A&M RECORDS, Inc. v. NAPSTER, INC. A&M Records and Napster is a landmark intellectual property case that made it to the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. The case refers to A&M Records as the plaintiff, but there are several other plaintiffs in this case. All members of the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) are also the plaintiffs. A&M Records claimed that Napster could be held liable for contributory infringement and vicarious infringement of copyrights based on their peer-to-peer file-sharing service. The district court agreed. Napster was given a preliminary injunction by the district court that “enjoined them from engaging in, or facilitating others in copying, downloading, uploading, transmitting, or distributing plaintiffs’ copyrighted musical compositions and sound recordings, protected by either federal or state law, without express permission of the rights owner” (A&M Records v. Napster, 1). Napster appealed the injunction to the United States Court of Appeals for the …show more content…
The Circuit Court agreed with the district court that the defendant’s users were engaging in direct infringement of plaintiff’s copyrights. Plaintiff clearly had owned copyright materials and infringed on the exclusive rights of the copyright holders’ and the rights of reproduction and distribution (III). “The defendant asserts an affirmative defense to the charge that its users directly infringe plaintiffs’ copyrighted musical compositions and sound recordings” (20). Napster then used fair use as a defense. They argued that users do not directly infringe on copyrights because they were engaged in fair use of the material (21,22). The court decided that Napster did have the control to stop the infringing behavior of its users and therefore, had a duty to do so. The Ninth Circuit affirmed this and decided Napster did not have a valid fair use