking industry CS classes. Fanning describes his life as being just the average "Joe". "I spend my time doing school work, attending class and in my spare time I would work on other software, play basketball, go to the gym to workout, party, just hang out ...